Lost in sin
Juliet Romano was born into privilege and power, until the LaRussos destroyed everything her family built. Overnight, the Romanos fell from grace, left with nothing but debts, shame, and broken pride.
Years later, Juliet swore she'd never forgive them. Never forget.
But fate has a cruel sense of humor.
When Ryan LaRusso, heir to the empire that ruined her father, walks back into her life, all the hate she's clung to begins to blur into something dangerous. He's everything she should despise, arrogant, powerful, untouchable, yet every glance, every argument, pulls her deeper into a forbidden fire neither of them can control.
One night shatters every boundary between them.
And one secret changes everything.
Now Juliet carries the child of the man she was raised to hate.
Ryan will risk his legacy to protect her. His father will destroy them both to keep the LaRusso name pure.
Love and vengeance collide in a world ruled by power, pride, and old sins.
Because some stories aren't written in innocence, they're carved in betrayal, obsession, and the kind of love that demands everything.
When the truth comes out, one question will decide their fate:
Will love be strong enough to survive the sins of their families?
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Chapter 8
Ryan’s POV
Sleep never came.
Not because of the threats.
Not because my accounts were frozen, my name erased, my future boxed in like a corpse waiting to be claimed.
Not even because Dominic LaRusso, my father, my creator, my greatest mistake, had made it clear he was ready to destroy anything that didn’t obey him.
Sleep refused me because every time I closed my eyes, I saw Juliet.
Not crying.
Not screaming.
Just standing there in that elevator, shoulders tight, lips pressed together, pain folded so neatly inside her chest that it almost looked like strength.
That was what haunted me.
By the time the sun crawled into the sky, I was pacing like a man losing his grip on reality.
My condo smelled like cold coffee and tension. Outside, the city moved on, indifferent. Inside, I was unraveling.
Luca was still passed out on my couch, sprawled in a way that suggested a crime scene rather than rest. One leg hung off the armrest. His hair stuck up in impossible directions. One sock was missing, and I had no intention of finding out where it went.
I grabbed a pillow and threw it at his head.
He groaned, rolled over, and spoke into the cushion. “If that’s not breakfast or a miracle, I reject it.”
“It’s noon.”
“My dreams operate on a higher timeline.”
I ignored him and turned back to my laptop.
I had spent the entire night digging.
Not the clean file Dominic shoved in my face, the one stripped down, clinical, cold, but the messy truth beneath it. The pieces Luca and I pulled from old records, forgotten systems, quiet sources.
And the deeper I went, the tighter my chest became.
Juliet hadn’t just been sick.
She’d been surviving.
Emergency room visits with vague notes. Long gaps where records should’ve existed. A pattern of changing hospitals, doctors, even cities, never staying long enough to be tracked.
This wasn’t secrecy.
It was escape.
She wasn’t hiding something ugly.
She was running from something dangerous.
And my father thought those gaps were leverage.
A loud snore broke through my thoughts.
“Get up,” I said sharply, snapping the laptop shut.
Luca cracked one eye. “You look like a man about to commit several felonies.”
“I might.”
“That’s my cue.” He sat up, grabbed a shirt from the floor, sniffed it, grimaced, then pulled it on anyway. “Alright. What nightmare are we handling before coffee?”
I hesitated.
Because saying it out loud meant admitting how far this had gone.
“My father isn’t trying to control Juliet,” I said finally. “He’s trying to destroy her.”
Luca blinked. Once. Then twice. “Okay. I need context. Preferably before noon.”
So I told him.
Not every detail, some things still scraped too close to the bone, but enough. The medical files. The threats. The account freeze. The board removal. The way Dominic spoke about Juliet like she was collateral damage instead of a human being.
When I finished, Luca leaned forward, elbows on his knees, expression stripped of humor.
“Ryan,” he said quietly.
“What.”
“When you asked for help, I thought we were talking damage control. Not toppling a dynasty.”
“I’m not trying to overthrow him.”
“He thinks you are.”
That truth landed heavy.
“I didn’t start this,” I muttered.
“No one ever does.”
I dragged a hand down my face, exhaustion pressing into my skull. “I need to find Juliet today. I have to tell her everything, before he gets to her first.”
“Then I’m coming with you,” Luca said, standing.
“No.”
“Not happening.”
