Claimed by the Devil in a Suit
He doesn't believe in love.
He believes in ownership.
Lucien Vale built his empire the same way he destroys his enemies-quietly, strategically, without mercy. To the world, he's the youngest billionaire in Europe. To those who cross him, he's something far darker.
They call him The Devil in a Suit.
When struggling art conservator Amara Rossi unknowingly restores a painting tied to one of Lucien's most dangerous secrets, she becomes collateral in a war she never saw coming. To protect her-and control the damage-Lucien does what he does best.
He claims her.
What begins as a contract meant to silence her turns into an obsession neither of them expected. Amara refuses to be owned. Lucien has never been denied.
But behind Lucien's cold precision is a man forged by betrayal, raised in violence, and taught that love is a weakness exploited by enemies. And behind Amara's defiance is a woman who has spent her life surviving powerful men.
Their chemistry is volatile. Their power dynamic intoxicating.
Their connection? Terrifyingly real.
Because the devil doesn't fall in love.
He possesses.
And when Lucien realizes he would burn empires for her, the question isn't whether he can keep Amara-
It's whether she can survive being claimed by him.
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Chapter 5
Chapter Five
The gates opened without sound.
Amara felt it before she saw it-the shift from London's living pulse to curated silence.
Lucien's residence was not ostentatious. It didn't need to be. The estate stood behind wrought iron and stone, old architecture softened by modern precision. Security cameras were almost invisible, positioned with surgical intent. Discreet lighting traced the pathway like quiet warnings.
Not a home.
A fortress pretending to be elegant.
The Bentley rolled forward, tires whispering over wet gravel. The gates sealed behind them with a finality that settled low in her stomach.
Lucien didn't look at her.
He was watching the perimeter.
Always calculating.
The car stopped beneath a covered portico. Before the driver could step out, Lucien opened his own door.
He walked around to her side.
Opened it.
Not a word.
Just a gesture.
She stepped out slowly.
The air smelled like rain and stone.
"This is temporary," she reminded him.
"Yes."
"And I'm not hiding."
"You're not," he said evenly. "You're repositioning."
She almost rolled her eyes at the language.
Inside, the foyer rose two stories high-marble floors, muted art, controlled lighting. Nothing excessive. Everything intentional.
It was beautiful.
And cold.
A woman in her early forties approached from the hallway-sharp suit, composed expression.
"Mr. Vale," she said.
"Camille," he replied. "Miss Rossi will be staying with us."
Camille's eyes flicked to Amara-not unkind, but assessing.
"Of course."
"I want the west wing secured," Lucien continued. "Limit staff access. Rotate surveillance pattern B."
"Yes, sir."
The efficiency unsettled Amara.
This was routine for him.
That realization hit harder than the phone call had.
Lucien turned to her.
"You'll have privacy."
"That's not what this feels like."
His jaw tightened slightly.
"You have more privacy here than anywhere else tonight."
He wasn't wrong.
And that bothered her.
Camille gestured gently down the corridor. "I'll show you to your room."
"I don't need an escort," Amara said.
Lucien's eyes met hers.
"It's protocol."
She hesitated.
Then nodded once.
Fine.
The west wing felt like another residence entirely-quieter, warmer lighting, large windows overlooking a private garden. Camille opened double doors to a spacious bedroom with a fireplace and tall bookcases lining one wall.
Amara stepped inside slowly.
"This is unnecessary," she murmured.
"Security isn't about necessity," Camille replied politely. "It's about probability."
The door closed softly behind her.
Alone.
For the first time since the café, the adrenaline drained enough for exhaustion to creep in.
She walked toward the window and looked out.
High walls. Motion-sensor lights. Subtle cameras.
This wasn't comfort.
It was containment with better furniture.
Her phone buzzed again.
Her breath stalled.
Unknown number.
Her pulse spiked.
She hesitated.
Then declined the call.
Immediately, a message notification appeared.
No number. Encrypted preview blocked.
Her chest tightened.
Before she could decide whether to open it, a knock sounded at the door.
She jumped.
"Miss Rossi?" Lucien's voice.
She crossed the room and opened it.
He stood there without his coat now, suit jacket removed, tie loosened slightly. The change was subtle-but humanizing.
