She ran from her abusive father straight into the mansion of Italy’s most dangerous man. One drugged night changed everything. Now she’s carrying his child… and he thinks she planned it. Forced into marriage with a cold, ruthless mafia boss, Maya must survive jealous rivals, a vengeful father, and a war between crime lords .... all while trapped in a love that could destroy them both.
Lihat lebih banyakThe morning brought no peace.Lucien had risen before the sun, his body conditioned to routine long before Maya had ever come into his life. The air in the room was cool, shadows stretching long across the floorboards, but his attention lingered on the figure beside him.She lay curled on her side of the bed, hair spilled across the pillow like dark silk, her breaths slow and uneven. Even in sleep, there was a fragility to her posture, as if she feared the bed itself might reject her.For one dangerous moment, he let his gaze soften. The memory of the night before pressed against him, her sobs trembling through the silence, her body taut until he drew her close. The small, unconscious way she had clutched his shirt, desperate not to be abandoned.It had shaken him. More than it should have.Lucien’s hand hovered over the curve of her hip, fingers twitching with the urge to touch. But he pulled back, clenching his fist instead. Affection
The office should have steadied him.It always had.Lucien had carved this room into a sanctuary of power, polished wood gleaming beneath low lights, steel fixtures gleaming cold against the shadows, monitors casting their faint glow across shelves lined with dossiers. Each file represented leverage, every name a weapon waiting to be drawn. It was the beating heart of his empire, a place where he dictated order, where chaos bent to his will.But tonight, it betrayed him.He sat behind his desk, a fortress of oak and glass, the amber burn of untouched whiskey catching the lamplight at his elbow. Reports lay spread before him, black ink marching across white pages in orderly lines. Numbers, shipments, accounts, betrayals — all of it should have demanded his mind. It usually did.Instead, his thoughts chased something far more dangerous than any rival.A sound.Not the silence of power, not the hum of machines and security
The mansion had gone quiet.Not the ordinary hush of nighttime, but a deeper kind of silence, as if the house itself knew to hold its breath when its master prowled.Lucien moved through the halls with measured steps, his phone still cooling in his palm from the call he’d just ended. Business never slept, and neither did he. But the hour was late enough that most of his men had retreated to their posts outside, the guards stationed like shadows at the gates, and the servants tucked away in their quarters. Only the low hum of security cameras and the occasional groan of old wood marked the stillness.He welcomed it. Silence was order. Silence meant control.When he reached his private quarters, he pushed the door open without ceremony, expecting the same silence inside.But the air was different here.The room was dim, the fire in the hearth long dead, shadows stretching long fingers across the high walls. The massive bed dominate
The Russo club was not the kind of place a man entered lightly.It wasn’t on any map, didn’t need a sign above its iron doors. If you knew it existed, you already knew you weren’t welcome. The building sat on a narrow side street, anonymous to the world, but to those who mattered, it was a throne room. Men walked inside with nerves steel-wrapped or else they didn’t walk out at all.Maxim Santoro didn’t flinch.His boots clicked against slick pavement as he crossed to the guarded entrance. Two men in tailored suits blocked his path, broad-shouldered, silent. They didn’t ask his name; they didn’t need to. They recognized him—and they recognized that he came without invitation.For a beat, Maxim thought they might turn him away. Then, one of the guards gave a short nod and pulled the iron door open.He stepped into the lion’s den.The air was thick with smoke and liquor, the metallic tang of danger riding beneath it. Laughter and th
For weeks, Maxim Santoro had lived in a state of simmering rage.Every morning bled into night with no peace in between. His men searched in waves, crawling through the city’s alleys, pounding fists on locked doors, dragging secrets from trembling mouths. Still nothing. No Maya. No whispers of where she had fled.It gnawed at him,her absence. She was his property, his pawn, his blood, and she had slipped through his fingers like smoke. Each day without her was an insult. Each day without answers was a wound to his pride.And Maxim Santoro was a man who could not abide insult.This morning was no different. His study was cloaked in heavy silence, broken only by the soft tick of the grandfather clock in the corner. The wide Santoro estate outside hummed with restrained tension; guards posted at every door, servants moving quietly, their footsteps cautious on marble floors. The air itself seemed to avoid disturbing him.Papers littered his d
The estate was quiet that morning, hushed in the way grand houses sometimes were, as though the walls themselves held their breath. Servants moved silently down corridors, their eyes cast low, the air heavy with something unspoken after the events of the past days.Maya lingered in Lucien’s quarters longer than she should have, dressing slowly in the pale silk blouse a maid had left for her. Each button she fastened felt like a small act of control, a momentary anchor in a world that no longer seemed to belong to her. The vast wardrobes, the carved mirrors, the view stretching wide across the city—it was all too large, too consuming. It didn’t feel hers. Nothing about it did.But the moment she stepped into the corridor, she knew the silence was broken.A voice, sharp and unmistakable, carried through the halls, echoing like a whip crack.“Lucien! Where is he? Don’t you dare stand in my way!”Maya froze. Her stomach twisted tight.
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