Bait for the devil
She was his enemy. Then she was his prisoner. Now, she is his soul-bound prey.
Arielle Monet was raised to be a queen of the French Syndicate—loyal, lethal, and silent. When she is captured by the ruthless "Devil of Marseille," Girard Roux, she prepares to endure hell for her family. She waits for the rescue that will never come.
Then comes the shattering truth: Her father didn't lose her. He sold her.
Marcel Monet used his own daughter as a sacrificial lamb, a distraction to buy his escape while the wolf tore her apart.
But Girard Roux doesn't want her blood. He wants her name, her spirit, and her life. In a move that shocks the underworld, he forces a ring onto her finger and a vow onto her lips. Trapped in his ancestral estate, Arielle expects a marriage of cold revenge. Instead, she finds a world of dark, carnal hunger and a terrifying secret hidden behind Girard’s golden eyes.
He isn't just a Don. He isn't even human.
As the moon rises and the beast within her husband begins to howl, Arielle faces a choice that will stain her soul: Run from the monster who bought her, or surrender to the Alpha who promises to burn the whole world down for her.
One vow will bind them. One truth will break them. One taste will change everything.
Baca
Chapter: 30. THE SILENT DEPTH OF SACRIFICEThe water didn’t feel cold at first. It felt like a heavy, velvet curtain closing over the world, silencing the roar of the storm and the crackle of the lightning. As I sank deeper into the black heart of the Mediterranean, the agony of the Solstice Strain—that jagged, purple lightning I had pulled from Girard’s soul—began to settle into a dull, pulsing ache. I was a tether, a grounding wire, and I had done my job. But as the surface light faded into a shimmering, distant memory, the realization hit me: a lightning rod is only useful until it melts. My lungs burned, a desperate, rhythmic throbbing that reminded me I was still human, still fragile, still bound by the laws of oxygen and bone. I watched a trail of silver bubbles float upward—my last breath, escaping into the abyss. Is this how it ends? I thought, my mind drifting toward the image of Elena in her nursery. Did I trade my life for his sanity? Above me, the water suddenly erupted. A massive, glowing shape
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-02-06
Chapter: 28. THE ABYSS OF THE APEX I stood at the helm of the Valkyrie, a high-speed, blacked-out interceptor boat designed for Syndicate smuggling. It was a vessel of silent lethality, its twin engines humming with a suppressed growl that barely rose above the roar of the gale. My knuckles were white as I gripped the steering wheel, my eyes locked on the holographic Bond-Tracker I had rigged to the dashboard. The tracker was a jagged, pulsing violet line. It wasn’t steady. It was erratic, jumping and flatlining like a dying heart. It was the visual representation of my connection to Girard—a link that Lucian Moretti had turned into a barbed-wire leash. “Proximity: two hundred meters,” the onboard computer chirped in a cold, synthetic tone. “Bio-signature: unstable. Elevated adrenaline. Accelerated cellular regeneration.” “He’s fighting it,” I whispered, my voice lost to the wind. “He’s trying to stay under the water to keep the fire in his brain from exploding.” Suddenly, a series of bright, blindi
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-02-01
Chapter: THE NEUTRALIZING LUNAThe silence following Girard’s departure was more deafening than the storm. As the white-lightning aura of his body vanished beneath the churning black waves of the Mediterranean, the Lien de Sang didn’t just go cold—it went flat. It was the terrifying stillness of a heart monitor that had stopped its rhythmic beep. I stood at the edge of the jagged stone gap in the library wall, rain-soaked and shivering. The copper taste was still thick in my mouth, a lingering reminder of Lucian Moretti’s poison, but it was being replaced by the acrid scent of ozone and the heavy weight of realization. My husband hadn’t just fled; he had sacrificed his presence to save my life from the agony he felt when we were near. “Madame!” The voice was ragged. I turned to see Bastien stumbling into the ruined library. His tactical gear was shredded, and a deep gash across his shoulder was weeping crimson, but his eyes were clear—and filled with a desperate, mounting dread. He looked at the broken wall,
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-01-25
Chapter: The GHOST and the GRAVE *ARIELLE’s POV**The North Tower had gone from a sanctuary to a tomb in the span of an hour. I stood in the center of the library, the glow of six different computer monitors casting a sickly, pale light over my skin. My hands were shaking so violently I had to grip the edge of the mahogany desk just to keep from collapsing. Below, in the bowels of the estate, I could hear the sounds of a nightmare: the splintering of wood, the roar of a beast that had forgotten its name, and the terrified shouts of guards who didn’t know whether to protect their Alpha or run from him. The Lien de Sang was no longer a conversation; it was a scream. Every time Girard smashed a door or tore through a stone wall in his feral state, I felt the phantom impact in my own skull. The “ice” had turned into a searing, acidic heat. It felt as if my very soul were being sandpapered raw. “Think, Arielle. Think,” I whispered to myself, my eyes scanning the scrolls of data I had pulled from my fath
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-01-22
Chapter: The Taste of Copper **Arielle’s POV**The air in the nursery changed in a heartbeat. One moment, the room was filled with the sweet, milky scent of Elena’s sleep and the lavender-infused warmth of the afternoon sun. The next, a draft cut through the chamber—cold, sterile, and carrying a faint metallic tang that sat on the back of my tongue like a copper coin. I frowned, glancing at the arched window. I was sure I had latched it. In a house like this, where every shadow was a potential threat and every breeze was monitored by sensors, a sudden draft was enough to make the hair on my arms stand up. I walked over to the glass, my fingers brushing the stone frame. It was locked. Secure. Yet, the smell of copper grew stronger, thickening until it felt like a film coating my throat. Elena. I whirled around, my heart leaping into my throat. My daughter was still sleeping, but her breathing had changed. It was no longer the soft, rhythmic puffing of a contented infant; it was jagged, he
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-01-22
Chapter: 25. The Architect of Agony **LUCIAN’s POV** Rome was a city built on the bones of the conquered, and as I stood in the subterranean depths of the Moretti estate, I felt like the rightful heir to that legacy.Upstairs, the villa was a masterpiece of Renaissance art and sun-drenched marble, but down here, in the sub-basement my father had converted into a black-site laboratory, the air was cold, recycled, and carried the faint, metallic tang of blood and ozone. It was a place of science, not tradition. My family had spent generations relying on the blunt force of the Mafia—on intimidation, silver bullets, and the primitive violence of the street.My brother, Dante, had been the pinnacle of that stupidity. He had gone to Marseille with a god-complex and a handful of stolen serum, thinking he could break a Roux Alpha with chains. He had failed because he didn’t understand that you don’t break a wolf by hitting it. You break a wolf by poisoning the ground it stands on.I stood before a wall of liquid-crystal
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-01-19
Masuk