"There's something you need to see," he said.
Her stomach dropped.
"What now?"
He stepped aside slightly.
"Not here."
She followed him down the corridor, tension threading through her veins again.
They entered a private study-darker wood, large monitors built seamlessly into the wall.
Matteo stood near the screens.
"Sir," he said quietly.
Lucien stepped forward.
"Show her."
One of the monitors flickered to life.
It was footage.
Black-and-white.
Her atelier.
Her breath left her body.
"That's from this morning," Matteo said.
The camera angle was high, across the street.
The Bentley.
Lucien's car.
"No," she whispered.
Matteo shook his head.
"Not ours."
The image zoomed slightly.
A second vehicle.
Parked two cars behind Lucien's.
Unmarked.
Windows tinted darker than legal limits.
Her pulse roared in her ears.
"That was there?" she asked.
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me?" she snapped at Lucien.
"I confirmed before escalating," he replied evenly.
The footage advanced.
Time stamp: 12:43 p.m.
Her atelier door.
Locked.
Still.
Then-
A man stepped into frame.
Cap low. Face partially obscured.
He approached the door.
Tested the handle.
Her blood ran cold.
"He tried to break in?" she whispered.
"No," Matteo said.
The man didn't force it.
He stepped back.
Looked up.
Directly at the camera.
And smiled.
The footage froze.
Amara's stomach twisted violently.
"He knew," she whispered.
"Yes," Lucien said quietly.
Knew he was being watched.
Knew she was being watched.
This wasn't random intimidation.
It was deliberate.
"They're not just testing me," she said faintly.
Lucien's jaw tightened.
"No."
Her breathing grew shallow.
"This isn't about the painting."
"No."
The word felt heavier this time.
She turned slowly toward him.
"Then what is it?"
A beat.
He didn't look at the screen.
He looked at her.
"It's about reaction," he said.
"Whose?"
"Mine."
The truth hit hard.
"They want you destabilized."
"Yes."
"And I'm the pressure point."
"Yes."
The honesty felt brutal.
She staggered slightly backward, gripping the edge of the desk.
"You said I wasn't leverage."
"I said you weren't to me."
Her eyes flashed.
"That's semantics."
"No," he said quietly. "It's not."
Before she could respond, Matteo's tablet pinged sharply.
He glanced down.
His expression changed.
Subtle.
But immediate.
"Sir."
Lucien's attention snapped to him.
"What?"
Matteo turned the tablet toward the larger screen.
A new image appeared.
High resolution.
Color.
Her breath stopped.
It was a photograph.
Of her.
Taken tonight.
Outside the café.
From across the street.
Lucien beside her.
Her face visible.
Clear.
Not grainy surveillance.
Intentional framing.
Her heart pounded violently.
"How is that possible?" she whispered.
"We swept the area," Matteo said. "No visible photographer."
The image shifted.
Another photo.
Closer.
Her hand mid-gesture.
Lucien leaning slightly toward her.
Intimate angle.
A third photo appeared.
This one-
Taken through the café window.
Their faces close.
Not touching.
But close enough to imply something else.
Her stomach dropped.
"They're constructing a narrative," she breathed.
"Yes," Lucien said.
Her pulse roared.
"Why?"
"To isolate you."
The realization hit with sick clarity.
If it appeared she was connected to Lucien-
Deeply-
Publicly-
She became more than leverage.
She became scandal.
Vulnerability.
Control.
Her phone buzzed again.
Another message.
This time the preview appeared.
Unknown Sender: He looks good beside you. I wonder how long that lasts.
Her vision blurred.
Lucien stepped closer.
"Show me."
Her hand trembled as she handed him the phone.
He read the message once.
His expression did not change.
That was worse.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he handed her phone back.
"Matteo," he said calmly, "trace the image metadata."
"Already working."
Lucien turned to her.
"They're accelerating."
Her pulse thundered.
"What does that mean for me?"
He stepped closer.
Too close.
But she didn't move.
"It means," he said quietly, "they're no longer testing."
The room felt smaller.
"They're provoking."
A new alert flashed on the screen.
Matteo swore softly under his breath.
Lucien's gaze snapped toward it.
