The mafia's king bride claimed by his obsession.
Dad sold me off to pay a debt to the scariest guy in New York, no less.
Damiano Rossi isn't just some mob boss. He's like a hurricane in fancy clothes, a handsome, mean beast who controls everything around him.
Except for me.
I'm only his wife on paper. I'm still a virgin, and he won't sleep with me, but he also won't let me go, until we did it, and since then, my heart has belonged to him.
He's cruel in a sophisticated way.
Every night, he brings other girls into our house. I can hear them laughing, whispering things, and making noises of enjoyment. It's a constant reminder that I'm just something he owns, not someone he cares about.
He's slowly breaking me, teaching me to obey him by ignoring me, and keeping me locked up with expensive gifts.
But even diamonds can be used as a weapon.
I said I might give myself to someone else to feel free for once.
He reacted by threatening to kill anyone who touched me.
He may not want me, but he'll ruin anyone who does.
Then Lucas, my first boyfriend, showed up again. He's kind, genuine, and not scared of the monster who owns me. He's willing to fight to set me free.
And for the first time, Damiano's cold act slips, and you can see something scary underneath: jealousy, like burning fire, an obsession that won't let go.
So here I am, stuck between a messed-up guy who won't love me and a nice guy who can't save me. I'm realizing that the real problem isn't the fight over my heart.
It's the hidden enemy, the one no one suspects, that they are plotting and betraying that could screw us all over.
I was sold, silenced, and broken.
But a girl who has been broken can become a queen that's fearless.
And this queen has decided to start her own game where the rules are top secret, the price is blood, and the only way to win is to burn everything to the ground.
Get ready for a story packed with risky romance, killer secrets, and a love life that's so rough, it feels like war.
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Chapter 6
The mark on my neck was still there when I woke up a faint, rose-colored stain just below my ear.
I touched it in the mirror, remembering his mouth, the scrape of his teeth. My skin still felt hot from it.
Damon was already gone. He'd left a note on his pillow, sharp handwriting on thick paper:
Wear something that covers it.
D
Not a suggestion. A command.
I picked a high-necked black dress. It felt like I was mourning something.
He waited in the dining room, reading a tablet with coffee steaming beside him. He didn't even look up. "Sit."
I sat down. Alessandra set a plate of eggs in front of me. I didn't want them.
"You have an appointment today," he said, eyes on the screen.
"What kind of appointment?"
"A doctor. Full exam."
My hand froze, fork halfway to my mouth. "Why?"
Finally, he looked at me. His eyes were flat, all business. "You live in my house. You eat my food. Your health is my asset's health. Standard procedure."
Asset. I set the fork down. "I don't want some stranger..."
"It isn't up for debate." He pushed the tablet away. "Marco will drive you. He'll wait in the room."
Humiliation burned. "He's going to watch?"
"He'll stand by the door. He's seen worse." Damon stood up, fixing his cufflinks. "Don't do anything stupid while you're out. The doctor works for me. The clinic's mine. Hell, the street's mine."
He walked out. Didn't say another word.
The clinic was spotless, cold, and private. A female doctor with gentle hands and a practiced smile did the exam. Marco stood by the door, silent, massive, back to us.
"Everything looks perfectly healthy," the doctor said, scribbling on a chart. "Any concerns? Painful periods? Sex?"
I flushed. "No. No activity."
She nodded, and wrote it down. "We'll draw blood for the usual panels. You can get dressed."
As I pulled my dress back on, I spotted the chart on the counter. The name at the top wasn't Elena Rossi.
It read: ROSSI, E. ASSET #7.
A number. That's all I was.
Marco drove me back in silence. The city blurred past, people moving through their lives, free, while I sat trapped in a luxury prison.
We were nearly home when I saw him.
On the corner, outside that old bookstore café, leaning against a lamppost, phone in hand.
Lucas.
My heart was hammered. He looked exactly the same soft, warm, nothing like the world I lived in now.
"Stop the car," I whispered.
Marco caught my eyes in the mirror. "No."
"Please. Just a minute. I just want to talk to him."
"Boss's orders. You stay in the car."
"He won't even know!"
Marco's face didn't change. "He always knows."
The car slowed at a red light. We stopped right next to Lucas's corner.
I didn't think so. I grabbed the door handle. Locked. The child lock was on. It didn't budge.
I pounded on the window.
Lucas looked up from his phone. His eyes drifted over the street, skipped past the car then landed on Marco in the front seat. Recognition flashed. The man who'd answered my phone.
"Lucas!" I yelled, even though I knew he couldn't hear.
He stepped closer, frowning.
The light changed. Marco hit the gas. The car lunged forward. I twisted around, watching Lucas break into a run after us, his face twisted with worry and confusion, until he vanished around a corner.
Hot tears ran down my cheeks. Marco didn't say a word.
Damon waited in the foyer when we got back. He didn't need to say a thing I felt the rage rolling off him.
"My study," he said, voice low and sharp. "Now."
Marco disappeared. My legs felt shaky as I followed Damon.
He shut the door behind us. "You tried to see him."
"I just wanted to talk!"
