A vow of Violence
THE KING IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE MONSTER.
Five years ago, Julian Thorne was the golden heir to London's most powerful banking dynasty. Then, his own brother paid to have him murdered.
The world mourned. The family moved on. And his brother claimed everything Julian left behind-including Isolde Sterling, the icy, breathtaking heiress to the shipping empire.
But Julian didn't die. He survived hell, forged in the brutal underground fighting pits of the East, and now... the ghost has returned home.
He crashes his brother's engagement party with a scar on his face, violence in his veins, and a single vow: Burn it all down.
He will strip his family of their fortune. He will expose the dark conspiracy that rules the city. But his sweetest revenge? Stealing the bride.
Isolde knows she should run. The man who returned is a predator-cold, lethal, and terrifyingly seductive. But when he looks at her with those dark, possessive eyes, she realizes the terrifying truth: she doesn't want to be saved. She wants to burn with him.
Revenge is a dish best served hot.
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Chapter 10
The Whispers of the Syndicate
The fashion show was chaos-a mixture of art, noise, and power brokers exchanging whispers. Julian hated it. Too many people, too many distractions.
He guided Isolde through the crowd, never letting go of her waist. She felt perfect against him-sharp angles and soft curves, responding to his grip with a subtle, electric tension. She was a professional weapon, and he was the one holding the trigger.
"There," Isolde murmured, nodding toward a corner booth. "The man with the silver hair. That's Reginald Vance. He controls the majority of the Sterling debt."
Reginald Vance was a ghost-a financial fixer with hands in every shadowy enterprise in London. He was known to be a key lieutenant for the shadowy "Syndicate" that backed Lord Alistair.
Julian walked Isolde directly to his table.
"Mr. Vance," Julian greeted, his voice polite, yet dangerous. "Julian Thorne. And my fiancée, Isolde Sterling."
Vance's eyes-cold, reptilian-swept over Isolde's exposed figure before landing on Julian's scar. "I understood you were indisposed, Mr. Thorne."
"I took a short sabbatical. Turns out, death is overrated." Julian smiled, a hollow, terrifying expression. He didn't ask to sit; he pulled the chair out for Isolde, positioning her with her back to the wall, and took the seat next to her, completely surrounding her.
"My sincerest condolences for your brother," Vance continued smoothly. "Harrison is... a disappointment."
"A shame," Julian agreed, sipping a glass of water. "I wanted to kill him myself. Now, let's talk business. The Sterling debt. You hold twenty million in floating notes."
"They mature next month. With the instability, I may call them in early." Vance's voice was pure blackmail.
"If you do," Julian countered, leaning close, his voice a low threat. "I will call in the fifteen years of tax evasion you filed through your Macau shell corporation-the same one that operates the fighting pits I just escaped."
Vance's face didn't move, but his eyes narrowed to slits. Isolde's elbow twitched against Julian's ribs. She was taking everything in.
"Blackmail, Mr. Thorne? Crude."
"Survival, Mr. Vance. And a proposition. Sell me the Sterling debt for ten percent under market value, and I'll ensure the Macau file vanishes. If you don't, I will sell the full ledger to the Daily Mail before midnight, and you can explain Project Aether to Parliament from a jail cell."
Vance stared at him. The reference to 'Project Aether'-the hidden item from Jax's report-was a perfect, calculated strike. It showed Julian knew the Syndicate's deepest secrets.
After a long, agonizing silence, Vance nodded once, curtly. "My solicitor will be in touch tomorrow morning."
Julian stood up, pulling Isolde up with him. He didn't look at Vance again.
"You should get a gun license, Isolde," Julian whispered in her ear as they walked away. "The game just got real."
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8.2
Overwhelmed by hatred and distress, the young Alpha Kaiden swears to make his brother pay the price of his betrayal...
When her lover defected the King without any warning, the vengeful new Alpha had already come to the poor human girl Ophelia , claiming that she should pay the debt.
***
"You will beg me to fuck you if you want your lover to live," Alpha King Kaiden had lost all his humanity.
"How dare you do this? I'm your brother's mate!" Ophelia whimpered, holding her hands to her breasts.
"That brother who wanted my crown and my life? Fuck him and fuck you!" The furious Alpha didn't care about it anymore.
He wanted revenge!
He grasped her hands and pinned them over her head. Her beautiful body appeared as the silk cloth quickly slid down.
She's damn gorgeous when she was completely naked!
"Well, no wonder my brother wanted to fuck you," Kaiden taunted with a smirk, "but now it's I who will be the one to steal your virginity." Kaiden claimed as he tighten her waist, making her approaching to his d*ck.
"Pl----ease do------nt," her voice was drowned out while his wild kiss fell on her lips.
At this moment, Ophelia knew her life now became a disaster...
8.5
Our twenty-first birthday was supposed to be the night my twin and I would never forget--the night we got our witchmarks. But something goes horribly wrong, and Angelica doesn't get hers. What should've been the best night of our lives quickly turns into one of the worst.
