The Mafia King's Obsession.
When April Morgan wipes spilled beer from her face at Goody's Bar, she doesn't expect her night to collide with danger-or with Diablo Romano, a man whose very name sends tremors through the underworld. Dark-suited, merciless, and untouchable, Diablo rules his empire with cold precision... until April's defiance catches his attention.
Drawn into his shadowed world, April finds herself torn between fear and fascination. Every glance from Diablo burns deeper than the last, awakening a desire she can't deny-and a peril she can't escape. But behind his deadly control lies a secret war against his own blood: Abel Romano, the brother who betrayed him. As the Rossi Cartel moves to strike and loyalties fracture, April becomes both pawn and prize in a game of vengeance.
With her friends Aria, Jammie, and Joe caught in the crossfire, and allies like Brian and Karen concealing dangerous truths, April must decide how far she's willing to fall for the man the world calls a devil.
Because once you belong to Diablo Romano, there's no turning back.
Will April surrender to the darkness that craves her-or will loving the Mafia King be the one sin she can't survive?
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Chapter 6
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"Let me guess. Eyes you could drown in? Body like something out of a dream?" Aria's voice is playful as she grins over the rim of her mug.
"I didn't say that," I mutter, trying to sound casual even though I can feel my cheeks heating up.
"You didn't have to," she says, smirking. "I think my sweet April Morgan has finally fallen in love."
"I didn't say that either."
"So, did you at least talk to him? Give him your number?"
"Nope."
"Did you talk to him at all?"
"Sure, I did."
She raises an eyebrow. "Apart from when he ordered his drink?"
"Then no," I admit.
Aria sighs dramatically and slouches back in her chair. "This is not exactly the thrilling story I was hoping for."
"There's nothing exciting to tell," I say, trying to sound bored, though the thought of his dark eyes still lingers in my mind.
"What did you talk about then? You must have talked about something."
"He asked me my name," I begin quietly, "and asked about my Italy pin. I told him I've always wanted to live in Rome."
Aria sits upright, eyes wide. "Holy crap, really?"
"Yes. So?"
"So you told me never to share your dreams with anyone, remember? You said it's safer to keep them secret so no one laughs at you. What makes this guy so special that you'd tell him?"
I look down at my hands. "That's not even the weird part."
"What is?"
"He told me I should take tomorrow night off work."
Her brows lift. "That's... odd. Why did he say that?"
"I have no idea," I say truthfully.
"So are you going to take the night off?"
"Joe wouldn't let me."
"I think I know what's going on," she says, snapping her fingers. "He's married and bringing his wife tomorrow night. Doesn't want the girl behind the bar to ruin his fun."
"Since when do you describe me as the girl behind the bar?" I laugh.
"Fine, fine," she grins. "Let's go with muffin. Or bagel. Something you can spread butter on."
"How about none of the above?"
She yawns. "Whatever. I'm going to bed. You should too. You've got your test tomorrow, right?"
I stretch, stifling a yawn of my own. "Haven't even had time to study for it."
"It's community college Italian 101, April. Just show up and say ciao and you'll pass."
"Thanks for believing in my dedication."
She grins, softer now. "I mean you'll do fine. You actually want to be there this time, and that's half the battle. Just don't spend the day daydreaming about Mr. Mystery Man and you'll ace it."
"I'm pretty sure that's not his name," I mumble.
"Until you find out, that's what I'm calling him," she says with a wink. "It's been, what, three years since you moved here with me?"
"Your point being?"
"You haven't hooked up with anyone since Kenny Brown."
"Don't remind me," I groan. "He was... terrible."
"You've not got much to compare him with, babe."
"I don't need much to know thirty seconds isn't enough to enjoy anything."
Aria laughs. "That's not even enough time to preheat my oven. Maybe you should get yourself a little taste of Mr. Mystery and make a proper comparison. Let him take charge, if you know what I mean."
"Yeah, I get it," I say dryly.
"Come on, I'm just saying it wouldn't hurt you to start dating again. Download Tinder, have some fun. The world's full of men waiting to meet you."
"I tried Tinder, remember? Then I deleted it."
"Yeah, but maybe try it again without talking about Italy to every guy who swipes right on you."
"I don't always talk about Italy," I protest.
"Ancient Rome is still Italy," she reminds me.
"Oh."
"It's not exactly flirty conversation, April. Don't you ever wonder why they stop replying?"
"Not all of them did."
"Really?"
"Some sent pictures first."