"You screamed his name from my car." He stepped closer. "You made a scene. You got his attention. Mine, too."
"He's my friend!"
"You don't have friends!" he exploded, losing control. He grabbed my arms. "You have me. You have this house. You have the protection I offer with my blood. That boy is a weakness. A target. And you painted a bullseye on his back today!"
He shook me, his face twisted with fury. "Do you know what happens to things I care about? They get used against me. They get taken. They get broken."
The pain in his voice stopped me cold. This wasn't just about owning me. He was scared.
He let me go, raked a hand through his hair, and turned away. His shoulders were tight, braced.
"I won't let you destroy yourself with your sentimentality," he said, voice rough and lower. "Or get him killed because of it."
"Then let me go," I begged, sobbing. "If I'm so dangerous, let me leave."
He turned. The look in his eyes was terrifying utterly certain. "Never."
He crossed the space between us. This time, he didn't grab it. He held my face in his hands, gentle but unyielding. His thumbs brushed away my tears, a cruel kind of tenderness.
"You want to see "What happens when you push me, Elena?" he breathed, so close I could feel the words on my lips. "When you remind me you're not just a chess piece, but the woman I want to ruin for anyone else?"
Then his mouth crashed into mine.
This wasn't a kiss. It was a takeover. Hard and hungry and wild. I gasped, and he took advantage, deepening it, tasting me, stealing my breath and every scrap of willpower. One hand slid from my cheek into my hair, tugging my head back. His other arm locked around my waist, pulling me tight against him.
Thinking? Gone. Fighting? Impossible. He tasted like coffee and fury, and the raw heat of him burned right through me. My bones? Melted. Something hot and reckless sparked low in my belly.
He finally broke the kiss, panting. His eyes God, they were black with want. "You're mine," he growled. "Every part of you."
He kissed me again, gentler this time but still in control. His hands slid down, grabbing my backside, lifting me up. I wrapped my legs around him without even thinking. He carried me to his desk, sent papers and his tablet tumbling to the floor with a crash.
He laid me out on the cold, hard wood. His weight settled between my thighs, heavy and somehow perfect. His mouth left mine, trailed along my jaw, down to the mark on my neck, his tongue soothing and claiming at the same time.
"Damon..." I whimpered, fists tangled in his shirt.
He unzipped my dress, peeling it down to my waist. The rush of cool air prickled my skin, but then came the heat of his gaze. His hand cupped my breast, thumb circling over lace. Pleasure shot through me, sharp and dizzying.
He lowered his head, mouth replacing his hand, sucking through the fabric. I cried out, arching up off the desk.
He looked up, lips wet, eyes locked on mine. "This is what you do to me," he rasped. "You're chaos."
His hand slid between us, fingers slipping under the waistband of my panties. I went still, every muscle tight.
He noticed. Froze, too.
For a long moment, he just stared at me, chest heaving, his hand burning hot against my skin. I could see the battle in his eyes possession fighting with restraint, hunger snarling at his own rules.
He cursed, rough and low, and pulled his hand away. Rested his forehead against mine, breath hot and uneven.
"Not like this," he muttered, maybe to me, maybe just to himself.
He pushed off the desk, leaving me there, exposed, aching. He turned away, fixing his clothes, his back shutting me out.
"Get dressed," he said, cold as ever. "Dinner's in an hour. Don't be late."
Then he was gone, leaving me sprawled across his desk, body throbbing, mind a mess.
The rules had shifted. I'd seen his hunger.
And I'd just stumbled onto my own.
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8.6
Eight years ago, Rosalyn sold herself for money, and Nathan became her first and only client.
Now, with her wedding approaching, her own fiancé sent her back to the same man.
What should have been one more humiliating transaction dragged her into Nathan's dangerous orbit again-an orbit he had no intention of letting her escape.
As her fiancé cheated and schemed, Nathan crushed him in secret.
When rumors tore at her name, he spent freely to protect her.
But just when he reached for forever, Rosalyn walked away, leaving behind a truth written in blood, loss, and the child they never got to keep.
8.7
Heidi gripped the sterile hospital bedsheets as violent contractions ripped her body apart.
The heavy door opened, but it wasn't the doctor. It was Brigette, wearing the exact custom wedding dress Heidi had spent six months designing for herself.
Brigette held up her phone on speaker. When the doctor warned that a natural delivery would kill the mother, Christian Page's voice echoed through the room, ice-cold and devoid of any warmth.
"Prioritize the Page heirs. Let her die."
The man she loved had just signed her death warrant over the phone.
Brigette stole her newborn twins, dragged her to an abandoned warehouse, and poured gasoline over her bare legs.
Flicking a lit cigar into the puddle, Brigette left Heidi tied to an iron pillar to burn alive.
But as the flames formed a deadly circle around her, Heidi's body convulsed with a terrifying truth.
In the heart of the blazing inferno, she miraculously gave birth to two more babies she didn't know she was carrying.
Using her own back as a human shield against the falling embers, she survived the fire, but the ultimate betrayal burned deeper than her ruined skin.
Four years later, Heidi returned to New York with a reconstructed face, two brilliant children, and a terrifying new identity as the world's top underground surgeon.
