Chapter: EPILOGUEDays had slipped by in a swirl of nerves and excitement, but today I was finally ready to tell Monica. Crest had kissed my temple that morning before work, smoothing a hand over my still-flat stomach, and said gently,“I’ll handle telling the kids. They should hear it from me.”And something about the certainty in his voice, quiet, warm, protective, helped me breathe a little easier. I invited Monica over that evening. She drove down from work, wearing her manager badge like a medal she forgot to take off. Her mood was upbeat as usual. Immediately she stepped in, her jaw slacked.“Oh…” she breathed. “So THIS is what you meant by ‘Crest’s place.’ It’s humongous. I mean, I knew Crest was fancy, but this is next level.”I snorted. “Oh please…” I said, pulling her towards the kitchen. “Come on, help me me dinner.” She paused “What? I’m here to help you make dinner?” “No, but let’s start with that.” She dropped her purse on the marble kitchen island like she’d been personally betrayed
Last Updated: 2025-12-04
Chapter: Chapter sixty sixI wasn’t sad, I wasn’t spiraling or crying or dramatically staring out windows like in the movies. I was just… thinking. Thinking so hard my brain felt like it was humming under my skull. Two days had passed and I hadn’t left the apartment. Not because I couldn’t, but because moving felt pointless when every answer I needed was somewhere inside me, not outside. I paced. I sat. I lay down. I got back up. I drank water. I ordered food and didn’t touch half of it.My emotions weren’t loud, they were quiet, orderly, lining themselves up in my head like files waiting for review. Crest wanted to stay home with me both days.“You don’t have to be alone with this,” he had said, searching my face like he expected to find cracks.“I’m not alone,” I’d told him. “I’m just… sorting myself.”It wasn’t sadness he saw. Just… the heavy, scary weight of possibility. So he went to work, He didn’t argue, but he lingered in the doorway that morning, as if leaving felt wrong but hovering felt worse. And t
Last Updated: 2025-12-04
Chapter: Chapter sixty five I did not remember standing up, but suddenly I was on my feet, pacing the bathroom like the walls were closing in. The test sat on the counter, bold and blue and merciless. Crest hadn’t touched it. He just stood by the door, not moving, watching me with a mixture of awe and dread, like he didn’t know whether to smile or step back.I pressed a shaky hand to my forehead. “I… Crest, I don’t know what to do.” It came out harsher than I meant it to, but fear tightened all my words. He approached slowly, like I was a skittish animal. “Sasha. Sit with me,” he said softly, guiding me toward the edge of the tub. But my legs wouldn’t bend. “I can’t decide if I want to have it,” I whispered. “This is a life. This is everything. I—I’m twenty-six. I barely even know how to handle my own chaos, much less—” My throat closed. He didn’t interrupt. His patience made it worse somehow, made my fear feel valid, made the moment real.“I—I mean I knew I’d want kids someday but being an actual mother,” I c
Last Updated: 2025-12-04
Chapter: Chapter sixty fourTime goes by so fast when you’re happy. Three months ago I was with Crest, the love of my life, in Greece. Living in a figment of my imagination. Now, our bond was stronger than ever. Life was almost perfect. The kids kept coming over every weekend, as usual. Monica was excelling, the restaurant was thriving so well under Monica’s management, that I didn’t need to go in every day. Crest was happy, content. It felt like the universe was smiling down at me.Until one Thursday morning, I was sautéing garlic for a simple breakfast, nothing intense, nothing unusual. When the smell hit me like a physical slap. My stomach lurched violently. I turned off the stove so fast the pan nearly skidded, stumbling backward as a wave of nausea punched through me. Crest, still half-asleep and buttoning his shirt. “Are you okay?”“Yeah,” I lied, swallowing hard. “Just… dizzy.”He stepped forward, but I waved him off and hurried to the sink, rinsing my mouth, blaming it on stress… or maybe I was coming do
