The Ghost Who Guarded Me

The Ghost Who Guarded Me isn't your typical second-chance romance. It's the kind where the hero doesn't just break the heroine's heart. He puts a bullet in her shoulder. He leaves her for dead in a desert grave. He lets her believe he chose evil over her. And he does it all to keep her alive. The Reckoning When the club discovers Catalina is alive, Cade reaches her first. He offers the only protection he can give: marriage. In the MC world, a wife is untouchable. Harm her and you declare war. She agrees for her daughter. Not for him. Living together, she discovers the truth: his safe holds five years of evidence, all prepared for her reckoning. His cruelty was never cruelty. It was the only way to keep her alive. Now she must decide if understanding is the same as forgiveness. And the club is already coming for them both. The Premise Catalina Salazar was the daughter of a motorcycle club president, a good man who believed in honor, even among outlaws. When her father dies under suspicious circumstances, Catalina becomes a target. The club needs a scapegoat for a federal investigation. She's convenient. Expendable. Cade Reyes is the man she loves. He's also the club's rising enforcer. When the vote comes down, he faces an impossible choice: defend her and die beside her, or condemn her publicly and pray she survives. He chooses condemnation. In front of the entire club, he calls her a traitor. He volunteers to execute her. He puts a bullet in her shoulder deliberately and dumps her in a mass grave with a corpse to explain the blood. He leaves her a bag: water, cash, a map, a passport. She wakes among the dead. She walks out of the desert. She crosses the river alone. She doesn't know he planned it. She only knows he chose them over her. The Five Years Catalina builds a new life in Texas. She discovers she's pregnant. She raises their daughter alone. She builds an embroidery business from nothing, one stitch at a time. She learns to survive without him. Cade stays inside the club. He becomes the president's most trusted weapon while secretly collecting evidence against the men who killed Catalina's father and framed his daughter. He doesn't know she survived. He doesn't know about their child. He only knows he has to finish what he started.

Chapters

Chapter 2

Five Years Ago. El Paso, Texas.

The warehouse floor was cold through her dress.

Catarina knelt on concrete that still held oil stains from bikes her father had tuned with his own hands. The smell of gasoline and grease had once meant home. Now it meant the end of one.

Three hours since the vote.

Three hours since Cade pressed her own gift against her throat and condemned her in front of every man who'd ever called her la princesa.

Three hours, and no one had spoken to her. No one had looked at her. The clubhouse emptied like she carried plague. Even Hector Fuentes walked past without meeting her eyes, his massive shoulders curved inward, his silver belt buckle catching the light as he disappeared through the side door.

Only Elias stayed. And the two prospects assigned to deliver her to the federal courthouse by dawn.

But first, the ritual.

"You understand how this works," Elias said.

He stood ten feet away, arms crossed, expression patient. A man explaining taxes to a slow child.

"The club votes. The club sentences. The club executes."

"My father.... "

"Your father is dead." No cruelty in his voice.

Just a fact.

"And if he were alive, he'd tell you the same. One body for the survival of thirty-seven. Simple math."

She wanted to spit at his boots. Instead, she pressed her palm flat against the cold concrete and steadied her breath.

"Rhodes requested the shot," Elias continued.

"That was generous.

He could have let one of the prospects do it.

Could have made you wait for a cell transfer and let federal marshals handle the loose end.

Instead, he volunteered.

"Generous," she repeated. Her voice tasted like copper.

"He's giving you dignity. One bullet, fast, in a place that won't prolong it. You'll be dead before you hit the floor.*"

Better.

She thought of her father's hands, still grease-stained, still curled around a wrench. Thought of the radio playing when she walked in. Thought of how she'd held his face and screamed until Hector arrived and pulled her away.

None of them came to the funeral. Elias sent flowers. Cade sent nothing.

The warehouse door opened.

Cade walked in.

He'd changed clothes. Black shirt, black jeans, his cut hanging loose over both. His face was stone. Bone. Nothing she recognized.

The knife was no longer visible.

Elias nodded once and stepped back. The prospects retreated to the far wall. Cade walked forward until he stood directly in front of her.

"Turn around," he said.

She didn't move.

"Turn around, Catarina."

"Look at me."

His jaw tightened.

"If you're going to kill me, look at me."

Something moved across his face. Too fast to name. Then it was gone.

He drew his weapon.

Standard issue. Glock 19, matte black. She'd watched him clean it a hundred times.

He chambered a round.

"On your knees," he said.

She was already on her knees.

"You want dignity?" His voice was flat. Erased. "Turn around. Don't make me watch your face when you die."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to remember you."

The words hit like a second bullet.

She searched his face for some hesitation, regret, the ghost of the man who'd kissed her in the bed of his truck while thunder split the sky.

There was nothing.

"You mean that," she whispered.

He didn't answer.

Behind them, Elias shifted. "Rhodes. Finish it."

Cade raised the weapon.

His eyes stayed on hers. Cold. Empty. The eyes of a man who'd already forgotten her name.

"Any last words?"

A thousand words. A million. Everything she should have said, should have screamed, should have carved into his chest while she still had the chance.

Instead: "I hope you choke on your loyalty."

He pulled the trigger.

The sound was enormous. A percussion that swallowed the warehouse, the city, the river three miles south.

Catarina's body hit the concrete.

Pain exploded through her left shoulder, white-hot, absolute. She heard herself scream. Heard Elias curse. Heard the prospects scrambling.

And then Cade's voice, loud and cold and final:

"Weak. Just like her father."

She tried to speak. Tried to move. Her body refused.

Through the haze, she saw him holster his weapon. Saw him turn his back. Saw his silhouette against the warehouse lights, broad-shouldered and untouchable.

