Devotion Forced Love Short Stories & Novels

I’m Daisy Valence. Eighteen. The favorite daughter of the Valence family. I woke up and found myself eight years in the future. Not only was I married to my nemesis, Lorenzo Astor, but we had a four-year-old son. Even crazier, the future me was a stone-cold snake, plotting to gut Lorenzo's operation while planning to run off with her "lover" after the divorce. And this "lover"? Just some nobody from the slums I was bankrolling. I must have lost my mind. Just as I was about to cut ties with all of them and get my free, single life back... I found the love letters Lorenzo wrote me, a secret stash of things I’d used, and a phone filled with my pictures… Then he grabbed me, his eyes bloodshot, and held me so tight I could barely breathe. He growled, "Who the hell gave you permission to leave me?" "I never agreed to any divorce, my wife."

The day my husband left the country on a business trip with his assistant, I learned—by sheer accident—that his archenemy was plotting revenge overseas. Without a second thought, I raced to the airport and stopped him from boarding the plane. But his assistant went ahead, alone. And over there, she was killed brutally. Not a trace of her remains was ever found. When my husband received the news, he fell apart. Wracked with guilt, eaten alive by remorse, he spiraled into a relentless, violent mania. In the past three years, I'd been in and out of hospitals more times than I could count because of him. And this time, he pushed me so far—I lost our child. Then I overheard a conversation between him and his secretary. "Sir, Casey is still alive. Why keep pretending you're sick? Aren't you afraid your wife will find out and leave you?" "Leave me? What right does she have to be angry?" He laughed coldly. "If she hadn't stopped me from going abroad, Casey would've never been lured away by that bastard. Everything Linda's suffering now—she brought it on herself."

I came to Chicago with my friend to visit her boyfriend. Three days in, her boyfriend said he'd show us "something fun." The car kept driving—farther and farther out. By the time we realized something was wrong, we were locked inside an abandoned factory. My friend was gone. Her boyfriend shoved me into a room and threw me a line: "Your friend sold you for twenty grand. Stay put and wait for arrangements." I scanned the room. A few men in black suits leaned against the doorway. Silver-gray pins on their chests. Shield-shaped. Dark red thorns. An inverted dagger. The family crest of Caleb Richardson—don of the New York mafia. I was held captive by him for three years. I barely escaped with my life— And now I've been handed right back to him.