Last Updated: 2025-12-04
Chapter: Chapter sixty threeA full week had passed since Greece, our closet now looked like a luxury logistics hub. The last of my shipped gifts had arrived. Boxes. Velvet cases. Handwritten notes from jewelers whose names I couldn’t pronounce. With the obscene amount of jewelries I now owned, I’m pretty sure I could open a small jewelry store. I organized everything, sorted what would stay here, and packed the rest neatly so I could take the pieces meant for Monica and Cherry to the restaurant.When I walked into my restaurant office, carrying two glossy, heavy gift bags, both girls were already waiting, coffees in hand, eyes sharp like they’d planned an ambush. Cherry spotted the bags first.“Ohhhh, what is that?” she asked, eyebrows climbing.“Please tell me that’s not a skincare routine,” Monica said. “Because I can’t emotionally handle another twelve-step product line right now.” I dropped the bags on the table, they thudded loudly. Both of them froze.“Okay,” Cherry whispered. “That’s not skincare. That’s
Last Updated: 2025-12-04
Chapter: Chapter sixty two We stepped out of O’Hare and into the cool Chicago air, my body felt like it belonged to a different timezone entirely. The sky was a dull gray, the kind that made the whole city look washed and sleepy. We didn’t talk much on the drive home.Jet lag had wrapped itself around us like a heavy blanket, Crest’s hand rested on my thigh the entire ride, thumb tracing lazy, absentminded patterns through the fabric of my sweat-pants. It was the only thing anchoring me to the present. When his driver pulled into the parking garage of the apartment building, I had to bite back a groan as I stepped out of the car, my legs didn’t feel like mine. He noticed instantly.“You good?” he asked, voice rough from exhaustion.I nodded, even though I looked like I’d been tumble-dried.“You?” He gave a tired half-laugh. “Barely.”We rode the elevator up in a quiet that wasn’t awkward, just heavy, familiar, exhausted. My head rested briefly against his shoulder. He kissed the top of my hair without thinkin
Last Updated: 2025-12-04
Mafia Tech Bro
Tanisha Gregory never imagined her life would collide with the dark world of power, crime, and revenge. As a defiant employee working under the intimidating and impossibly controlled CEO, Christof Gustavo, she’s used to clashing with him. Their relationship is nothing short of explosive arguments, and a mutual dislike that simmers just beneath the surface.
Christof isn’t just a powerful CEO running a successful Tech empire, he’s also a man with a second life. Beneath the tailored suits, calculated authority, lies a ruthless mafia boss, a man who has built his world on loyalty, control, secrets no one outside his inner circle should ever know. Tanisha was never supposed to see that side of him. Yet through a chain of unexpected events, she becomes entangled in the truth of who he really is and once she does, there’s no turning back.
As Christof struggles to suppress feelings he never planned to have for the one woman who constantly challenges him, Tanisha begins to see cracks in the man she once thought was cold and untouchable. But love in Christof’s world comes with a cost. His girlfriend, Pepa, refuses to accept being replaced, and her quiet fury sets a ruthless plan in motion. With one calculated betrayal, she unleashes a violent criminal syndicate determined to destroy Christof and anyone close to him.
Suddenly Tanisha is no longer just an employee caught in office politics. She’s a target in a deadly game between powerful enemies. When revenge spirals out of control and an innocent life is taken, the consequences leave scars that neither love nor power can erase.
In a gripping blend of hate-to-love romance, powerful CEO drama, and high-stakes mafia intrigue, this story explores what happens when love grows in the most dangerous place possible.
