SHATTERED VOWS
Isabelle Ashford's aristocratic family is drowning in debt and scandal when Dante Marchetti offers a devil's bargain: marriage in exchange for erasing their financial ruin. She accepts, believing she's sacrificing herself for her younger sister's future. But from the moment she steps into Dante's fortress-like mansion, she realizes this isn't a marriage of convenience; it's a beautifully constructed prison. Dante is cold, controlling, and seems to delight in psychological games that leave her questioning her own sanity. He monitors her every move, isolates her from the outside world, and treats her like a possession he's studying under glass.
As weeks pass, Isabelle begins noticing inconsistencies. Dante's cruelty sometimes feels like protection. His surveillance system captures threats she didn't know existed. His empire, built on blackmail and coercion, seems designed to destroy specific people connected to her family's past. When she discovers hidden files in his study, she learns a horrifying truth: her father wasn't just a failed businessman; he was part of a criminal syndicate that trafficked information and ruined lives. Dante's parents were among their victims.
Her marriage isn't random, it's revenge twenty years in the making. But as Isabelle digs deeper, she uncovers something even more sinister: the syndicate her father once belonged to has been hunting Dante for years, and now they've marked her as their way to destroy him. Caught between a husband who married her to break her and enemies who want her dead, Isabelle must decide whether to escape the monster she married or join him in a war that could consume them both.
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Chapter: THE THING THAT FOLLOWSThe alarm did not stop screaming.It followed them.It echoed through the stairwell as Dante dragged Isabelle toward the emergency exit, his grip iron tight around her wrist. The building felt suddenly hostile, every polished surface a potential threat, every corner hiding eyes.“Keep your head down,” he said sharply. “And do not let go of me.”“I’m not a child,” she snapped, even as her heart hammered so hard it hurt.“Right now,” he replied without slowing, “you are exactly what they want. That makes you fragile.”That shut her up.Marcus Stone appeared at the stairwell landing like he’d been summoned by instinct alone, earpiece crackling, gun already in his hand. His eyes flicked over Isabelle in a rapid assessment, alive, upright, terrified.“Black sedan is compromised,” Marcus said. “Secondary vehicle ready on Forty-Eighth.”“Clear the floor,” Dante ordered. “No press. No delays.”They moved fast.Isabelle barely registered the chaos around her security shouting into radios, door
Last Updated: 2025-12-27
Chapter: GLASS SMILESBy the time the city woke, Isabelle had already lived a lifetime.New York looked unreal from the back seat of Dante’s car steel and glass rising into a pale morning sky, sharp and indifferent. The city hummed with life, unaware that she was riding into it like an offering wrapped in silk.She stared out the window, fingers curled tightly in her lap. Mrs. Chen had dressed her with quiet efficiency: a charcoal-gray dress that hugged her waist and skimmed her knees, elegant and restrained. Power dressing. Dante’s choice, no doubt.“You look appropriate,” he said beside her, eyes scanning her reflection in the tinted glass. “That’s important.”Appropriate.She didn’t answer.His hand rested on her thigh, not possessive deliberate. A reminder. The warmth of it burned through the thin fabric.“This is not a social event,” he continued calmly. “This is a test. Smile when I smile. Speak when spoken to. Do not improvise.”“I’m not your employee.”“No,” he agreed softly. “You’re more valuable
Last Updated: 2025-12-27
Chapter: SHADOWS IN THE WALL I woke up at three in the morning to the sound of someone screaming.For a confused moment, I thought it was me. That I'd been having a nightmare about the wedding, about Dante's face close to mine, about becoming someone I didn't recognize. But no, the screaming was coming from somewhere else in the house. Distant but clear in the silent darkness.I grabbed my robe and opened my bedroom door slowly. The hallway was dim, lit only by small emergency lights near the floor. The screaming had stopped, replaced by something worse. Silence that felt heavy and wrong.Every instinct told me to go back to bed. Lock my door. Pretend I hadn't heard anything. But I'd never been good at ignoring things that scared me.I followed the hallway toward the main staircase, my bare feet silent on the carpet. The house felt different at night. Bigger. Like the walls expanded when no one was looking.That's when I heard it. Low voices coming from the floor below. One of them was Dante.I crept down the sta
Last Updated: 2025-12-10
Chapter: RULES OF ENGAGEMENT What I discovered first was that Dante Marchetti didn't eat supper like a normal human being.I entered the dining room at six fifty-five, not desiring to give him the satisfaction of having me arrive late. The room was as cold and Spartan as the rest of the house: a twenty-seat long mahogany table, crystal chandelier overhead, artwork on the walls that probably cost more money than most individuals earned in a lifetime.Dante was already seated at the head of the table, scrolling on his tablet. He didn't look up when I entered.I stood there, waiting for a quick greeting. But then nothing, not even a verbal response from him. Just the soft click of his fingers against the screen and the beat of my own breathing."Should I take a seat, or do you have to tell me where?" I asked finally.His eyes went up. Cold, calculating. "Wherever you'd like. Though most don't want to sit across from you as far away as possible as if they're afraid of you.""I am afraid of you."A fleeting expression
Last Updated: 2025-12-10
Chapter: THE CEREMONY The wedding had not been anything like I had imagined weddings to be.No flowers. No music. No one there but two lawyers who were bored and a judge who was annoyed he was working on the weekend. The ceremony took place in a chapel that Dante owned; of course he owned a chapel and it all did not even take a quarter hour.I wore a white gown I'd dragged out of the depths of my closet, one I'd bought for a charity event two years ago. It was too tight now, or maybe that was just my chest shrinking in terror. Charlotte'd suggested going, but I'd refused. There are some things that are best done alone.Dante wore black. Right, I thought. As if he'd been to a funeral instead of a wedding.Maybe he had.The judge mumbled through the vows in a flat voice that made it sound as if he did this kind of thing all the time. Contract weddings, no doubt. Business deals between powerful people who use love like they'd use a quarterly statement."Do you, Isabelle Marie Ashford, take this man…""I do,"
Last Updated: 2025-12-10
Chapter: THE WEIGHT OF CHOICE I didn't sleep that night.The contract sat on my nightstand like a coiled snake, three pages of legal language that basically said I would belong to Dante Marchetti for the next three years. I must have read it twenty times, looking for the trap hidden in the words. But the terms were exactly what he'd said. Generous, even. Too generous.That's what scared me most.At four in the morning, I gave up on sleep and went downstairs to make coffee. The house was quiet in that heavy way that comes right before dawn, when everything feels weak and temporary. I sat at the kitchen table where my family used to eat breakfast together, back when Dad was still alive and Mom still smiled and Charlotte still believed our lives were magical.That felt like a different lifetime now.The coffee was still brewing when I heard footsteps on the stairs. Charlotte appeared in the doorway, wearing one of Dad's old college sweatshirts that hung past her knees. At nineteen, she still looked like a kid to me,
Last Updated: 2025-12-10
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