“This isn’t your fight.”
He stepped in front of me. “You dragged me into emotional warfare at three a.m. You don’t get to sideline me before the real danger starts.”
I clenched my jaw.
I hated that he was right.
But I was too raw to argue.
I grabbed my keys. “Let’s go.”
(THE SEARCH)
Juliet didn’t answer.
Not my texts.
Not my calls.
Not the voicemail I left and immediately regretted because I sounded like a man drowning and reaching for air.
Her phone was off.
Her apartment building refused to let me up.
Her workplace said she called in sick.
Every door closed.
Every answer wrong.
Every instinct screaming she’s scared.
We drove for hours.
Luca filled the silence when it got unbearable, bad jokes, worse singing, commentary on traffic, pointing out dogs in sweaters like it was vital information.
It helped. Barely.
Because every minute that passed tightened something inside my chest.
By evening, we circled back to her neighborhood.
And then I saw her.
Sitting alone by a public fountain. Hoodie pulled over her head. Hands hidden inside her sleeves. Staring at the water like it might tell her what to do next.
My heart stuttered.
“Go,” Luca murmured. “I’ll stay back.”
I didn’t hesitate.
(JULIET)
She didn’t look at me when I sat beside her.
Her body was tight. Guarded. Like she was bracing for impact.
“Juliet,” I said softly.
She inhaled sharply. “I don’t want to talk.”
“I know,” I said. “But I...”
“No.” She stood suddenly. “I figured it out.”
My stomach dropped. “Figured what out?”
She turned, eyes burning, not with anger, but with hurt sharpened into something dangerous.
“Your father is trying to ruin me.”
There it was.
The thing I’d been racing against.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I never meant...”
“You should’ve told me,” she snapped. “The first moment he touched my records. The first threat. The first lie.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Well, you failed,” she said, voice cracking. “Because now I know what he’s capable of.”
That hurt more than anything Dominic ever did.
“I can fix this,” I said, stepping closer.
“Don’t,” she whispered, stepping back. “Don’t promise things you can’t control.”
“I won’t let him hurt you.”
“You already did,” she said quietly. “By bringing me into his world.”
Silence fell between us.
“Please don’t contact me again,” she said. “I can survive pain. I can’t survive your family.”
And she walked away.
Not running.
Not crying.
Just walking.
Like she’d already buried us.
I stood there long after she disappeared, fists clenched, chest hollow.
Luca approached slowly. “Ryan…”
“She thinks I’m part of this,” I said numbly.
“She’s terrified.”
“Because he terrified her.”
Something inside me snapped.
“I’m going to destroy everything he’s using against her,” I said softly. “Every file. Every connection. Every lie.”
Luca swallowed. “That means war.”
“I know.”
“You could lose everything.”
“I already have.”
“So what now?”
I looked back at the empty street where Juliet vanished.
“Now,” I said, voice steady, dangerous, “I pull every thread he never wanted me to touch.”
And somewhere deep inside, something changed.
This wasn’t fear.
This wasn’t obedience.
This was rage.
And Dominic LaRusso had just taught me what happens when you threaten the one thing a man cannot replace.
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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 .
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."
7.8
I was Grayson Warren’s "broken doll," a disgraced socialite kept on a short leash to pay off my family’s debts. To the world, I was a fragile liability; to Grayson, I was a pet he could humiliate for sport, forcing me to play the role of a mentally unstable girl while I secretly gathered evidence against his empire.
The cruelty peaked when Grayson forced me to break three years of sobriety in front of his investors, mocking my struggle before making me kneel on a golf course to scrub his shoes. He treated my life like a game, literally betting my sanity against a corporate board seat while he soft-launched a new relationship with a high-profile PR queen.
When the pressure triggered a massive panic attack, Grayson abandoned me in a private clinic just so he wouldn't miss a dinner reservation. Even my own mother turned against me, threatening to leak my psychiatric records and brand me a "violent delusional" if I didn't beg for Grayson’s forgiveness. I was trapped between a man who owned my debt and a mother who valued her estate over my daughter’s life.
I realized then that they would never let me go; they would only break me until there was nothing left. They thought they had erased my soul, but they forgot I was the only witness to the night my true love, Felix, was murdered. I was done being the victim.
