The Cost of Saving Him
Mina Mendoza never expected her quiet life to end with a blood-soaked stranger collapsing in her bar. Luciano is older, dangerous, and carries the kind of power she knows better than to get close to. One night of helping him turns into a war she never meant to step into, and the mafia world she avoided pulls her in with no way out.
But the worst part is not Luciano.
It is the man standing behind him.
Frankie, Luciano’s younger brother, is Mina’s first love, the boy she lost and never honestly forgot. Now he is caught between loyalty to his brother and the feelings he buried years ago. Mina is trapped between the man who crashed into her life like a storm and the man who still owns a piece of her heart.
As danger closes in, Mina must choose whom she trusts, whom she loves, and whom she is willing to risk everything for. Saving Luciano changed her world. Loving either brother might destroy it.
~SNEAK PEEK~
His voice dropped, low and possessive. “Fine. One kiss, then we wait.”
I told him I didn’t care. “I want you now.”
He pressed his forehead to mine. “Once we start, there is no going back.”
I nodded, and something shifted in his eyes. He leaned me back on the bed, hands braced beside me. “Are you sure?”
“If I weren’t sure, we wouldn’t be here.”
His kiss was deep, powerful, slow, stealing my breath. I arched into him as his mouth traced my jaw and throat, heat racing through me.
“I need you,” I whispered, and everything changed.
Ler
Chapter: The Legacy of Luciano Gambino– Mina –Three more months went by, with pressure growing quietly beneath the surface. The city changed seasons without warning, and I had to keep pace, even when my body lagged. Grief didn’t disappear; it shifted, settling deeper, becoming heavier and more ingrained.The hospital room was unnaturally bright for the time, washing everything in an almost surreal glow. Machines beeped softly beside me, their steady sounds mingling with a fluctuating pain that ebbed and flowed unpredictably. I concentrated on my breath, fingers clenched tightly in the sheets, counting the unreliable seconds. No matter how long this lasted, I knew I couldn’t will my way through it.I had been awake for hours before anyone entered. Time felt strange, stretching and snapping back, with moments blending. My body hurt in unfamiliar places, deep and persistent, as if something was forcing itself out. I pressed my forehead into the pillow and tried to stay calm.The door opened softly, and I recognized Frankie
Última atualização: 2026-02-10
Chapter: The Rise of a New Don-Mina-Six months after the fire, the city still carried the scent of ash, especially when the rain fell oddly. New York carried on as if untouched, yet beneath the surface, the underworld’s rhythm shifted, slower above, more brutal below. I realized that grief didn’t disappear; instead, it was hidden away in pockets and brought into meetings like a loaded gun.Frankie practically ran everyone out of Luca’s house, for practical reasons and as a quiet, unspoken cruelty. Luca’s presence seemed to linger throughout the hallways, and the soldiers moved softly, fearing noise might wake the dead. Frankie never sat in Luca’s chair, not once, and the capos noticed this, even if they tried to hide it. Only meetings happened there, almost as if Frankie intended to honor Luca’s authority even in his absence. The cartel’s presence felt so routine it would have horrified my former self. Rafael’s sicarios moved around the perimeter with a strict discipline that seemed even colder than that of Gamb
Última atualização: 2026-02-08
Chapter: An Untouchable Bruise– Mina –The house felt wrong the second we crossed the threshold. It wasn’t quiet in the usual way, not resting or sleeping, but hollow, as if something vital had been pulled out and the walls hadn’t yet figured out how to hold themselves. Men stood where they always stood, but no one spoke unless spoken to. Luca’s absence pressed into every corner like a bruise you couldn’t stop touching.Max knew before any of us said it out loud. He paced the front room in tight, restless loops, nails clicking on the floor, ears pinned forward as if listening for footsteps that weren’t coming. When he finally stopped, he let out a low sound from deep in his chest, not a growl but something closer to grief. I sank to my knees beside him and pressed my face into his fur, breathing him in as if it might keep me upright.Frankie didn’t remove his jacket. He didn’t sit or pace or lean. He stood in the center of the room as if moving might finally break the world all the way open.Tony stayed close to h
Última atualização: 2026-02-06
