All That Glitters Is My Stepdad.
Cierra Monroe never meant to steal her mother's life.
One veil. One signature. One wedding meant to save her family....But lies spoken at an altar don't disappear.
Dominic Vance remembers the girl who stood beside him. The way she trembled. The way her eyes lingered.
And when the truth comes out, he doesn't let her go.
What starts as a secret turns into obsession.
What feels like protection becomes control.
And love quickly turns violent.
Cierra is hunted, locked away, and forced to choose between men who all want her for different reasons.
Her boyfriend fights for her freedom.
Her protector betrays her trust.
And her stepfather decides she belongs to him.
Blood is spilled.
Guns are raised.
Promises are broken.
And Cierra learns too late that some vows never end... even when they were never meant to be real.
Because not all that glitters is gold.
Sometimes... all that glitters is my stepdad.
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Chapter 3
Cierra.
They called me Midnight Ballerina.
Yes. That was my name under the neon lights.
It was 11 p.m. and night duty called...not the kind where you clock in, sharpen pencils, or type invoices.
No.
The kind where you hold a pole and sway your ass like it's the last thing the world has left to worship.
The more sway, the more dollars. The more arch in your back, the more they rain. More desire, more currency. That was the trade.
I sat in front of the mirror in my room...applying the final stroke of red gloss that shimmered like sin under low light.
My hair, dark and voluminous, fell like a wave down my shoulders. My outfit? A black velvet two-piece - bikini-cut bottom with rhinestones that rode high on the hips, and a matching top that barely covered what men came here to stare at.
A silver thigh chain hugged my leg, clinking with every subtle move. Stilettoes, sharp enough to stab a man's ego.
I inhaled.
Exhaled.
Tonight wasn't just any night. It was my last night here at Flamingo Club.
The last night before I would step into a new world...a world where I was supposed to look polished, elegant, and married. A world where I would stand beside a polished, elegant man and pretend I belonged.
I stared at my reflection, head tilted as my chest tightened.
"Fuck," I whispered to myself. "Last night as a stripper before everything changes."
Right then, my phone vibrated. Blinky... my best friend, roommate, partner in chaos, FaceTiming me with that goofy Memoji of his that never matched the real him.
I picked the call, camera pointed at my face as I adjusted my gloss.
"Girl! No, no, no! Don't tell me you stepping out lookin' like anxiety and sadness mixed together," he scolded dramatically.
I laughed. "I'm almost done. Calm down."
"Almost done my ass. It's your last night here. You should be giving legendary! You should look like they'll cry when you gone!"
"I'm fine, Blink."
And I was... or I wanted to be. I wasn't supposed to tell him everything yet. Not about the man. Not about the wedding. Not about the life waiting to swallow me whole.
But Blinky? He wasn't just a friend. He was chosen family.
He popped gum loudly. "Anywayyy, come fast. We got big fishes tonight."
"How big?" I asked, raising a brow.
"It's somebody's birthday... rich men... men that change cars like you change your undies."
"Are you calling me dirty?" I gasped.
"I'm calling you high maintenance," he said, winking.
We joked, laughed, teased..our usual ritual, as I grabbed my bag and walked out of my room to order a car.
I leaned against the gate, eyes scanning the dark street. I am a dancer, I reminded myself. Not a prostitute. I touched a finger to my glossed lips. Pole dancing paid better than waitressing, better than anything legal I could get without a degree. And I needed money. Badly.
The wedding...
I couldn't walk into my mother's new life looking like the broke daughter who didn't belong.
A ride arrived. I hopped in, put in my headphones, and let the passing streetlights blur into streaks of gold. My reflection in the window stared back at me.
"Just tonight," I murmured. "Then everything changes."
***
The club thumped with bass so loud it shook the bones under your skin. I pushed the back door open to find Chelsea... my immediate boss, five-foot-nothing with a BBL that entered the room three seconds before she did. Black American queen with a mouth that never rested.
"Oh look who finally shows up," she snapped, arms folded, nails glittering. "Miss too-good-to-text-back."