Read
Chapter: Chapter fifty fiveCHRISTOFSubjecting myself to a cold shower did little or nothing to clear my head. The house was quieter the further I moved away from the bedroom, the sound of Pepa’s voice dissolving indistinctly, until it no longer registered at all.Better.At the bar, I poured a drink, the motion exact, unhurried. The familiar rhythm requiring no thought. I carried it with me to the private cinema, putting on something familiar. It wasn’t a good show, but I knew it well enough that I didn’t have to pay attention to follow it.I sat through the opening sequence with the glass resting against my palm, my attention drifting before it had even properly settled, the dialogue on the screen failing to hold any weight against the far more persistent intrusion of my own thoughts, which refused, with quiet insistence, to disengage.My attention kept drifting back to the same place, her. It wasn’t her refusal to work overtime that was the infuriating aspect of it, it was the reason behind it. A date. She s
Last Updated: 2026-04-16
Chapter: Chapter fifty fourCHRISTOFThe driver brought the car to a measured stop at the entrance of my home, and I stepped out at once, adjusting my cuffs as I crossed into the house. My attention already shifting into the order I expected within my own space.The house keepers did an impressive job of staying out of sight most of the time, so the house was mostly quiet. Or at least should have been. As I made it up the stairs and into the hall-way, Pepa’s voice carried from the bedroom with an ease that suggested she had forgotten, as she often did, that I valued serenity in the bedroom.It was not the sound itself that irritated me, but the consistency of it, the bright modulation, the careful warmth, the performance embedded so deeply into her manner that it no longer required effort.Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored it. Tonight, I did not. I walked into the bedroom without announcing myself, loosening my tie as I did, my gaze settling briefly on the arrangement before me with the detached a
Last Updated: 2026-04-16
Chapter: Chapter fifty threeTANISHAI knew I was easy on the eyes, even though I do not necessarily put in too much effort in looking pretty. But I’m pretty sure I looked my worst at that luncheon. Thanks to ChristofA faint shift at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile.“You’re beautiful, but it was majorly your countenance.”I blink.“…that’s what you went with?”“You didn’t want to be there,” he says. “At the tech event. And you didn’t try to hide it. Or blend in.”My brows pulled together slightly.“The way you sneered at Christof when he wasn’t looking,” he continued, almost thoughtfully. “The expression on your face during his speech…”He glanced at me then, briefly, like he was checking if I understood.“It was interesting. You were interesting,” he said. “Watching someone who wasn’t trying to please. You weren’t being superficial. You just… let your thoughts sit right there on your face.”The realization that he’d been watching me that day, was quite unsettling.“So you were just there to pick the
Last Updated: 2026-04-15
Chapter: Chapter fifty twoTANISHAI slammed Christof Gustavo’s door. Hard enough to make a point. The sound carried down the hallway, which meant everyone on the executive floor definitely heard it. I didn’t turn around to check, but I could already imagine the silent office gossip spreading like wildfire.Did she just—Yes. She did.I kept walking, like it was a completely normal to slam the CEO’s door every day and then casually head to the elevator. I wished I could punch him in the face, just one time. The satisfaction might just be worth the jail time. The elevator dinged, I stepped inside and the doors closed.And that should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. Because now I’m here, hours later, sitting in Roman’s dining room, and my brain keeps running a replay. Not of the whole argument or whatever that was, just the parts that sting in a very specific way.‘You sound hypocritical.’ I replayed the words, while absentmindedly turning the stem of the wine glass between my fingers. I am not hypocritic
Last Updated: 2026-04-15
Chapter: Chapter fifty oneCHRISTOFTanisha was at her desk when I stepped off the elevator. I’d instructed her to drive straight to the office and not my residence, as I’d be arriving late.She looked up briefly, professional, composed as always. No awareness that twelve hours ago I was standing inside a Cold War submarine pen carved into limestone.“Good morning,” she said.Her tone was neutral, There was a faint hint of floral scent in the air when she moved, not perfume, residual. I was immediately overcome by the same wave of irritation that had washed over me, two days ago, when the smell of her flowers in my car trunk taunted me.“Morning,” I replied, walking past her toward my office. “Get the conference room ready for the renewable brief up. And confirm security has the updated access protocol for our guests.”“Yes sir.”An hour into the meeting, my watch vibrated against my wrist. I didn’t need to know it indicated completion. I let a subtle smile play at the corner of my lips.When I returned to my
Last Updated: 2026-04-13
Chapter: Chapter fiftyCHRISTOFRoman doesn’t hover. He doesn’t pry, he doesn’t ask unnecessary questions. He opens doors and walks away before you thank him. If he grants access to international waters, he does it because a deal was made, not necessarily because he needs to know what sails through.To him, power is a handshake, information, a bribe, and the old-world grease that keeps the wheels of the Mediterranean turning. In my world, it’s preparation.“The Adriatic is a bathtub, Christof," he’d told me, two days ago. "Too many ears. Too many American 'advisors' teaching the locals how to use sonar. If you want to move your... packages... you need the lane to stay open, I can do that.”The “lane” was a specific set of naval coordinates and a three-hour window where the radar at the Prevlaka station would undergo “scheduled maintenance.”I didn’t explain my logistics. He didn’t ask, that’s why we work. I didn’t buy submarines, I bought ‘Environmental Data Buoys.’ That’s what the customs forms in the Adr
Last Updated: 2026-04-12
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