"What?"
Matteo's voice was tight.
"They've released one."
The monitor changed again.
Now displaying a news site.
Breaking headline.
Mysterious Woman Seen With Reclusive Billionaire Lucien Vale - Source Claims Private Engagement.
Her breath left her in a violent rush.
"This is insane," she whispered.
The article loaded.
Blurry but strategic images.
Speculation.
Anonymous source.
Language crafted to imply secrecy. Romance. Vulnerability.
Her chest tightened painfully.
"I never agreed to this," she said.
Lucien's expression darkened-not with embarrassment.
With fury.
"Take it down," he said to Matteo.
"Working on it."
The article updated in real time.
Comments flooding.
Screenshots spreading.
It was too fast.
Too organized.
"This isn't gossip," Lucien said quietly.
"No," Matteo agreed. "It's coordinated."
Her pulse pounded so hard she could feel it in her throat.
"They're tying me to you publicly," she said.
"Yes."
"Why?"
Lucien turned to her slowly.
"Because if the world believes you matter to me..."
His jaw tightened.
"They can use you."
Silence crushed the room.
Her breathing grew uneven.
"This isn't temporary anymore," she whispered.
Lucien's eyes held hers.
"No."
Fear finally broke through fully.
"What happens next?" she asked.
Before he could answer-
Every monitor in the room flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then went black.
The lights in the study dimmed slightly.
Emergency backup systems kicked in.
Matteo swore under his breath.
"They're inside."
Lucien didn't look surprised.
He looked deadly calm.
A single image appeared on the largest screen.
Not from a camera.
Not from a news site.
A live feed.
Of the west wing corridor.
Her corridor.
Her bedroom door.
Closed.
Still.
Her blood ran cold.
"That's not our feed," Matteo said sharply.
Lucien's voice dropped into something lethal.
"No."
The camera angle shifted slowly.
As if someone were holding it.
Moving closer.
The image zoomed in.
On her door handle.
Her breath stopped completely.
The handle moved.
Just slightly.
Testing.
The screen went black.
The house alarms exploded into sound.
And Lucien turned to her-
Not with fear.
Not with hesitation.
But with a single, terrifying certainty.
"They're not outside," he said quietly.
"They're already here."
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7.2
Betrayed by her sister. Killed by her husband.
Reborn, Sarah returns with one goal-revenge.
This time, she won't be the fool.
And with the Knox, the most dangerous man by her side...
she'll ruin them all, and take back everything that belongs to her.
Promotional line: They killed me once. This time, I'll destroy them first.
8.4
Palermo does not forgive.
Neither does it forget.
When Guerrero Valenti, the feared leader of the Vikings, vanished, the city exhaled a dangerous calm-but only for a moment. In the shadows, enemies waited. Rivals sharpened their knives. And one woman bore a secret that could ignite every street in the city.
Lucia Romano carried the child of a man who had disappeared into legend and rumor. A son who had not been claimed, not protected, not named.
The city whispered of him with venom: the bastard of the Vikings.
The boy was fragile, but he was a storm waiting to erupt. And every night, Palermo tested him. Masked men tried to snatch him from his crib. Fire, steel, and blood became his lullabies. Yet he survived. Every threat only sharpened his instincts, every scream hardened his mother's resolve.
But whispers spread faster than steel through the night-rumors of a man returning. A shadow that would claim everything, sparking fear in every heart:
Guerrero Valenti.
The father who abandoned him.
The legend whose name alone commands obedience.
The storm that will rise, carrying vengeance, blood, and fire.
And when he comes,
Every man who dared call the bastard his enemy will fall.
Every street, every roof, every whispered corner will bow to the son of Guerrero Valenti or be washed in blood.
This is the story of survival.
Of fire and steel.
Of a mother and her son.
Of a father's return.
Even the earth is getting ready to absorb blood ... the blood of those who call the legitimate son of the Vikings a "BASTARD", and collect necks........the necks of those fallen by the sword of GUERRERO VALANTI.
And upon his return Heads will bow to the one they called a BASTARD .
9.8
After three agonizing months, I finally found my fiancé, Barnett Spencer, at a gala at The Plaza. He had vanished without a trace, and I was on the verge of losing my mind.