I faked a suicide jump off the Queensboro Bridge to go off the grid, then crashed Grayson’s elite gala in a dress that signaled his downfall. Just as Grayson tried to physically crush me one last time, the room went silent. Felix Law, the man the world thought was dead for three years, walked out of the shadows with a federal warrant in his hand.
"Take your hands off her, Warren."
The game didn't just change; it ended. Felix was back from the dead, and this time, we were burning the empire to the ground together.
7.9
June was an ordinary architect struggling to pay rent, completely estranged from her high-society mother.
But one night, she was kidnapped and beaten in an abandoned warehouse by Gage Becker, the city's most ruthless billionaire, who demanded payback for her mother's sins.
Gage pointed a high-definition camera at June's battered face and video-called her mother, threatening to release the footage and ruin her upcoming billion-dollar wedding.
"I will never throw away a billion-dollar marriage for a useless daughter."
Her mother's cold voice echoed through the warehouse before the line went dead.
From that moment, Gage systematically destroyed June's life. She was publicly humiliated and forced to hack off her own hair with a cigar cutter. She was blacklisted from every firm in the city, evicted by her landlord, and violently mugged in a freezing New York blizzard.
Curled up in an icy tunnel waiting to die, June felt a suffocating despair. She hadn't spoken to her mother in months. Why did she have to endure this hell for a woman who didn't even care if she lived or died? Why was a monster like Gage so obsessed with driving her to the grave?
When Gage's armored Maybach pulled up, he stepped into the snow to mock her, waiting for her to finally surrender and beg for his mercy.
But the absolute humiliation snapped the last thread of June's sanity.
Instead of crying, she lunged forward with feral energy and sank her teeth directly into the devil's flesh.
7.2
Blurb:
They said loving him would ruin her, and they were right.
Adrianna never meant to fall for Xavier Palmer, the cold, untouchable billionaire whose name alone could silence a room. He was dangerous, controlling, and completely out of her world.
But the moment he claimed her as his, there was no escape.
What started as a forced bond quickly turned into something far more dangerous. Obsession and possession, a love so intense it blurred the line between protection and destruction.
Then everything shattered.
A brutal accident leaves Adrianna fighting for her life... and Xavier drowning in guilt, rage, and a darkness no one has ever seen before. While she lies unconscious, he hunts for the truth behind the attack, unaware that betrayal is closer than he thinks.
When Adrianna finally wakes up, nothing is the same.
Secrets have been buried, a child has been lost, and enemies are closing in.
But Xavier has made one thing clear.
He will destroy anyone who dares touch what belongs to him, even if it means becoming the monster she fears.
Even if it means losing her forever.
9.3
Innocent Silesia
9.3
No!" My voice rang loudly. "Like I said, this is the first time I've even been in this city."
"Ah, I see..." His voice shifted. "I was going to give you a different punishment. But since you claim you haven't slept with me..." He leaned forward, his smile cruel. "Why not refresh your memory?"
When Matteo's empire is shaken by betrayal, a stolen jewel, a night of seduction turned deception, his wrath is swift. He vows to hunt down the thief who dared to cross him. But fate delivers him the wrong girl.
Silesia Elton is twenty-three, an orphan from the quiet seaside town of Averna. She comes to Bellmere chasing nothing more than a job, a chance, a future. Instead, she is mistaken for the thief who stole from the king. Kidnapped, accused, and punished, her innocence is shattered in a single night of cruelty.
By the time Matteo realizes the truth, it's too late. Silesia is gone, leaving behind nothing but tears and the echo of words he has never heard before: "I don't want your money."
But Matteo cannot forget her. Dreams of her innocence haunt him, stirring something he has never known, remorse. Guilt sharpens into obsession, and soon the man who swore never to chase anyone finds himself searching for the girl who slipped through his fingers.
Meanwhile, Silesia struggles to survive in a city that devours the weak. Betrayed by the law, cast out by kindness, she is forced into the shadows, where every hand that offers help demands a piece of her soul. Yet even as she runs from the man who ruined her life, fate drives her back into his world.
Caught between the two is Matias Loki, Matteo's twin, a man who hides warmth behind ambition and whose gentle eyes see in Silesia the light his brother cannot hold. But desire between brothers is dangerous, and Silesia becomes the spark that threatens to burn the empire down.