"We texted like... twenty minutes ago?" I blinked.
She rolled her neck. "Tonight ain't regular dance, baby. We distributing girls personally to the VIPs. Birthday boys got money with extra zeroes."
"So... I'm not needed?" I tried.
Her laugh was petty and long. "You? Of course you needed. But ain't nobody tipping no pole tonight. You makin' out for money instead."
I stiffened. "You know I don't do that, Chelsea."
She clapped sarcastically. "Then guess who ain't getting a dime!"
My jaw tensed. "I dance. That's what I'm paid for."
"And tonight," she leaned close, breath minty and mean, "you doing more than that."
We were seconds from war when Blinky slid between us like a sparkly referee.
"Okayyyy ladies, claws down." He turned to me softly. "Cee, just tonight. I promise. Last night. Okay?"
I swallowed hard.
Because he was right.
I needed the money.
To not look like a poor bride beside a king.
"One night," I whispered. "And that's all."
He cheered quietly, kissing my cheek.
Chelsea strutted off with that I-won attitude. I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly fell out. Blinky squeezed my hand.
"You got this. And hey... mask party tonight."
Two joys hit me;
'Mask party = super wealthy clientele.
'I wouldn't see who I was assigned to.
Perfect.
***
In the dressing corridor, Chelsea bumped me with her hip, then eyed my curves.
"You got the ass, the waist, the everything," she said with fake sweetness. "Shape like that... only good for decoration."
"At least mine is real," I fired back. "No monthly BBL maintenance needed."
She gasped like I stabbed her pride. "Keep playin' with me, ballerina."
Before she could start more drama, Madame... our club director...entered. A composed Latina woman in a satin suit who never smiled but paid well.
She handed me a sleek silver card.
Room number: V92
VIP Floor.
No name.
Just a location.
"Do well," Madame said with a tight nod before exiting.
Chelsea smirked. "Better learn quick, princess. Maybe watch a YouTube tutorial.... 'How to satisfy a masked millionaire 101.'"
"Fuck off, Chelsea."
"I plan to," she winked and walked away laughing.
Blinky hugged me again. "You're safe. I'll be nearby."
I nodded, heart pounding.
I tied the velvet black mask over my face...lace trimming my features, added one more coat of lip gloss, and steadied my breath. Then I strutted through dim corridors, each strobe light flashing like warning signs from fate.
Up the golden staircase to the VIP hall... men in tailored suits, all masked, whispered behind black bottles of champagne and cigars that cost rent.
Wealth had a smell.
Sharp. Intoxicating. Dangerous.
I found door V92 and reached for the gold handle.
One twist and the rest of my life could shift.
My fingers hovered... breath frozen.
"Hello, princess," a voice said behind me.
Slow. Dark. Velvety.
The kind of voice that made your knees second-guess their purpose.
I turned.
And my entire existence halted.
The man was tall. Broad shoulders under a fitted midnight suit. A black mask covering half his face
... but his jawline, sharp as a blade, was unmistakable. His hair... dark, thick, styled back like wealth itself kissed every strand. His presence hit the hallway with a silent command.
My heart attempted to leap out of my chest.
He smiled, and it was slow... dangerous... familiar.
"Can I know where this room number is?" he asked, eyes dipping briefly to the silver card in his hand.
I tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
Because I knew that voice.
I knew that stance.
I knew that energy.
He belonged to the world I was about to enter.
The world where I had to pretend to belong.
My lips parted.
"What..." I breathed.
Then louder...my confusion spiking into panic..
"What the actual fuck?"
His head tilted, interest flaring behind the mask.
The air between us tightened...electric, wrong, magnetic.
He took a step closer.
And that was when I noticed something unmistakably strapped beneath his suit jacket...
A wedding ring.
On his left hand.
And my entire soul dropped.
Because tomorrow...
my mother would be marrying a man with a ring just like that.
And I prayed to God it wasn't who I thought it was.