But when I saw him on stage, my blood turned to ice. He had a strange woman tucked into his arm, and a lawyer announced that a recent accident had erased the last six years of his memory-our entire relationship.
In front of a sea of reporters, Barnett looked right through me with freezing hostility.
"Miss, you have the wrong person."
He then declared that the woman beside him, Joslyn, was not only the person who saved his life but also his new, legal wife. The news hit me like a physical blow, and the camera flashes swallowed me whole as reporters shoved microphones in my face, asking how it felt to be publicly dumped.
The man I had loved for six years had turned me into a national joke, a delusional stranger trying to cling to his wealth.
That night, as I was drowning my humiliation in a martini, his ruthless younger brother, Dixon, found me. He slid a marriage contract across the bar.
"Marry me," he said, his voice a low rumble. "I want his shares. You want his pain. We both get what we want."
Fueled by alcohol and a burning need for revenge, I grabbed his pen and signed my name. I was no longer the abandoned fiancée. I was about to become my ex's worst nightmare: his new sister-in-law.
9.1
The best way to get back at a cheating bastard? Make him sick to his stomach for the rest of his life!
Days before her wedding, Corinne caught her fiancé cheating with his coworker in what she thought was their future home.
Furious, she tore everything apart, ended the engagement, and decided on a bold revenge plan.
To make him regret it for life, she set her sights on marrying his powerful uncle. Confident in her scheme, she tried to win over the cold, untouchable man, only to realize too late that she had mistaken his identity.
The man she married was far more dangerous than she imagined!
Corinne decided to make a quick escape. "Let's get a divorce. We're clearly not right for each other... "
He cornered her with a knowing smile, "Not right for each other? Funny, that's not what you said last night in bed. Want me to remind you how wrong you are?"
8.2
Denice Copeland's son was dying of leukemia, and his only hope for survival was a savior sibling.
But the wealthy Montgomery family offered a cruel ultimatum. To get the experimental treatments her son desperately needed, Denice had to conceive a child naturally with Jasper Montgomery—her dead husband's cold, estranged twin brother.
Jasper treated the arrangement like a clinical transaction, taking her body without a shred of tenderness and threatening to cut her son's medical care if she disobeyed. The ultimate betrayal happened when Denice collapsed from exhaustion at his hospital. Jasper's glamorous partner, Kira, suddenly appeared and took control of Denice's dying son. Kira made the little boy call her "Mommy" and ordered security to throw Denice out.
"I don't know you. I've never seen you before in my life."
Jasper stood between Denice and her own son, coldly defending the woman who had stolen her child.
Denice was completely shattered. She finally understood she had never been anything but a cheap stand-in for Kira, a convenient breeding vessel for the Montgomery bloodline. Stripped of her dignity, her past love, and now her only child, her mind violently fractured in her freezing, mildew-stained apartment.
Abandoning the last shred of her pride, she sent Jasper one final, desperate text.
"Tonight. I'm ovulating. Come."
Then, she stepped fully clothed into a scalding shower to drown herself, forcing the man who destroyed her to finally face the wreckage he had made.
9.4
I was bleeding out on the cold ER table, my body failing, while the hospital’s blood bank sat empty.
My husband, Clayton, stood just outside the glass doors, watching me die with the terrifying indifference of a man deciding on dinner.
When the doctor begged him to sign the transfusion consent form to save my life, he didn't hesitate. He took the pen, slashed his signature across the Refusal of Treatment form, and turned his back on me to answer a call from the woman he truly loved.
As my heart monitor flatlined into a long, piercing scream, I watched him walk away to comfort his mistress over a thunderstorm, leaving his legal wife to rot in a body bag.
I was nothing to him—a vicious, disposable obstacle in his perfect world—and he ensured I left with absolutely nothing, freezing my accounts and cutting off my life.
But he made one fatal mistake: he left me alive.
I survived, and as I lay in the dark, the pathetic flame of my love for him snapped and died, replaced by a cold, broken promise.
If I survived this night, I would make sure he bled for every second of the hell he put me through.
I ripped the IV from my arm, stood up on my prosthetic leg, and walked out to start my war.