Soon after, things start to go wrong. Our mom, who had always loved her "little moon" (me) and her "little sun" (Angelica) equally, suddenly sides with Angelica on everything. Then, my friends start to behave oddly around me. But it gets even worse. The company we started together as sisters votes to oust me? Shocked, I go to my long--term boyfriend, Orion Locklear--the boy I have loved my whole life--for comfort, only to find him and Angelica in her room...naked.
How could she do all this to me? Not only as a sister, betraying everything we once shared....but as a powerless markless? I'm the one who got the witchmark, not her! Yet I wasn't able to stop any of this from happening. Something isn't adding up.
I refuse to sit back any longer and let her continue to ruin my life. It's time to claw my way back up to the top and reclaim everything she took from me...even if it means I have to join hands with witch-kind's historical mortal enemies: the super powerful, super rich Hunter family--yup, they used to hunt witches, and only stopped when we agreed to give up Black Magic. Oh, and of course, the guy I'm assigned to work with, Miles Hunter, has to be super hot, too. Seven Hells! Can't a girl catch a break?
8.7
At eighteen years old, Estelle is kicked out of the only place she knew as home. With nowhere left to go, she goes toward Club Paradise, a place that offers the basic amenities she lacks: food, clothes, shelter, and a well-paying job.
***
The room was thick with smoke and muted chatter, but the moment Antonio D'Amico's eyes landed on her, the world narrowed to just her.
Estelle froze, heart hammering, as if some unseen force had pulled her into his gaze. He didn't move at first, simply studied her with a cold, calculating intensity that sent a shiver straight down her spine.
One night with him shifts the course of her life forever. Something in him fractures; obsession blooms, dangerous, consuming and he decides to take her away, forever.
***
What will happen to Estelle? Will her fortune finally turn around, or is she about to experience hell... and an unexpected, forbidden bond growing inside the darkness?
9.1
Five years ago, I was a world-renowned concert pianist. Now, I'm an auto mechanic with a mangled right hand, hiding from a past my ex-husband, Carter, dismisses as a "tantrum."
He drags me to a charity gala where his mistress, Alexandrea, puts me on the spot, demanding I play for the city's elite-a cruel, public humiliation she knows I can't perform.
When I refuse, Carter shoves me to the ground in a rage. He still thinks our daughter, Lily, is alive, and he uses her as a weapon.
"Behave," he hisses, "and maybe we can bring Lily back home."
Bring her home? The sheer ignorance is staggering. He has no idea our daughter froze to death in the same car crash that destroyed my hand.
But just before the gala, my best friend uncovered the final, devastating truth. It wasn't an accident. They sabotaged my car and left us for dead.
Tonight, I'm not just attending a party. I'm orchestrating a funeral. Theirs.
8.5
After five years in prison, Alexia longed for freedom and the family she thought awaited her-only to discover a deadly plot orchestrated by the sister they cherished.
In her final moments, she realized those years were a sacrifice made to protect a bunch of leeches.
Reborn, she abandoned all hope for family and reshaped herself in darkness, turning pain into power.
Quietly, she began her revenge, using a dangerous man as her pawn to execute every step flawlessly and crush those who betrayed her.
But as she played her game, he pulled her closer and warned, "Think you can use me and walk away? Not a chance."
7.1
I lay paralyzed on stiff white sheets, a prisoner in my own skin, listening to the rain lash against the window like nails on a coffin. My father, Elmore Franco, didn't even look at my face as he checked his clipboard. He just listened to the steady, monotonous beep of the heart monitor-the only thing proving I was still alive.
Without a hint of remorse, he pulled a pen from his pocket and signed the Do Not Resuscitate order. My stepmother, Ophelia, stepped out from behind him, wearing my favorite pearl necklace and smelling of cloying perfume. She leaned close to my ear to whisper the truth that turned my blood to ice.
"It was the tea, darling. Just like your mother. A slow, tasteless poison."
She chuckled as she revealed that my fiancé, Bryce, had a two-year-old son with my sister, Daniela. My inheritance had been funding their secret life for years, and now that the money was secure, I was an inconvenience they were finally scrubbing away. As my father yanked the power cord from the wall, the beeping died, and the darkness swallowed me whole.
I was being murdered by my own flesh and blood, used as a bank account until I was no longer needed. I died in that sterile room, drowning in the realization that every person I ever loved was a monster who had been waiting for me to take my last breath.
Then, I gasped. I woke up in a luxury hotel suite surrounded by silk sheets, five years in the past-the very morning of my wedding. Next to me lay Basile Delgado, the "Wolf of Wall Street" and my family's most dangerous enemy. In my first life, I ran from this room in a panic and lost everything. This time, I looked at the man who would eventually destroy my father's empire and decided to join him.
"I'm not leaving, Basile. Marry me. Right now. Today."