Chapter: What Felt Like a Sin-Mina-The fire continued to burn even after the sirens arrived, as if the building refused to give up what it had absorbed. Flames climbed the jagged concrete, reaching into the night sky while dark smoke billowed across the street. I stood rooted to the spot between Tony and Rafael, their grips tight on my arms because my legs didn't respond anymore. People kept calling his name, but Luca never responded. Frankie was on his knees near the curb, fists pressed into the asphalt as if he could anchor himself to the earth. His voice was gone from screaming, his throat raw and torn, but his mouth still moved as if he were begging something to undo itself. Tony crouched beside him, trying to speak sense into a man who had just watched his world burn. I had never seen Frankie look small before, and the sight broke something open in my chest. The firefighters moved with brutal efficiency, hoses roaring as water slammed into a fire that refused to die quietly. Someone shouted that the struc
Última atualização: 2026-02-03
Chapter: He Never Came Out– Mina –The trap didn’t feel like one until it was already closed, because traps never announce themselves with noise. They arrive as silence, as gaps where men should be, as radios that hesitate before answering. I felt it in my chest before anyone said the word, a pressure that made breathing feel like work instead of instinct.We were split across the city, deliberately thin, deliberately exposed. Frankie signed off on it with a jaw clenched so hard I thought it might crack, and Luca didn’t stop him. That was the first omen, the way Luca let it happen.The first call came from the Bronx corridor. A patrol reported movement where none should have been, then static swallowed the channel whole. By the time the feed came back, all we heard was gunfire and a man screaming for his mother in a language I didn’t understand.Frankie grabbed the radio so hard his knuckles went white. “Hold your ground,” he ordered. “Do not chase.” The screaming stopped mid-word, and the silence that followe
Última atualização: 2026-01-30
Chapter: Exposed– Mina –The city didn’t wait for permission to burn. It answered Frankie’s executions with violence so loud it rattled windows and woke people who didn’t know their lives were already collateral. Smoke rose from Queens before the radios caught up, thick and black, the kind that clings to clothes and lungs long after the flames die.The first front was a cash warehouse we thought was dead weight. Alaric had left accelerant in the walls and men chained inside, and the explosion folded the building in on itself like paper. Two bodies were pulled out alive but screaming, skin blistered and eyes ruined, begging for mercy that never came.The second hit landed thirty minutes later near the docks. A transport hub we used for clean movement turned into an oven, metal warping, and tires screaming as they melted. Frankie watched the feed without blinking, jaw tight, already measuring how much blood this would cost us to answer.“They’re not retaliating,” Frankie said. “They’re announcing.”Ton
Última atualização: 2026-01-28
Chapter: What Was TakenThe first sound Sethis made was a breath dragged too deep into his chest. Not pain. Panic. Mae caught him before he fully collapsed, her hands gripping his shoulders as his weight sagged forward. His body shook beneath her touch, muscles locking as if they no longer knew how to hold themselves together. Where his shadows should have pooled, there was nothing. Bare ground. Empty air.“Sethis,” she said again, sharper now. “Look at me.”His eyes were wide, unfocused, pupils blown as if he were staring into something only he could see. His voice came out hoarse. “They are not answering.”Mae’s chest tightened. “They will. You just need a moment.”“No,” he said, almost violently. “You do not understand. They are gone.”The words hit harder than the blow Lucien had taken. Mae felt the fracture stir uneasily, a subtle misalignment where Sethis’s presence had always been threaded into the battlefield. It was not gone. It was wrong.Lucien staggered closer, chains still glowing faintly as he
Última atualização: 2026-02-06
Chapter: The Shape of RefusalThe light did not explode outward. It collapsed inward.Mae braced herself as the golden rift collapsed in on itself, ash and air drawn toward a single point with terrifying precision. The ground groaned beneath her boots, cracks racing outward like veins beneath the skin. Her chains burned hot, not in defense but in recognition. This was not an attack. It was formation.Sethis swore under his breath, shadows flaring wide as he shifted closer to Mae. “That is not how a champion arrives.”Kaine did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the narrowing core of light, his jaw set, the gold fire along his arms dimming as though something were being siphoned away.The vortex tightened further. The sound deepened into a low resonance that rattled teeth and bone, not violent but deliberate. Mae felt it in her chest, a pressure that matched her pulse exactly. Whatever was forming was listening.Then the light split, and a figure stepped free.It was neither vast nor monstrous, nearly human in form