Aria snorts. "Classy. You go, girl." She stands, stretching, and grabs her coffee cup. "Anyway, you need to stop living in your head and start living in the world. There's a whole buffet of men out there just waiting for you. Imagine them all lining up at once."
I shake my head, laughing. "I'd rather not. That's your kind of chaos, not mine."
She grins, blows me a kiss, and disappears into her room. A few seconds later, her phone pings and she shouts through the wall, "It's the guy's mom! She's asking me on a second date! What do I say?"
I call back, "Tell her I've grounded you!"
Once her laughter fades, I crawl into bed, staring up at the ceiling. She's right-it's been a long time. I start counting back. Kenny Brown. Fumbling in the front seat of his car. He cried when he finished, then apologized. I didn't cry. I didn't even finish. It was over before it started, and then he spent weeks telling everyone at school that I was frigid. Said I was too "dry" to turn him on. Started calling me a tease in the hallways.
I'm not saying that's the only reason I dropped out and left Colorado, but it didn't help. Aria was already moving to Chicago, and she needed a roommate. I needed an escape. My mom was struggling to keep her store open since the megamart opened nearby. Moving out was the best way to stop being another mouth she had to feed.
Things have been okay here. Not perfect, but okay. Still, sometimes I wish I could meet someone real. Someone special. Not like Jammie, who only dates to cheat. Not like Aria, who dates half the city.
I just want one person. Someone who looks at me and sees me. But not yet. Not when I'm still barely scraping by on a part-time bar job and a shared apartment I can barely afford.
Still, I can't stop thinking about him. The stranger with dark eyes. Diablo Romano. The one who threw out that jerk who spilled beer on me.
Before I fall asleep, I reach for my small vibrator. It helps me relax when my mind won't stop spinning. I let myself drift away, imagining his voice, his hands, his eyes. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do anyway.
And for a few quiet moments before sleep takes me, he's right there again-dark, dangerous, and impossible to forget.
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9.5
Alina was the eldest daughter of the prestigious Padilla family, but everyone mocked her as a defective dud who couldn't cast a single spell.
The moment she woke up, her father and younger sister Karina barged into her room, demanding she sign a transfer agreement to the Aethelgard Order-the most brutal faction on the continent.
It wasn't just a transfer; it was a legal disownment. In her past life, Alina didn't realize Karina was also reborn. She had dropped to her knees and begged to stay. Her reward? Her magic was violently drained from her veins by her own family. Her fiancé drove a blade through her chest, and her sister stood over her bleeding body, smiling. She had ruined her hands making potions for them, only to be discarded like trash.
The phantom pain of her chest being ripped open still burned behind her ribs. Looking at the hypocritical family waiting for her tears, she felt nothing but exhausting disgust. Why should she ever be their stepping stone again?
"For the honor of the family, you leave today."
Her father sneered as she calmly bit her thumb and pressed her bloody fingerprint onto the contract. This time, Alina didn't cry. She packed a single bag and walked out the door, heading straight for the deadly Aethelgard Order to show them what a true monster looked like.
7.5
For five years, I was locked away in the freezing royal dungeon, starved and used as a bloody plaything by the kingdom's sadistic Cabinet Minister, Brandt Fischer.
He tortured me daily for one twisted reason: I simply looked like someone else.
When he visited my cell to casually announce my father's execution and drag a silver dagger across my neck, he expected me to beg.
Instead, I laughed, sank my teeth directly into his carotid artery, and was violently thrown against a jagged stone wall to my death.
As my skull cracked and my blood stained the moss, I thought about my so-called family. The moment Brandt had demanded me, my father, the Duke, handed me over without a single hesitation to save his own political career.
I was nothing but a disposable pawn, left to rot in the dark while the monsters who ruined my life thrived.
I died suffocating on my own blood and absolute, destructive vengeance.
Then, I opened my eyes.
I was lying in my silk-sheeted bed, reborn as my fifteen-year-old self.
Today was the exact day Lord Daryl Langley, the God of War, would be ambushed and crippled—the event that allowed Brandt to seize ultimate power.
I immediately stole a horse, rode to the palace gates, and threw myself directly in front of Daryl's moving carriage.
"I just didn't want to see a hero die like a slaughtered pig."
I didn't care if I had to shatter my own ankle to hijack his convoy. This time, I was going to save the general, and he would become the blade I use to slaughter them all.
9.6
She was sold as a broodmare. He was a warrior with no memory. Together, they'll burn down the world.
