10 Days to Ruin
This is my story of how to lose a mob boss in ten days.
I have a
I've been arranged to marry a monster.
Run away? Good idea. Tried that. Didn't work.
Because in my family, my father makes the rules.
And he says this wedding is happening .
But he still has a soft spot for me, his last remaining daughter.
So he offers me a deal.
Take ten days.
Get to know Sasha.
See if you change your mind.
Yeah, right.
Sasha Ozerov is a beast in Brioni.
He's ruthless, flawless, utterly unconcerned with mortals like me.
All he wants is what our marriage would bring
My family's power and the city in the palm of his hand.
But maybe, if I can make him back out of the deal...
I'll keep my freedom.
So I set out to do everything I can to drive him crazy.
I have ten days to make my husband hate me.
What happens if I start to love him instead?
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Chapter 3
"Somewhere to be?" I ask.
"No," he says. "Just trying to figure out how long I can hide in here before I have to go mingle with the vultures again."
It's my turn to laugh, though hopefully, I sound like less of a barking seal than my new friend here did. "You don't strike me as the kind of guy who's afraid of social obligations."
His scowl darkens. "It's them who should be afraid. If I have to endure one more conversation about Upper West Side brownstone renovations or the guest list of the mayor's New Year's Ball, I'm going to put a fucking bullet in someone's skull."
Again, I'm fairly sure he's making a joke, the same way I told Gina yesterday that if I have to fetch one more nonfat iced mocha latte with extra whip for Sportswriter Steve, I'm going to commit seppuku on the Brooklyn Bridge.
But also, I can't quite forget that he did just literally discuss murder on the phone, so the joke hits a little too close to home for comfort.
"Well," I say as nonchalantly as I can, "I wouldn't want to keep you from your duties for the evening. Sounds like your hands are full, and besides, I've really only been dying to talk about this new backsplash that my neighbor had installed in her..."
He holds up a hand to stop me. "Don't. Not even as a joke."
"Noted," I say, miming zipping my lips. "Backsplashes are off the table."
But as I make the motion, the man's eyes lock onto something. That furrow in his brow returns, carved deeper than ever.
I'm confused, until he says in a stern growl, "You're bleeding."
I look down and, yep, turns out that inconvenient speed bump in my evening hasn't magically disappeared. I feel the familiar lurch in my stomach, the seasick tingle of blood rippling down to the tips of my fingers and toes.
I wobble a bit. The man's hand flies out to steady me once again. "It's really not a big-"
"Hush," he orders, and I immediately fall silent like he just mashed the mute button on the Ariel Ward remote control. "Sink. Now."
Just like that, I'm a marionette in his grasp. He pilots me and my legs obey as we drift toward the sink together.
I'm suddenly powerless to do anything that he doesn't tell me to do. Can't wait, can't think, can't argue, can't flee. I can only receive things, isolated little sensations that come and go like passing clouds.
His hands are big.
He smells nice. Kinda minty.
He's tall, too. Very tall. Some might say too tall. Not me, though. I wouldn't say that. I'd say he's a very good height.
"Let go."
I follow his gaze down to realize I'm death-gripping my own pinky finger. It's going a weird purply-white at the end from lack of circulation. I let him uncurl one digit at a time until I've given up the grasp and he's got my sliced hand cradled in his palm.
He turns on the sink with his free hand and checks the water a few times until it's warm enough. He looks at me. "Don't scream. They'll think I'm doing something I shouldn't be."
Before I can ask who "they" is and question whether maybe they'd be right and whether this whole situation is in fact a bad idea, he passes my hand under the faucet.
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop from screaming. White-hot pain flashes through me-but only for a second. Right on its heels is a warm ease.
I can unclench. I can breathe.
"I don't like blood," I explain sheepishly once I open my eyes again.
The man is looking at me, appraising, calm. "Could've fooled me."
I bite my lip so I don't laugh. "I'm a better reporter than I am an actress, I swear."
"Is that so?" He arches a brow. "Let's see it. I'll give you an exclusive."
Frowning, I look him up and down again. "Please don't hate me for asking this, but should I know who you are?"
"You wound me." He touches his chest playfully for a second, then shrugs. "Or maybe you flatter me. I'm used to fawning people blowing smoke up my ass. 'Willfully ignorant' is a nice change of pace."
I wrinkle my nose. "Was that supposed to be a compliment?"
Chuckling, he stoops down, opens the cabinet beneath the sink, and withdraws a first aid kit. How he knew it was there is beyond me, but he did it so casually that it's like he just expected the world to provide him what he needed and so it provided. I have to blink and knuckle my eyes until the amazement recedes.