Última atualização: 2025-12-31
Chapter: The Fracture MultipliesThe ground continued to tremble long after Kaine’s warning settled into Mae’s bones. The thin line of gold light at the horizon pulsed once, then again, like a distant heartbeat answering her own. Ash drifted through the air, clinging to her skin, her chains humming low beneath it all. Whatever had awakened was not rushing. It was gathering.Sethis stood rigid beside her, shadows drawn tight, coiled like a blade held back by restraint alone. His gaze never left the glowing horizon. “That light does not belong here,” he said. “It feels wrong.”Kaine watched it with a familiarity that unsettled her. The gold in his eyes flickered, dimmer now, as though something in the distance pulled at him. “It does not belong anywhere,” he replied. “That is the problem.”Mae forced herself to breathe. Every instinct screamed that this was spiraling beyond her control, yet the fracture inside her was calm. Not quiet. Calm. It pulsed steadily, as if this was always the direction things were meant to mo
Última atualização: 2025-12-28
Chapter: Ashes in GoldKaine emerged from the ashes as if the world had been waiting for him. His eyes glowed with a steady gold that pulsed like a heartbeat, and the chains draped along his arms shone with a warmth that didn’t belong to death. Mae couldn’t breathe. Her body froze, caught between terror and relief.Sethis instinctively stepped in front of her, shadows rising in a defensive wall that flickered with uncertainty. The air around them shifted, heavy and electric, as if reality itself strained to comprehend how Kaine remained alive before them.Mae took one step forward. Her pulse echoed loudly against her ribs, her chains vibrating with frantic energy. She searched his face for something familiar, anything that proved he was the man she knew and not a shadow from the fracture.Kaine only smiled, slow and steady, as if he were greeting her in the quiet morning light instead of amidst the ruins of a battlefield that had nearly claimed them all. He lifted a hand slightly, palm open, offering calm i
Última atualização: 2025-11-29
Chapter: The Return of FireThe wind carried the scent of ash and iron, stirring the remnants of battle around them. Mae’s pulse thrummed against her throat, every beat echoing in the chains that still glowed faintly beneath her skin. Sethis stood only a breath away, his presence wrapping around her like a storm contained by will alone.“You’ve bound yourself to it,” he said quietly. “To the fracture. To him.” Mae’s fingers tightened at her sides. “I made a choice.”“No,” Sethis whispered, stepping closer, his shadows tightening. “You answered a call. One that will not stop until it owns you.”She turned to face him, the violet light in her eyes flickering. “You think I don’t know what I’ve done? You think I don’t feel it clawing through me?” Sethis’s expression shifted. Anger, grief, and something deeper. “You gave yourself to the thing that wanted to unmake you.”“I ended the war,” she said, voice trembling with exhaustion. “The champion fell.” He laughed once, dark and hollow. “Fell? Mae, it kneeled. There’s
Última atualização: 2025-10-11
Chapter: Crown of Violet FireThe Champion fell to its knees.The sound was like mountains breaking, stone groaning against the weight of surrender. Ash and flame swirled around its colossal frame as if the battlefield itself could not understand what it had just witnessed. The creature that had brought gods to ruin, that had swallowed armies whole, bent before her with its chains scraping low into the fractured earth.Mae’s breath caught. Her hands trembled in the still air, though her violet chains no longer shook. They pulsed in quiet rhythm with her racing heart. The Fallen stared in stunned silence, each of them caught between rage, awe, and disbelief.Lucien’s voice was the first to pierce the stillness, raw and unsteady. “No. This is not victory.” His chains rattled uselessly, still pinned by Mae’s will. His eyes burned into her like fire meant to scorch away illusion. “It kneels because you are surrendering yourself. You are feeding it exactly what it wanted.”Riven’s wings twitched against the bindings, f
Última atualização: 2025-09-22
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