When Christian, entirely unaware of who she was, signed a waiver begging her to save his dying grandfather's life, Heidi looked into his desperate eyes with absolute, clinical boredom.
"The game starts now," she said coldly.
7.4
I was only fifteen when my venomous family orchestrated my doom by forcing me into an arranged marriage with mafia heir Javier Velasquez.
On our wedding night, Javier paraded strippers into our suite to show his absolute contempt, turning me into the ultimate joke of the underworld overnight.
But being a joke was a luxury compared to what came next.
Three years later, Javier needed to be a widower to marry into a heavily armed family and secure their backing for a coup.
He didn't grant me the mercy of a bullet.
Instead, he dragged me to an abandoned underground safehouse, locked me in the damp, rotting dark, and told the world I had been assassinated.
For six months, I starved in that dungeon, surviving only on the desperate hope that my family was safe.
Then, on the day of his lavish new wedding, a cruel maid kicked a plate of spoiled food onto my floor and delivered the final, fatal blow.
"Annabel is dead. Pined away and died of a broken heart two weeks ago."
My gentle mother was dead, all because she actually believed his lie about my tragic murder.
Driven by pure agony and an all-consuming hatred, I shattered crates of smuggled chemical solvents and struck a match, letting the roaring inferno turn their bloody wedding into my funeral pyre.
I thought the fire was the end.
But when I opened my eyes, the suffocating smoke vanished, replaced by the biting chill of a Long Island winter.
I was standing in the snow, back on the exact day my descent into hell began.
This time, the terrified girl was dead, and I would use their own ruthless rules to tear their empire apart.
8.3
Five years ago, Lyrix Thorne was publicly rejected by her fated mate and left to die beneath a full moon. Now she's a rogue leader with a ticking death sentence in her veins, hunted for her blood and hated by the Alpha who broke her. When war forces her back into Shadowfang territory, Lyrix comes face-to-face with Raven Blackwood-the ruthless Alpha who shattered her bond and the only wolf powerful enough to save her. He claims his rejection was a lie. A sacrifice. A choice that nearly destroyed him. Lyrix doesn't care. She survived without him, and she refuses to kneel now.
But fate doesn't loosen its grip. The rejection curse is killing her faster than anyone predicted, enemies are closing in, and the mate bond ignites with brutal intensity every time Raven gets too close. He wants redemption. She wants revenge. Between forced proximity, pack politics, and a prophecy written in blood and silver, Lyrix must decide whether love is worth risking her life again-or if letting the Alpha burn is the only way to finally be free.
7.6
"A monster like you could never be my Luna." Those words shatter Elara Voss on the night she finally shifts... into the forbidden Shadow Wolf.
Rejected by the Alpha King and cast out as a cursed monster, Elara flees into the rogue lands with nothing but humiliation burning in her chest.
But when Kairos Blackthorn comes hunting for her, he doesn't find the broken omega he rejected.
He finds a queen.
In a moment of fury, Elara does the impossible-she marks the Alpha King instead.
Now the bond is reversed.
The king who rejected her feels every ounce of her pain... her rage... and her growing power.
As war brews between brothers and ancient enemies rise from the shadows, Kairos must fight to win back the mate he destroyed before Elara's darkness consumes them all.
7.7
I spent two years trying to please Xander Yates, thinking he was the man who would help me save my family’s struggling manufacturing business. As a former senior legal counsel, I thought I knew how to handle sharks, but I never expected the man I loved to be the one who would try to skin me alive.
Everything shattered at a high-end gala when I felt a chemical fire start in my marrow. Xander had spiked my drink, chasing me through the hotel corridors with a predatory smile, ready to take by force what I wouldn't give him willingly.
I barely escaped into an elevator, stealing a key card from a man in a sharp grey suit and collapsing in room 8086. That stranger turned out to be Crockett Blackburn, the "Ice King of Wall Street" and a man my family had spent years avoiding. He didn't save me out of the goodness of his heart; he saved me because he saw a "messy variable" he could turn into a weapon. By morning, Xander was blackmailing me with a video of me drugged, and Crockett was offering me a deal that felt like a deal with the devil. He would save my factory, but only if I gave him 51% controlling interest and became his personal legal counsel.
The humiliation was total. Xander called me a junkie and a slut, while Crockett looked at the bruises on my neck with the cold, clinical assessment of a man checking a damaged piece of equipment. When a secret bid was leaked, Crockett didn't hesitate to pin the blame on me, accusing me of working with my ex to drive up the price.
I was a pawn in a game between two monsters, one who wanted to destroy my body and another who wanted to own my soul and my family’s legacy. I had lost my apartment, my reputation, and my safety in less than twenty-four hours.
"I don't like it when people break my things," Crockett told me as he applied ointment to the marks Xander left on my throat.
I realized then that if I wanted to survive, I had to stop being the victim and start being the predator. I signed the contract, moved into Blackburn’s penthouse, and prepared for a scorched-earth war against the Yates family. I don't care if Crockett Blackburn is using me as a leash—as long as he lets me be the one to bite.