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 9
The morning Juliet’s world began to fall apart did not come with chaos or noise.
No alarms. No shouting. No dramatic warning.
It came quietly.
The soft glow of her phone lit up beside her pillow.
Juliet stirred slowly, her body heavy, her head aching. Her throat burned from crying too much the night before, the kind of crying that left you empty instead of relieved. For a moment, she just stared at the ceiling, trying to remember where she was, trying to remember how to breathe normally again.
Then instinct took over.
She reached for her phone.
A small, foolish part of her still hoped it would be Ryan.
It wasn’t.
Her hospital portal notification stared back at her.
Unusual sign-ins detected.
Her heart dropped so hard it felt like it slammed against her ribs.
She sat up instantly.
Another notification followed. Then another.
Three different access points. Encrypted locations. Her private medical records.
Juliet’s fingers tightened around the phone. Her hands were already shaking, but she barely noticed. Her mind was racing too fast.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no…”
This wasn’t a system error. This wasn’t a glitch.
She knew that the same way you know when someone is standing behind you even before you turn around.
This was intentional.
Her chest tightened until breathing felt like work. The room seemed to tilt, the walls pressing in slightly, like the air itself was shrinking.
And before she could stop herself, a single name rose up in her mind.
Dominic LaRusso.
His warning at the club replayed in her head. The way his voice had been calm, controlled, almost polite. The way his eyes had said everything his mouth didn’t.
You are a problem. And problems get removed.
Juliet stumbled out of bed and began pacing her small apartment. Back and forth. Back and forth. Her bare feet hit the floor too hard, too fast.
He warned me, she thought.
He told me I would ruin Ryan.
He told me I wasn’t safe for him.
Dominic LaRusso didn’t need to threaten loudly. Men like him didn’t yell. They didn’t beg. They didn’t explain.
They acted.
And Juliet was painfully aware of how small her life was compared to his power.
She was just Juliet. An assistant in a company that barely noticed her. A woman who lived on schedules and budgets and routines because chaos terrified her. Someone who believed that if she kept her world neat enough, nothing bad could touch her.
Now that order was being stripped away piece by piece.
Her breathing sped up. Panic crept higher, scratching at her throat.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Juliet gasped, jumping so hard her phone nearly slipped from her hand.
“Jules! Open the door before I break it down!” a familiar voice yelled. “I know you’re in there. You’re pacing like a stressed hamster!”
Juliet froze for a second, then pressed her hand to her chest.
Liv.
Her best friend. Her anchor. Her emotional bulldozer.
Juliet rushed to the door and pulled it open.
Liv barged in immediately, hoodie hanging off one shoulder, messy bun clearly thrown together without a mirror. One look at Juliet and her playful expression vanished.
“What happened?” Liv asked.
Juliet tried to speak. Tried again. Nothing came out.
Instead, she held out her phone.
Liv took it, scrolling silently. Her face hardened with every line she read. The joking energy drained from her completely.
“Oh, Jules…” Liv whispered.
And just like that, something inside Juliet cracked.
Liv guided her gently to the couch and pushed her down. “Okay. Start from the beginning.”
“It’s him,” Juliet said, her voice trembling. “It has to be him. Ryan’s father. Dominic. He threatened me.”
Liv frowned. “Did he threaten you… or did he threaten the situation?”
Juliet stared at her. “Is that really different?”
“With men like him?” Liv said quietly. “Yes.”
Juliet covered her face with her hands. Liv sat beside her, waiting.
So Juliet told her everything. The night with Ryan. The emotional weight of it. The confrontation at the condo. How she had left because it felt like she was drowning in someone else’s world.
Liv didn’t interrupt. She didn’t jump to conclusions.
She just listened.
When Juliet finished, Liv leaned back and sighed, tired and heavy.
“Juliet,” she said, “this is exactly why I tell you to stay away from romantic disasters.”
“He’s not...”
“He is,” Liv interrupted gently. “Not because he’s cruel. But because his life is chaos.”
Juliet winced.
“You know what happened to my brother,” Liv added.
Juliet’s heart sank.
Liv rarely spoke about him.
“Liv… you don’t have to...”
“I do,” Liv said firmly. “He loved someone blindly. Someone with a messy, dangerous life. He thought love could fix it.”
Her voice softened, eyes shining. “He died in a car he shouldn’t have been in, on a night he shouldn’t have left home.”
Juliet swallowed hard.
“Love made him reckless,” Liv said. “And I lost him.”
A pause.
“Do you want that kind of ending, Jules?”
Juliet couldn’t answer.
“I’m not saying Ryan is bad,” Liv said quickly. “But his family? Their power? That world can crush people.”
“But he said he’d protect me,” Juliet whispered.
Liv tilted her head. “Do you really believe he can stop his father?”
Juliet wanted to say yes.
She couldn’t.
Liv squeezed her hands. “You deserve a life that doesn’t destroy you.”
Juliet’s eyes burned. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You do,” Liv said softly. “You just don’t want to.”
And deep down, Juliet knew she was right.
By afternoon, Dominic proved he wasn’t finished.
An email arrived at Juliet’s job, anonymous concerns about her mental stability.
Then her scholarship portal flagged her for review.
Then a voicemail from an unknown number.
“Stay away from him if you want this to stop.”
Juliet felt sick.
Liv wrapped her in a hug while Juliet cried silently, feeling smaller than she ever had.
Outside, in a black car across the street, Dominic’s man typed calmly:
Target distressed. Pressure effective.
The reply came immediately:
Good. Keep her away from my son.
Juliet spent the rest of the day pretending she was fine.
At work, she held her posture straight, smiled when spoken to, nodded when necessary. But whispers followed her. Looks lingered too long.
Another anonymous tip arrived. Then another.
By the time she shut down her computer, her hands were shaking.
Liv found her near the elevator.
“You look like you’re about to faint,” Liv said.
“I’m fine,” Juliet lied.
“Sure,” Liv muttered. “And I’m Beyoncé.”
In the elevator, Juliet finally broke.
“I think someone’s trying to ruin me.”
Liv listened, her expression darkening.
“This is targeted,” Liv said. “And if it started after Ryan… it’s not coincidence.”
Juliet felt cold.
When another notification arrived, accusing her of sleeping her way through her last job, Liv snapped.
“You’re going home,” she said. “Now.”
Juliet laughed weakly through tears as Liv guided her out.
But inside, she knew the truth.
Dominic wasn’t warning her anymore.
He was attacking.
And this was only the beginning.
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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.