When The Stars Went Dark
Isabella has spent her nineteen years trapped in a gilded cage, never knowing freedom, always under the oppressive control of her father. Using her mother as a pawn, he manipulates and confines her, forcing her into a marriage with a man she doesn't want. Her life is one of obedience, secrets, and silent rebellion-until Landon Volkov enters it.
Landon is an FBI profiler with ties to the shadowy underworld, a man everyone fears and no one dares cross. Cold, controlled, and lethal, he has always kept the world at arm's length-until Isabella awakens something in him no one else ever could.
Drawn together by danger, desire, and an unspoken understanding, Isabella and Landon are pulled into a high-stakes game of power, obsession, and self-discovery. As their connection grows, Landon becomes obsessed with the real Isabella-the girl behind the cage, the one who refuses to be silenced. But in a world where control is currency and betrayal lurks around every corner, can Isabella claim her freedom without losing herself... or the man who might destroy everything for her?
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Chapter: 5Chapter fiveMy fiancé is ten years older than me, and it doesn’t help that he’s in the Italian mafia. The underboss, I’ve been told. An absolute dickhead.I’m on the verge of a panic attack at my own engagement party, and no one seems to care. Not even my father. He’s too busy posing for the cameras, pretending this is a happy day—for him. Not me. This is a nightmare.By the time I make it upstairs to my bedroom, I’ve lost count of how many times I muttered “excuse me.” I slam the door shut and head straight to the mirror.Nowhere feels safe anymore.I feel… trapped. Lost.I let out a cold laugh and dig my nails into my wrist again. Physical pain feels easier to bear than the storm of emotions inside me.My mother wasn’t allowed to attend. The one person I need.“Fuck!” I scream, grabbing the nearest glass and hurling it against the wall. The music downstairs masks the sound. I’m tempted to throw more.“You’re a violent little thing, aren’t you?”I freeze.The voice. I know it. The s
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-04
Chapter: 4Chapter four“I want to go to university,” I say, the words slipping out over breakfast.If looks could kill, I’d be six feet under. My father glares at me like I’ve just spat in his face.“You have everything you need in this house,” he says, and I notice his grip on the knife tighten. “University would be a waste of time.”“Not for me,” I mutter, rolling my eyes. “I want to do something for myself instead of just sitting here all day.”He slams his hand on the table, making me jump. “You want to do something useful?” He grabs the napkin in front of him and wipes his mouth roughly. “Resume training. I’ll send you on missions alongside my men.”I shake my head, a chill running down my spine. The thought of training again terrifies me.Training has never been gentle. They don’t just push your body—they break your mind, too. I’ve been ‘training’ since I was five. Every day was harder, rougher, more brutal. I begged him to stop when I was fifteen. He didn’t. I kept going, and last year i
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-04
Chapter: 3Chapter threeIsabella “You don’t get it, do you?” My father barks at me, and I have to force myself to remain neutral. Don’t show any emotion, Isabella. He’ll be more pissed. “I’m sorry,” I say, looking anywhere but at him. “It won’t happen again.”He laughs coldly. “I told you, time and time again, that you are not to come downstairs when I’m in a meeting.”“I didn’t know you were in a meeting, dad,” I sigh, running my fingers through the strands of my hair. “Really. I didn’t know.”“Did anyone see you?” He asks, watching me with a void of emotion on his face. “Answer me, girl. Did any of the men see you?”I shake my head, lying. No one saw me downstairs. The pretty stranger did see me though. But I don’t tell him that. He doesn’t have to know. It’s not like the stranger saw me while I was standing in front of the meeting room. I was in my room. So technically, I didn’t break any of my father’s stupid rules. “What was that?” He presses.My jaw clenches. “No one saw me downsta
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-04
Chapter: 2Chapter twoLandon“How would you describe yourself?” I almost roll my eyes at the older woman sitting in front of me. She calls herself a therapist— something I don’t need. And yet, here I am. My friend insisted considering the woman is his fucking aunt. All that woman is a professional eavesdropper is all. I keep my calm as I answer. “Hot.” “Landon, I can’t help you if you’re not honest with yourself,” she says pointedly. I don’t need help at all is what I really want to say, but instead settle with something less offensive because contrary to popular beliefs, I’m not a complete asshole. “I’m being honest, Mrs Hollis. I am hot. Don’t you think so?” A deep shade of pink rushes to her cheeks and she looks away. I bite back a smirk at her reaction. “Mr Volkov, you know that is not what I mean when I tell you to describe yourself.” I can tell her patience is wearing thin, but then again, she brought this upon herself. I didn’t ask for this. She and her nephew did. “So, I’ll ask y
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-04
Chapter: 1Chapter OneIsabella “And the shipments?” I hear my father ask. I can picture him sitting at the head of the long mahogany table even with the wooden door closed. I can also picture the ten men sitting around the table, listening to him, all dressed in fancy suits and pretending to be businessmen. But I know who they are. I know exactly what they do, and that thing is far from just business. “Received, sir,” an unfamiliar voice replies. “The drugs are safe. We already have buyers lining up.” “We have the FBI breathing down our necks. Thank god we found a solution for this now.”“Oh sweetheart, you cannot be here!” Janet, the housekeeper, whispers behind me, taking my arm. “If your father saw you…”“I know, I know,” I sigh, stepping away from her and the door. “I just… I want to go out for a bit. I feel suffocated in this house, Jan. I need to go out. I came to ask him if I could. I didn’t know he was in a meeting.”I’m not lying. I honestly had no idea that my father would be in
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-04