"No," he replies as he unclasps the kit and starts to pull out bandages, gauze, and disinfectant. "A compliment would be me telling you that you look fucking stunning in that dress. Calling you ignorant was merely an observation."
I slap his chest with my good hand. "Ass!" I cry out.
"Now, it's my turn to ask if that's supposed to be a compliment."
I'm not sure whether I want to laugh, scream, strip, or escape. It's just that something about this man is too smooth to be real. He quips, but it's not quippy; he rescues, but he's no white knight; he reaches into empty cabinets and retrieves first aid kits that, logically, simply should not be there.
And yet they are.
My mouth opens and closes while I try and fail to process the gray-suited enigma who's currently pouring hydrogen peroxide over my cut. For a professional wordsmith, I'm really coming up short on insightful things to say here.
He doesn't seem to mind my goldfish impression, though. He just loops gauze around my finger, followed by a bandage. His touch is surprisingly tender.
"You still haven't told me who you are," I manage finally.
"No," he agrees, a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "I haven't."
"Do I have to beg?"
"I wouldn't mind if you did."
"But would it work?"
"Only one way to find out."
His eyes crinkle at the corners, the only sign that he might be smiling. That mouth remains a cruel slash of bourbon color nestled in the forest of dark beard surrounding it.
"Does this whole mysterious stranger act usually work for you?" I ask, aiming for sardonic but landing somewhere closer to breathless and giddy.
"I wouldn't know." His eyes meet mine, and there's that dangerous glint again. "I've never tried it before."
"Liar."
"Absolutely." He crowds me closer, still holding my hand. His hips kiss mine just as the small of my back kisses the sink behind me. "But you knew that already."
I should back away. I really, really should. Everything about this man is a red flag. Charisma is a red flag. Cleverness is a red flag. Being that stupidly good-looking is like a whole flagpole's worth of red flags.
But I've spent my whole life running from dangerous men, and something about that gets exhausting after a while.
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8.6
"What do you think people would say if they found out you don't have a dick?" Christian asked, his voice low and dripping with seduction. His hand pressed firmly against my crotch, fingers exploring the flat, unfamiliar emptiness there. A devilish smirk curved his lips. "Or if they discovered these voluptuous breasts you've been hiding so well?"
A strangled moan slipped from my throat as his hand slid under my shirt, his fingers brushing over my hardened nipples, teasing them with slow, deliberate strokes.
"Which do you think they'd call you?" he murmured, eyes gleaming. "A boy with tits... or a dickless little fraud?"
I stared into his hungry blue eyes, words failing me.
"The term you're looking for is 'girl,'" came Xavier's smooth voice from the bathroom doorway. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click, his gaze raking over me with open interest. "So tell me, little girl... what the hell is someone like you doing in an all-boys dorm?"
Christian's smirk widened. "She wants to be devoured by boys like us." His fingers gave my nipple one last firm pinch before he leaned in closer, breath hot against my ear. "And I'll be more than happy to give her a taste."
8.6
I was the untouchable Mafia Queen, but my reign ended in the blood-soaked depths of a damp dungeon.
My half-sister, Kelsey, drove a rusted, sharpened spoon into my chest, screaming about the unfairness of fate.
In my past life, my father sold me to the ruthless Don Dante Blackwell as collateral to pay off his debts.
To survive, I took a black-market fertility drug, birthed his heir, and clawed my way to the throne through sheer ruthlessness.
But in the mafia world, a pregnant woman isn't a queen; she's a walking target.
I survived countless bombings and poisonings, only to be betrayed and slaughtered by my own family.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand. I had sacrificed everything to secure our survival in the empire. Why did my blood and tears only earn me a rusted spoon to the heart?
Opening my eyes again, I am seventeen, sitting in my father's drawing room.
Two black velvet boxes sit on the mahogany table.
Kelsey greedily snatches the box containing the fertility drug, her eyes gleaming with feverish triumph.
"I'll take this one, Papa."
She thinks she is stealing my golden ticket to the crown, completely unaware that she just chose a death sentence.
I lower my gaze, letting my eyelashes mask the cold, lethal amusement pooling in my eyes as I take the remaining box.
Inside is the detailed psychological profile of the Don's dead fiancée.
This time, I won't be a breeding mare fighting off assassins. I will dissect the devil himself.
7.4
I thought my life was over when my sister died, leaving me to raise her two babies in a world that wanted to swallow us whole. Then I made the mistake of a lifetime: I left a bold, humiliating voicemail for the one man I should have feared most.
Anton Oryolov.