Lyra has been called many things: half-blood, mongrel, dirty blood. Rejected by every pack she's approached, she's given one final chance-as a bride to Ronan, the cruel Alpha of Red River Pack. But when her wedding night becomes a nightmare, she stabs her new husband and flees into the frozen wilderness.
Stellan remembers nothing. Not his name, not his past, not the ancient tattoos covering his body. He only knows that when he sees a terrified woman falling from a cliff into an icy river, he must save her-even if it kills him.
On the run from a vengeful Alpha and his army of hunters, Lyra and Stellan discover an impossible bond growing between them. The moon has chosen them as mates. But Stellan's memories are returning, and with them, a devastating truth: he's not just any wolf. He's the Alpha of the North Star Pack. And a half-blood can never be his Luna.
Now Ronan's brother has sworn revenge, an ancient prophecy awakens, and three packs prepare for war. Lyra must prove that bloodlines mean nothing-and that the most powerful bond of all is forged in ice and fire.
He lost his memory. She lost her freedom. Together, they'll find everything.
9.0
The biopsy report slid across the cold metal desk, stamped with a brutal death sentence: advanced gastric cancer. Aretha had exactly ninety days left to live.
It was her twenty-sixth birthday, but her phone only rang with a furious call from her husband, Anders.
"Do you have any idea how much of a joke you made this family look like today? Post a public apology to Kelli right now."
He had completely forgotten her birthday, only caring that she skipped her adopted sister's yacht party.
When Aretha dragged her failing body back to the family estate, her biological mother slapped her across the face just for looking pale and embarrassing them in front of guests.
Seeing Aretha wasn't submitting to the usual abuse, Kelli deliberately threw herself down the stairs, playing the innocent, depressed victim.
Anders rushed in and shoved Aretha brutally against the wall to protect Kelli, while her biological father delivered his ultimate threat.
"I am freezing your trust fund. Get on your knees and apologize to Kelli right now, or you won't see another dime."
A massive, suffocating sense of absurdity washed over Aretha. She had spent six years lowering her head and begging for their approval, only to be treated like a disposable placeholder. Why should she spend her final days enduring this agonizing torture for people who didn't even care if she breathed?
Aretha wiped the blood from her chin and laughed. She publicly severed all ties with her family, whipped the signed divorce papers directly at Anders's face, and walked out into the freezing storm—ready to fight for her own life.
9.6
When a global anomaly awakens dormant powers within them, a neuroscientist, a physicist, and an artist discover they are connected by a force that defies time itself. Mert sees the memories of strangers. Elena witnesses the fabric of reality crack. Kai paints symbols from a past he never knew. Thrown together by fate, they are not alone. Across the globe, others are awakening too-gifted with extraordinary abilities. But they are not the only ones. A powerful cabal-a ruthless financier, a tech mogul, and a charismatic influencer-sees the anomaly not as a warning, but as a weapon. Their ambition shatters the timeline, scattering the group across history: from the smog-choked streets of Victorian London to a transhumanist future, and into a terrifying parallel present. Broken into three teams, the group must hunt their enemies through time itself. To survive, they must master their new powers and forge bonds of love and loyalty strong enough to bend the laws of physics. Their final battle will not be fought in any single era, but at the crossroads of all realities, where the key to existence-the very heart of time-is at stake.
8.7
I was dying in a cold hospital bed, listening to the monitor count down my final seconds.
As a ghost, I watched my own funeral. My popular friends and wealthy family soon moved on, but one person stayed.
Cas Riley. The invisible outcast from the back of my history class.
He brought a white rose to my grave every single day, withering away until he collapsed on the frozen ground, dying of a broken heart for a girl who barely knew his name.
Opening my eyes again, the hospital smell was gone. I was reborn back in my high school classroom.
I immediately tracked him down, only to witness the brutal hell he was trapped in.
He was humiliated by a cruel foreman for pennies, violently slapped by his uncle over his sick mother's medical money, and forced into bloody street fights.
He was starving, covered in bruises, and completely alone.
When I tried to buy him medicine and step into his life to protect him, he violently pushed me away in the pouring rain.
"Stay out of my life! To protect you, I have to fight, and when I fight, I lose everything!"
He wasn't rejecting me out of hate. He was terrified that his dark, violent reality would drag me down with him.
Standing soaked in the rain, my resolve hardened like steel.
Gentle kindness wasn't going to save him from this hell.
To protect the boy who died for me, I had to become ruthless enough to tear down his entire rotten world and build him a new one.