He didn't look back.

He didn't pause.

He walked out like she was already a ghost.

Catarina pressed her palm against the concrete. Her blood pooled beneath her, black in the low light, spreading faster than she could contain.

Stay down.

She didn't know if the voice was his or hers.

Don't come back.

Her vision blurred. The ceiling lights dissolved into watercolor. Somewhere far away, one of the prospects was shouting for a medic.

But Cade Rhodes was already gone.

And Catarina Salazar closed her eyes and let the darkness take her, believing with every fiber of her being that the man she loved had just tried to erase her from the earth.

Continue to next part

I spent forty hours hand-beading a gown for a woman who was currently sleeping with my husband. My fingers were raw, my vision blurred, and the needle had just driven deep into my index finger, leaving a drop of blood on the silk. Braxton walked into our penthouse, rain dripping from his suit, and didn't even look at me. But the scent hit me instantly—Bulgarian rose and white musk. It was the custom perfume Griselda, my own sister, commissioned in Paris. I had spent three years as a ghost in my own marriage, sewing costumes for the woman who had haunted my vows since day one. Braxton didn't bother to hide it anymore; there was a smudge of her coral lipstick on his collar. He didn't offer an explanation, only a command to finish the gown for the Met Gala so I wouldn't embarrass them. My mother called moments later, her voice sharp with the usual dismissal. She didn't care that I was bleeding or that my husband was cheating with my sister. She only cared that I was "falling behind" on Griselda's gown. I sat in the silence of that cold, marble cage, staring at the needle in my hand. For years, I had swallowed every insult and stitched every lie, believing I was the capable one who had to make them happy. But as the clock ticked, a door inside me finally clicked shut. I wasn't just tired; I was finished. I set the needle down, picked up my phone, and dialed my sister’s number to tell her she’d have to find someone else to bleed for her.

Horror Modern Romance

9.1

Bound By The CEO's Cruel Contract

9.1

I was the orphaned "parasite" of the Tyler family, taken in only to be abused for fifteen years after my parents died in a tragic car crash. To finally escape their control, I sold my first time to my ruthless billionaire boss, Ellsworth Mosley, for one million dollars. I thought it was a clean transaction. But the next morning, covered in severe bruises he left on me, I was handed a brutal contract with a fifty-million-dollar penalty. He didn't just buy my silence; he bought me. My nightmare only worsened when my adoptive family found out about my connection to the billionaire. Instead of disgust, they invited me to a hypocritical family dinner. "Talk to Mosley, convince him to invest in our failing business," my adoptive father demanded shamelessly. His son, who had tormented me for years, even grabbed my hand. "Do this, and we can be officially engaged. You'll finally be a real Tyler." They wanted me to whore myself out to save the family that had treated me like a stray dog. I shattered my wine glass, cursed them to go bankrupt, and walked out into the rain. As I reached the door, my phone vibrated with a terrifying summons from Ellsworth. But it was the panicked whisper behind me that froze my blood. "She knows about the brakes on her parents' car. If anyone finds out what we did, we'll go to prison." They murdered my parents. I gripped my phone, accepting the devil's call. Since I was already bound to a monster, I would use his power to drag them all to hell.

Billionaire Horror Modern

7.4

Bound to her Captor

7.4

I was supposed to hate him. He destroyed my kingdom. Killed my family. Made me a slave. But when Prince Daresh looks at me with those burning blue eyes-eyes that can hear my every thought-I feel something I shouldn't. Desire. He's the most dangerous demon in the realm. Silver-haired, ruthless, and feared by everyone-even his own brothers. They say he has no heart. No mercy. So why does he look at me like I'm the only thing that matters? When I try to escape, he saves me. When I'm broken, he pieces me back together. And when his enemies come for me, he'll burn the entire demon realm to the ground to keep me safe. But our love is forbidden. I'm human. He's a demon prince with a secret that could destroy us both. And the life growing inside me? It might be the most dangerous thing of all. In a world where fire and water destroy each other, we're about to prove that some bonds are unbreakable. A dark paranormal romance featuring a possessive demon prince, a defiant human princess, forbidden magic, and a love that will set the realm on fire.

Fantasy Horror Romance

9.6

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

9.6

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

Horror Modern Romance

9.8

I Found My Replacement's Rotting Hair On The Alpha's Pillow

9.8

After years of loyalty, a Luna discovers a horrifying truth: her Alpha mate has been harboring a secret lover. The betrayal turns gruesome when she finds the decaying remains of her supposed replacement scattered across their shared bed. As the stench of rot fills their home, she must confront the twisted reality of her partner's infidelity and the dark, supernatural obsession that led him to keep a literal corpse in their inner sanctum.

Horror Romance Werewolf

7.3

My Fiance's Deadly Betrayal

7.3

A week before my wedding, my fiancé' s sister-in-law, Kimberlee, ran me off a bridge. As I lay dying in the wreckage, my fiancé, Deacon, rushed past me to comfort her, barking at the paramedics to prioritize her "superficial" shock over my fatal injuries. He forced my crushed hand to sign a waiver absolving her of all fault, then left me to die in the rain. "She's just trying to get attention," he muttered. "Kimberlee is the priority. She almost died." I watched as a ghost while he ignored the pleas of my colleagues to perform the life-saving surgery I needed. He even told my mentor he wished I were dead. Then, he proposed to Kimberlee with my ring. My love for him finally shattered. I was dead, my career was being destroyed, and my murderer was wearing my ring. But death wasn't the end. It was a front-row seat to their betrayal, and I was tethered to the man who let me die, forced to watch every single moment.

Horror Mystery Romance

The Ghost Who Guarded Me

Chapter 2

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