Fatewrites
Pedro Marquez has built his life around control, power, and keeping his heart guarded. In his world, attachment is risky, and love is a weakness he cannot allow himself. When a betrayal within his organization pulls him back to Havana, he is forced to confront the life he walked away from, and the people who still consider him family.
Dante greets him as if no time has passed. Cassie still makes him feel welcome.
But it is Michelle, Dante’s daughter, who shakes his composure most. She is no longer the young girl he remembers. She has grown into a woman who stirs up feelings he cannot name.
She is nineteen now. Bright, feeling deeply, and unguarded in the way she watches him.
For Michelle, Pedro was a comfort from her childhood, her first hero, the person who once made her feel safe when the world felt lonely. His unexpected return revives feelings she thought she had left behind, emotions she was never supposed to harbor.
What starts as a reunion soon simmers with unspoken tension neither of them can fully explain. Michelle’s fondness deepens into something more, while Pedro struggles with an internal conflict, caught between growing attraction, guilt, and loyalty to Dante, his closest friend.
He knows he should keep his distance. She is still young, and Dante is like a brother to him.
He also knows the dark world he belongs to tends to corrupt all that is good and unspoiled.
Pedro has never been the type to open his heart or give in to soft affection. Michelle is far too gentle for the life he leads.
And yet.
She cannot bring herself to pull away.
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