Blackbird

Steal the CEO's Black Card... or His Frozen Heart? "Please... please, sir. I'm begging you. I didn't steal the card." Belle's trembling voice cracked as tears streamed down her face. "Believe me..." "You belong in prison, fraud!" the store manager spat, his eyes filled with contempt. Humiliated and surrounded by accusing stares, Belle could only clutch her worn bag and pray someone would listen. But no one did. After all, who would believe a poor medical student over the owner of a limitless Black Card? Belle had been fighting for survival ever since she lost her parents. An orphan with nothing but a dream. A dream of becoming a doctor. A dream she once shared with the parents she loved more than life itself. For years, she lived in a cramped room inside a rundown building. She endured hunger, sleepless nights, and the mockery of classmates who looked down on her faded clothes and worn-out shoes. Life had never been kind to her. Yet despite her hardships, she never stole. Never cheated. Never took what wasn't hers. So how did she end up accused of stealing the Black Card belonging to Ethan DelValle—the cold, powerful, and untouchable CEO everyone feared? The man who could buy anything he wanted. The man whose single word could ruin lives. And the man who, for reasons she couldn't understand, suddenly became interested in hers. What begins as a humiliating misunderstanding soon entangles Belle in Ethan DelValle's world—a world of wealth, power, secrets, and dangerous attraction. She never wanted his money. She never wanted his Black Card. But what happens when she accidentally steals something far more valuable? His heart.

***This book contains strong language, explicit scenes, extremely detailed sex scenes. Proceed at your discretion*** Ellie loses her brother to ‘mysterious’ consequences and her life is turned upside down the second she learns of it. A man obsessed with control. A man consumed by the need to always win. A man with nothing left to lose. In the streets of Milan, they're known as The Black Rose but to Ellie, they're the thorns that will puncture the bubble that was once her normal life. Lorenzo, Noir and Silas will become Ellie's worst nightmare as well as her greatest desire. When they claim her as theirs to protect, theirs to own, she realizes that her old life is gone and that there's no such thing as normal when it comes to these men. Not when The Black Rose wants her. Not when they will burn the world down just to keep her by their sides. They will have her. And she will break them.

Descended from two lines of assassins, Alina Istrati is one of the most prolific assassins in the world. Always taking pride in her work, the cold nature of her crimes paired with her modus operandi earned her the alias, Blackheart. A new contract that should have been a simple job proves to be more than she bargained for when she finds herself the target of the person who hired her. On top of that, she's stuck babysitting her former target, who intrigues her at every turn. Alina will be put to the test as she fights to uncover diabolical plots and uphold obligations in the assassin underworld while trying to maintain her Blackheart status around the man she was assigned to kill. Follow ADB_Stories on IG for series updates. Codename: Blackheart is the first book in the Codename trilogy.

She felt like a caged bird. A bird that was meant to fly the high, blue skies, but was trapped like a prized possession for her master to impress others with. Ava is the daughter of a very powerful man in the underworld. Her blood, her family name makes her a tool for others to gain more power. Greedy men want her for her name, not for who she is. Being locked up all her life in her father's house makes her naïve and ignorant of the outside world. Meaning the greedy men have an easy game to play.

Richard Franklin has left his Midwestern roots behind to live on the coast of Maine with his family. But in the autumn of the year 2000, he must return to his Illinois birthplace on a sorrowful journey. His wife Michelle has been killed in New England by a hit-and-run driver who is never found, so back home he comes with her cremated remains, to fulfill a final wish and on her birthday scatter her ashes in the park along the river in Blackwater Valley—simply Blackwater Val to locals—the small town where they both grew up and fell in love. With him he brings his six-year-old daughter Katie who still grieves for her lost mother: Katie, who can sometimes guess who’s going to be on the phone before it rings. Who can stop all the clocks in the house, and break up clouds in the sky with her mind, and heal sicknesses, and who sometimes sees things that aren’t there...people who are no longer alive. All gifts she inherited from her mother. Only something isn’t quite right in the Val. Sinkholes are opening up, revealing the plague pits the sleepy hamlet was built over in the 1830s, when malaria and cholera outbreaks ran riot. Mysterious bird and fish die-offs begin to occur, and Katie can see ghosts of the dead gathering all around. But what she can’t see is the charred, centuries-old malevolence which has been waiting for her, and wants her for its very own. Or the pale Sallow Man who haunts the town’s nighttime streets...or the river witch—another Blackwater Val, of sorts—each of whom will be drawn one by one into the nightmarish bloodletting about to take place. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Ximara has always been judged—by her parents, society, and, most importantly, by herself. With curves that invite whispers and a spirit slowly eroded by those who claim to love her, she decides to escape. Fleeing an arranged marriage and a life of scorn, she seeks refuge in New York City with her grandfather, Alister, the only person who recognizes her worth. But even as she rebuilds her life, her past haunts her. When a chance meeting with Arthur Vance, a charismatic celebrity racer, results in public betrayal, Ximara's fragile confidence is shattered. Desperate to get out of the pain, she falls into a dangerous cycle of self-doubt, unaware that she is being watched. Her mysterious neighbor, a man only known as Z, appears in the darkest moments, as if he knows her secrets and has always known them. Z is not the person he appears to be. He's been watching Ximara for longer than she realizes, driven by an obsession he can't control or understand. In a world that wants to break them, can two wounded souls teach each other to fly—or will their secrets destroy them both?