LOGINLivia SoleneVincent has a crippling, irrational phobia of chickenpox. I learned that the hard way during our third year of marriage. The moment one of our private cooks accidentally showed up with a faint rash breaking out on her neck, Vincent went completely ballistic, screaming at the top of his lungs before firing her on the spot without a single drop of remorse. Later that same year, when we flew out to Detroit to visit his cousin and walked into a house where the kids were recovering from chickenpox, Vincent didn't even step past the front foyer. He practically threw me back out the door, dove into our car, and drove away like we were fleeing a crime scene, leaving me stranded outside on the curb.So, I decide to weaponize his own paranoia against him.Thank God for my obsession with art and makeup during my college days. Faking a vicious, full-blown case of chickenpox on my skin is an absolute walk in the park. I spend twenty minutes mixing stage blood and heavy crimson pigment
Livia SoleneI did it.It is nearly one in the morning when Dante’s sleek, tinted car pulls up to the curb, dropping me back off outside my personal cage. Dante desperately tried to keep me trapped in his suite, begging me to stay the night, wrapped safely in his arms, away from this toxic prison. But I knew I couldn’t. Staying out past dawn would only invite an immediate, catastrophic interrogation from Vincent.The mirrored walls of the elevator I am waiting reflect a woman who looks entirely different from the one who left this penthouse hours ago. I am unraveling at the seams, yet I have never felt more alive. As the carillon chimes and the doors slide open, my phone suddenly vibrates against my palm, lighting up with a fresh notification. I pull it out, unlocking the screen to find a text message from Dante waiting.“Are you home now, mi reina? I miss you already.”I stepped inside the elevator and pressed my floor. I can't hide my smile.Dante is relentlessly clingy. It is a sta
Livia SoleneI melt completely into the heat of his skin, my breath catching as his large, heavy arms wrap around my naked body, pulling me flush against his hard chest beneath the thick, tangled hotel duvet. The heavy, sweet scent of his cologne lingers on the pillows, wrapping around me like a cage I never want to escape. My skin still hums with the electric aftermath of his touch, completely ruined for anything else.It is utterly impossible to say no to a man like Dante. He strips away every defensive wall I spent years building, consuming every fraction of my attention with an intense, staggering devotion that leaves me completely defenseless.“Am I too rough?” he murmurs against my hair, his voice dropping into a low, raspy register of genuine concern as his lips press a soft, lingering kiss to the crown of my head.“No,” I whisper, burying my face deeper into the solid wall of his chest, violently shaking my head against his skin. I want to freeze time right here. I want to stay
Livia SoleneMy phone keeps vibrating against the mahogany surface of the bedside table, buzzing with a frantic, relentless rhythm that has been drilling into my skull for the past three hours. I don’t even need to pick it up to know who is on the other end of those digital shockwaves. It is Dante. It is always Dante. Even after I coldly blocked his primary number, a man with his kind of bottomless wealth and infinite power can easily bypass a digital wall. He can buy a new burner line, route through a private server, or simply have one of his loyal men dial my private line until my ears bleed.I tear my gaze away from the brightly lit television screen playing across the bedroom, my chest tightening as I watch the screen illuminate the dark room yet again with an unknown caller ID. It has been ringing continuously, an unyielding electronic heartbeat that mirrors the chaotic thumping inside my own ribs. A stubborn part of me refuses to block it again. Deep down, beneath layers of gui
Livia SoleneWhat on earth is he playing at?! What kind of sick, twisted game is he running? Walking right into the lion’s den? Coming straight into our penthouse?! Has he completely lost his mind?!“Mr. Cortez,” Vincent gushes, his voice pitching up into that nauseating, subservient register that makes my skin crawl. “I am so glad you decided to accept my invitation to meet.”Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dante. But his dark, intense light-brown eyes aren't looking at Vincent at all. They are locked entirely, unblinkingly, onto me. His gaze is so heavy, so searingly hot, that it feels like a physical brand against my skin. I force every ounce of my willpower to keep my expression completely neutral, hiding the inner earthquake rattling my bones, but I let my eyes slice toward him, delivering the sharpest, most venomous glare I can muster while Vincent remains entirely oblivious.“Our encounter yesterday was... unfortunate, Mr. Cortez,” Vincent chatters on, oblivious, shaking Dan
Livia Solene“How are you, principessa?” My grandfather, Patriarch Giovanni Feroci Sr., answers on the very first ring. His gravelly voice instantly warmed the cold, empty air of the bedroom. Princess.It is barely eight in the morning, but the suffocating weight of yesterday’s disaster has been pressing against my chest all night, leaving me restless and desperate. I didn't plan to call him, but hearing his voice feels like grabbing onto a lifeline in the middle of a freezing ocean. My parents are terrible, suffocating, and relentlessly controlling, always breathing down my neck, demanding a child I cannot give them while treating me like a piece of property. But my Nonno is different. He is the iron-fisted patriarch running the entire Feroci family with an absolute, terrifying grip. Even though I was just a little girl when I first overheard hushed, terrifying conversations in the dark hallways about money laundering, dock smuggling, and illegal syndicates, I learned to keep my mo