The ruthless king of the Oryolov Bratva. A billionaire monster who rules the city with ice in his veins and blood on his hands.
I expected him to fire me. I expected him to destroy me. Instead, he gave me a choice that felt like a death sentence: sign a contract and become his.
The rules were simple. I belong to him. I live in his shadows. In exchange, he protects the children. But as the doors of his mansion locked behind me, I realized the "forced proximity" wasn't just a business arrangement. It was a cage.
He thinks he can use me as a pawn in his dark mafia games. He thinks the children are just leverage to keep me in line. But he's starting to look at me with a hunger that isn't in the contract, and I'm seeing a man beneath the monster that I never expected to find.
In the Cruel Paradise of the Bratva, loyalty is a lie and love is a weakness. Our deal is signed in ink, but it's going to end in blood.
He owns my signature. He owns my safety. Now, he wants my soul.
7.5
I was the adopted daughter of the wealthy Ruiz family, but the moment their true heir appeared, I was thrown away like trash.
Not long after being kicked out, my adoptive father and uncle hired a hitman to stage a fatal car crash on Mulholland Drive.
Pinned under an overturned Porsche with a shattered leg, I watched the hitman point a suppressed pistol between my eyes.
"The Ruiz family sends their regards."
Before this, my reputation had already been completely destroyed by a director, a pop idol, and a reality TV star, leaving me blacklisted and universally hated.
My adoptive family didn't just want me ruined; they wanted me permanently silenced to tie up loose ends.
The hitman pulled the trigger, and the original Alicia died in despair, tasting only rain and blood.
Until her last breath, she didn't understand.
Why did the family she loved treat her like a disposable object? Why did those three men maliciously frame her and turn the world against her?
Opening my eyes again, the fear was gone, replaced by an ancient, cosmic indifference.
I, the Arbiter, had taken over this deceased vessel.
Moving faster than the human eye, I crushed the hitman's steel gun with my bare hand and turned his soul into dust.
Looking at the memories of those who wronged this girl, I signed a contract for the very reality show they were starring in.
Since I borrowed this body, taking out the trash is a required courtesy.
8.7
My little brother's heart monitor was screaming its final warning. I called my husband, Dante Volkov, the ruthless underworld king whose life I'd saved years ago. He had promised to send his elite medical team.
"I'm handling an emergency," he snapped, then hung up. An hour later, my brother was dead.
I found out what Dante's "emergency" was from his mistress's social media. He had sent his team of world-class surgeons to deliver her cat's kittens. My brother died for a litter of cats.
When Dante finally called, he didn't even apologize. I could hear her voice in the background, asking him to come back to bed. He even forgot my brother was dead, offering to buy him a new toy to replace the one his mistress deliberately crushed.
This was the man who had promised to protect me, to make my high school tormentors pay. Now, he was holding that very tormentor, Seraphina, in his arms. Then came the final blow: a call from the clerk's office revealed our seven-year marriage was a sham. The certificate was a forgery.
I was never his wife. I was just a possession he was tired of. After he left me to die in a car crash for Seraphina, I made one call. I texted a rival mob heir I hadn't spoken to in years: "I need to disappear. I'm calling it in."
7.6
Top DEA agent Kaitlynn Bruce woke up to a heavy, chemical lethargy, only to realize she was trapped in the body of a weak, abused war widow.
Before she could even process her new reality, she heard her sister-in-law counting cash, selling her unconscious body to a local thug for a measly two hundred dollars.
The thug dragged her new seven-year-old son, Cason, into the bedroom.
"Mommy!"
When the boy reached out, the man brutally kicked his small body into a wooden doorframe, leaving him gasping and bleeding on the floor.
Memories flooded Kaitlynn's mind. Her predecessor was a pathetic doormat whose husband's military pension had been bled dry by these greedy in-laws, leaving her children to starve and suffer endless abuse.
But as Kaitlynn looked at the bleeding boy's dark, unnervingly alert eyes, a chilling piece of DEA intelligence clicked in her mind.
Cason Richmond.
The name, the town, the abusive aunt—it all matched the classified files of the "Director of the Hive," the most ruthless and feared cartel puppet master in the criminal underworld.
How could this battered, starving child be destined to become the ultimate monster she used to hunt?
The original widow's tragic death was supposed to be the catalyst that pushed this boy into total darkness.
But Kaitlynn Bruce was not a victim.
Adrenaline burning through the drugs, she cracked the thug's neck with a brass lamp and choked the sister-in-law against the wall.
Looking down at the boy who was supposed to become a global nightmare, she made a vow. She was going to rewrite his script, even if she had to burn the whole world down to do it.