Is Roy White: From Compton To The Bronx A True Story?

After being released from my three-year sentence, Zoe Sanders finally found me in an underground fight club. The moment she saw me, she grabbed me by the collar and punched me across the face, her eyes burning red with fury. "Henry Goldman, who gave you the nerve to disappear like this? "And what the hell have you done to yourself?" I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and laughed carelessly. "One punch, one hundred thousand. "If you’re still angry, feel free to keep going. I could use the money for this year’s rent." Her fists trembled uncontrollably, but her voice softened. "Come home with me... apologize to Ronald Green. "He’s always been kind-hearted. He already forgave you for framing him." Her gaze swept over the scars covering my body, something unreadable flickering in her eyes. "Look at yourself. Covered in blood like this... what’s the difference between you and a stray dog digging through garbage?" My body stiffened. Then I turned and walked away. What she did not know was this: In prison, blood and violence were the only ways I learned to survive. "Don’t forget," she shouted after me, "I’m still your fiancée!" My footsteps stopped. How could I forget? Three years ago, on the night of our engagement, Ronald drugged me and sent me to a black-market auction. I was stripped of all dignity and sold like merchandise. That night, I became the laughingstock of the entire city. And the person who signed the papers that sold me… was my fiancée herself.

Life is never black and white. One minute you’re a struggling graphic designer in LA that's finally coming to terms with being single forever, and the next you're flying to New York in a private jet to get engaged to your ex-boyfriend’s older brother. At least...that’s what everyone thinks. Forced to clean up his playboy image in order to protect his company, Beckham Sinclair, the city’s most eligible billionaire bachelor, wants me to be his fake fiancée and personal assistant. Now I'm spending every spare second with a man I thought I’d never see again. My freshly mended heart has barely recovered from the first time a Sinclair broke it. But with each passing day, Beck’s dirty mouth and lingering stares make me question his motives—and mine. As the line blurs between real and pretend, only one thing is certain: there are secrets hiding in this city full of black ties and white lies.

Isabella Romanov thought her body was broken. She thought the man holding her while she bled was the only thing keeping her alive but she was wrong about all of it. The pills in her green juice, the best friend in her bed, the forged signatures waiting in a lawyer's desk, Marcus Whitfield didn't just betray her. He hollowed her out and sold what was left. But Marcus made one fatal mistake. He forgot who her father was. When Isabella walks out of her suburban prison and back into the world of blood and power she was born into, she finds an unlikely ally in Luca Moretti, the most dangerous man on the East Coast. He'll destroy Marcus and burn every bridge her ex-husband ever built. But his protection comes at a price: her hand, her name, and her presence in his bed. Isabella isn't stupid enough to trust another powerful man. She's just desperate enough to marry one. As she rises from discarded wife to mafia queen, Isabella uncovers a conspiracy far darker than infidelity, stolen embryos, Russian bounties, and a family ledger worth more than the city itself. The deeper she digs, the more she realizes that everyone around her wants something, and the man who swore to protect her might have wanted it first. In a world where blood is currency and love is leverage, Isabella must have to decide what she's willing to burn to get back what was taken from her and whether the man beside her is worth keeping.

The night before our wedding, my fiancée let her so-called "best friend" butcher the gown my late mother had sewn, chopping it into a revealing mini dress. I rushed over with the ruined dress in my arms, ready to demand answers: only to catch their voices through the door: "Imagine him expecting me to wear something a dead woman stitched. What a curse!" Through the narrow gap, I saw my distant, frigid fiancée flushed with color, straddling his lap. "What we did at the bridal shop wasn't enough," she murmured. "Tomorrow, walking down the aisle in this tiny dress you made me, it'll be even more exhilarating." Their lips met. My hand froze against the door, and inside, something broke with a soundless crack. If she longed for thrills, I would grant her some.

Shortly after we said "I do," the Family sent my husband, Dario, down to the Mexican border. He told me it was a meat grinder down there—cartel territory. where guys were zipped into body bags every day. He said he had to go—to expand the territory, for the glory of the Family. He claimed it was too dangerous and that his enemies would paint a target on my back, so he wouldn't take me with him. I believed him. I stayed behind in his old, rot-infested house in New Jersey, taking care of his bitter, spiteful parents. I spent my days and nights in the Family's moldy laundromat, washing bills stained with blood. He told me he sent every dime he made down there to the widow of a brother who took a bullet for him. He asked me to be understanding. I never complained. Day after day, I pressed expensive suits in that humid laundromat, waiting for him to come home. It wasn't until the eighth year that a mobster came back drunk. When I asked about Dario, he froze, then sneered at me through a haze of alcohol. "Dario? Are you kidding? He’s been a King in Manhattan for years. He’s the youngest Underboss of the Corleone family." I stood frozen, the iron in my hand burning a hole right through a shirt. "And he got married seven years ago. Biggest cathedral in New Jersey. Half the mob was there to toast the groom..." He pulled a crumpled photo from his leather jacket. Snuggled up against my husband was a woman in a high-end couture gown—the very same "poor, widowed sister-in-law" he had told me about. The next day, I contacted a fixer who specialized in fake IDs. On the application for a one-way ticket to Europe—a ticket to vanish off the face of the earth—I filled in the fake name I had prepared long ago. He trapped me for seven years with a sham marriage. From now on, I’d be done with this damn loyalty.

Isabella was born in the mafia, but she wasn’t born of royalty. All she knew was pain and ran away from a life of chaos and destruction before it could kill her. Now, she’s older and a defense attorney living in New York City. All was going well until she received a letter from the one person who has always looked out for her. She was getting married and wanted Isabella to come home and witness her union. Isabella wanted to refuse, but she knew she had to do it. Now that she’s back home, she’s thrusted back into the flames of Mafia life. A certain man has his eyes on her and won’t let her leave. What will happen when Isabella learns that the very man who sets her body ablaze, is a man who runs the same Mafia she’s running from? This is a story about finding love in all the wrong places, and how forgiving the past can open you up to a beautiful future.