His eyes traced my body...slowly...deliberately.... like he already owned what he saw.
A smirk carved into his lips.
"Well," he murmured, voice dripping danger,
"this night just got interesting."
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9.5
"My father sold me to a sixty-year-old monster to clear his gambling debts. So, I made a desperate gamble of my own."
Seventeen-year-old Isabella Rossi has two choices: become the broken plaything of a sadistic mafia Capo, or do the unthinkable. She chooses the latter. Sneaking into a high-end speakeasy, she slips an aphrodisiac into the whiskey of the deadliest man in New York—Damien Falcone, the ruthless Underboss of the Falcone family.
Her plan was simple: steal his seed, secure his protection, and run.
But you don’t drug a predator and expect to walk away.
When Damien wakes up, he doesn’t kill her. Instead, he claims her.
"You intercepted a delivery meant for my enemy. Turns out, it was you. Now, you are my Collateral."
8.7
I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella.
Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark.
But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved.
Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies.
When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel.
While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest.
The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella.
He ordered my father to punish me.
I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth.
That night, the love in my heart finally died.
On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape-the only proof that I was Seven.
Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney.
By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.
8.0
I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair.
They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves.
Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment.
But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger.
In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all.
7.1
Astrid waited for Joshua all night as she usually did... And the first thing she received, instead of a cold greeting, was the divorce papers.
"Why?" were her only words when she saw the agreement.
Joshua looked at her indifferently. "It's enough. It's a waste of time to continue this marriage. In the first place, if it weren't for my grandfather, I wouldn't have married you... Sign it!" he shouted. Astrid, her eyes filled with tears, hurriedly took the divorce agreement and put it in her mouth. "I don't want a divorce!" Astrid cried. Joshua didn't respond, he just looked at her and walked away. After all, it was difficult to get into the heart of someone like Joshua. She stood firm in her decision. She had married to take care of her mother's health... Until she lost her too, leaving her with nothing left to hold on to. "He doesn't feel anything for me," she said, wiping her teary eyes. "In the future, I will never appear in front of him again." She took her luggage and, accompanied by a heavy snowfall, disappeared along with her footprints in the snow. She left behind only her signature on the divorce agreement. With a trembling body, she escaped. Five years later, a little boy reminded her of the person she tried to forget.
7.3
A mafia billionaire single dad romance.
I just discovered the don's darkest secret. Wait 'til he finds out mine...
The Bratva don and I made a deal:
Spare my father. Take me instead.
But Dmitry Tsezar wasn't satisfied with my body.
He wanted everything else, too.
My obedience. My submission.
My heart. My soul.
And when that still wasn't enough, he came to take my life.
But then I found something.
Something twisted. Something wrong.
Something hidden in a locked room of his mansion, in a wing he warned me never, ever to wander near.
When I opened the door and discovered Dmitry's secret...
Everything changed forever.
9.0
I spent a year scrubbing floors in my fiancé’s club, hiding my identity as the daughter of the Capo dei Capi.
I needed to know if Connor Bishop was a King worth merging empires with, or just a puppet.
The answer came walking in wearing a neon pink dress.
Jaden Juarez, a civilian he was infatuated with, didn't just treat me like a servant; she deliberately poured scalding espresso over my hand because I refused to be her valet.
The pain was blinding, my skin blistering instantly.
I video-called Connor, showing him the burn, expecting him to enforce the code of our world.
Instead, seeing his investors watching, he panicked.
He chose to sacrifice me to save face.
"Get on your knees," he roared through the speaker. "Beg her pardon. Show her the respect she deserves."
He wanted the daughter of the most dangerous man on the East Coast to kneel to his mistress.
He thought he was showing strength.
He didn't realize he was looking at a woman who could burn his entire world to ash with a single phone call.
I didn't cry. I didn't beg.
I simply hung up the phone and locked the kitchen doors.
Then, I dialed the one number everyone in the underworld feared.
"Dad," I said, my voice cold as steel. "Code Black. Bring the papers."
"And send the wolves."