Chapter: 53alexia's POVIt was finally the day.The day everything we had been planning—everything we had been hiding, training for, bleeding for—would be exposed to the world. The day two empires would collide and fuse into something far more dangerous than either of us alone.The day we announced the merger.The day we made more enemies than ever before.I stood in front of the mirror, barely recognizing the woman staring back at me. The dress hugged me perfectly—dark, elegant, lethal. It wasn’t just fabric. It was armor. Every stitch felt like a declaration of war.A queen’s uniform.Ace stepped up behind me, his reflection appearing over my shoulder. His eyes dragged over me slowly, appreciation and pride unmistakable.“Ready?” he asked quietly.I met his gaze in the mirror. Calm. Steady. Ruthless.“Ready.”He smiled, that dangerous smile that always meant something big was about to happen.“Let’s go downstairs,” he said. “Everybody’s waiting. We’re heading to the main house together. Zayn s
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-16
Chapter: 52Sleep didn’t come easily after that.Ace drifted off beside me, one arm heavy over my waist, his presence solid and unyielding even in rest. I lay awake, staring into the dark, my thoughts circling like vultures over the same truth.Tomorrow would be the point of no return.I had been raised on strategy and silence. On learning when to speak and, more importantly, when not to. My father taught me that power wasn’t loud—it was patient. It waited. It observed. And then it struck so cleanly that no one even saw the blade until they were already bleeding.Tomorrow, I would stop waiting.Ace shifted beside me, pulling me closer without waking. His grip tightened instinctively, possessive even in sleep, like some part of him sensed how far my thoughts had wandered into dangerous territory.I pressed my palm against his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heart.He trusted me.That wasn’t something Ace gave lightly.People feared him. Respected him. Followed him. But trust? That was rare.
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-14
Chapter: 51I don’t know how long I slept, only that I woke to the rhythmic rise and fall of Ace’s chest beneath my cheek. He slept like a man who trusted no one—shallow breaths, muscles still tense, one arm locked around my waist as if someone might try to take me from him even in his dreams.For a moment, I stayed still.Just listening to him breathe.Just feeling his warmth seeping into my bones.It was strangely peaceful—dangerously peaceful. The kind of moment I never allowed myself to want. Because wanting led to weakness, and weakness got people killed.But with him…I didn’t feel weak.I felt anchored.And maybe that frightened me more than anything else.Bang. Bang. Bang.A rapid knock shattered the silence.I groaned, burying my face deeper against Ace, hoping whoever it was would take the hint and go die somewhere quietly.“What is it?” I snapped, my voice muffled.“Dinner’s ready!” Arielle’s voice echoed through the door, loud enough to give me a headache.Ace shifted beside me with a
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-13
Chapter: 50The night felt different.It wasn’t the kind of difference you could point at or label. It was something woven into the air, something thick, electric, humming against my skin like the world knew tomorrow would change everything. One hour had passed since the meeting—one hour since the men left with wide eyes and whispered theories and that strange mix of fear and anticipation that always followed whenever Ace made a decision involving me.I sat in the back of the car as Ace’s driver sped through the city. Streetlights streaked past like thin gold lines cutting through the dark, and the faint reflection on the window showed my own face looking back at me—composed, quiet, unreadable. The face my father trained me to wear. The face that hid everything soft under steel.My pulse, however, gave me away.Tomorrow.Everything I’d prepared for, everything my father never wanted for me but shaped me for anyway, would unfold in front of the entire syndicate. Tomorrow, I wouldn’t be the girl th
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-13
Chapter: 49I stood in Ace’s bedroom, surrounded by the faint scent of his cologne that always lingered in the air—something dark, woodsy, masculine enough to make my thoughts drift places they shouldn't when I needed to stay focused. His room was so painfully him: minimalistic, neat, dangerous in a quiet, controlled way. There were weapons placed strategically around the room, not out in the open but positioned where someone like me—someone who grew up learning to identify hidden compartments and shadows that weren’t just shadows—would notice them. Guns tucked into drawers, a knife hidden under his nightstand, another beneath the bed frame. All perfectly reachable. All perfectly Ace.And there I stood in the middle of it, staring at my reflection in the full-length mirror near his wardrobe.I was supposed to be getting ready to go to my main house—the house I grew up in, the center of the American mafia, the place that raised me, trained me, shaped me into what I was today. And yet, despite my y
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-10
Chapter: 48My heartbeat stuttered, then slammed painfully against my ribs as the scene in front of me came into focus. I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t. For a long, stretching second the world narrowed to one impossible, horrifying image:Daniella.My sister.With a gun pressed against my mother’s head.Our mother.The metallic click of the safety being turned off stabbed through my ears, sharp and final. My eyes widened, vision blurring with disbelief. It felt like the air had been sucked out of the room.“Daniella?” my mother whispered, her voice trembling with something deeper than fear. Something like heartbreak.My father snapped forward instantly, fury radiating off him like heat. “Daniella, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Let your mother go!”But Daniella didn’t even flinch. Her jaw was clenched tight, her eyes burning with a hatred I had never seen on her. She gestured sharply at us with the barrel of the gun.“Go stand with the others. Move before I shoot her.”The words were venom
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-09
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