Knife Cuts

She entered his office looking for a future but left his bed with a past she couldn’t forget. When Raina takes an internship at one of the city’s most powerful corporations, she expects nothing more than a paycheck to fund her dreams. But then she meets him—Cazien Wolfe. CEO. Enigma. Dangerous in ways no contract could warn her about. He’s brilliant but broken, a man stitched together by ambition and haunted medication. She’s guarded but desperate, a woman with a silent past and a heart too soft for her own good. One night. One mistake. One kiss that wasn’t supposed to happen—followed by a moment so intimate it feels imagined. But when Raina sees something she was never meant to witness—a truth about Cazien that cuts deeper than betrayal—her world spins off its axis. What begins as a story of slow attraction spirals into obsession, secrets, and scars neither of them are prepared to reveal. But desire doesn’t wait for permission. And some sins… beg to be repeated. This is not a love story. It’s a war between hearts, and only the broken survive.

They say betrayal cuts deepest when it comes from the one you love. Larissa learned that the hard way. One slip of the tongue. Four deadly words. “It was an accident.” In a moment of blind trust, Larissa took the fall for a crime she didn’t commit—believing her fiancé would fix it. Instead, he turned his back on her and watched her get locked away. Now out on parole and drowning in shame, Larissa’s last chance at justice comes from the last man she should trust—his brother. Cold. Calculated. Dangerous. Everything about him screams don’t play his game. But he wants revenge just as much as she does. And he has a plan that starts with one forbidden rule: Marry me, and we ruin him together. Trusting a Patterson destroyed her once. Trusting another might cost her more than just her freedom. But this time, Larissa isn’t playing to survive—she’s playing to win. Because love is messy. Loyalty is dead. And revenge? That’s the most forbidden game of all.

“Strip.” He ordered simply, his eyes boring tentatively, “I'll not give you the liberty of picking up your clothes if you will not do as you're told.” “You married me to get revenge on me!” I spat, angrily. “You are not supposed to have any carnal knowledge of me, I won't let it happen.” He smiled. The same smile that cuts across his lips yet doesn't reach his face. “You want me to have sex with you?” “Isn't that what you mean by stripping?” I asked, confusion boldly written on my face. A loud, dry mocking laugh from him almost made me wish for death. “No wife.” He whispered, standing up from the bed towards me. “I don't want to see any of my properties on you in my house, I want you tattered and extremely void, I want to see what you will do when you're all bare before me.” I stumbled backwards at the hatred in his voice. “I want to see you at your lowest, Now strip!”

Some legacies welcome you home. Others sharpen a knife the moment you walk through the door. Hannah never asked to be a Black. But blood doesn't negotiate. Found after years of being lost, she barely had time to breathe before the truth came crashing in — the family she'd longed for didn't want her. Her siblings made sure she felt every inch of that. But nothing cut deeper than the discovery that only one of them could marry Lucas Bristo, heir to the Bristo empire. And her sister would kill to make sure it wasn't Hannah. The cruelest joke? Lucas — arrogant, insufferably charming, with eyes that pin her in place and a touch that sets her chest on fire — was never supposed to matter. Now he's the one thing she can't let go of. While Hannah fights for the love she never planned and the birthright that was always hers, her adopted sister and blood brother are already conspiring — their alliance soaked in secrets and something far more sinister. They want her gone. But Hannah Black didn't survive being lost just to be destroyed after being found.

"This is my first time... it hurts... oh, it’s bleeding..." Allie winced as a cut from the kitchen knife throbbed on her finger. Liam glanced at her, his face full of concern, and applied the medicine with a sharp, almost angry tone: "I’ve told you not to go near the kitchen! Just tell me what you want to eat, and I’ll make it for you!" For Allie, her 20th birthday gift was discovering her boyfriend's betrayal with her best friend in bed. Furious, she turned her back on Nick and married Liam Hart, the city’s most influential and untouchable man. From that moment, she faced endless challenges: Nick’s constant manipulations, Liam’s family scheming against her, and the toxic people in their lives. Everyone sees Liam as the perfect, doting husband—no one knows the price she pays for his love. Exhausted, Allie faced Liam one night, her voice trembling with frustration: "Liam Hart, you are a monster in disguise." Liam, looking hurt, replied with a soft grin, “You wound me, darling. How could I possibly be a monster when I’m the one who’s supposed to protect you?”

I was the top bounty thief in the organization. The best they had. After turning in my final score, I announced on the spot that I was done for good. Then, I stood in my studio, blending paint. A single photograph was pinned to the wall before me. Black Viper filled the doorway, the light behind him casting his face in shadow. "What's it like," he asked quietly, "pretending to be an artist?" He stepped further inside. "Does paint smell better than blood?" I placed the palette knife down and wiped my hands slowly. "I'm done. I walked away." "Old Fox didn't approve of it." "That's not my concern." Black Viper crossed the room and tapped the old photograph on the wall. "Are you certain?" I did not want to look. I told myself not to. However, my gaze shifted anyway. A young boy stared back from the photo. "The blind kid?" I had spent ten years searching for him. "Where is he?" I moved toward the wall, reaching to rip the picture down. "One last job," Black Viper said, pressing his palm against the photo. My hand stopped in midair. "What's the target?" "The final lot at next month's auction that the Gilbert Group will be holding. "It's called Mermaid's Tear."

In my last life, I was kidnapped alongside the fake heiress, Lilith Howe, at the same time. My father, the richest man in the country, claimed he had to prove his impartiality. Without a second thought, he told the police to rescue Lilith first and refused to pay a ransom for me. In front of the cameras, he declared with solemn conviction, "A daughter of the Howes must have backbone. We will never give in to criminals!" Lilith returned without a single scratch, and the internet crowned her a miracle girl. Meanwhile, I was killed by the kidnappers. There was barely anything left of me to bury. As my soul hovered above the scene, I watched my brother sneer at what little remained. "Good," he said. "At least she won't come back and be an eyesore to Lilith. We'll finally have some peace in the house." When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the exact moment the kidnappers called with their demands. A knife was pressed against my throat. On the other end of the line, my father's voice was just as cold, just as absolute. "I'm not choosing. My money belongs to charity. If she's a Howe, she should be ready to sacrifice for the family." I laughed. If he was willing to destroy his own flesh and blood for the sake of so-called honor, then this time, I would grant them a reunion in hell!

This is a dark mm romance with dub-con/CNC, blood play, knife play, robe play, light bdsm, kidnapping of MMC, torture, murder and possessive behavior. If you have any of these triggers, please do not continue. This book is only suitable for readers over 18. Contains graphic sexual scenes, bad language and unprotected intercourse. The last place expected to see my last hookup was at my mother's wedding and worse, he's my new stepbrother. My mother and his father hoped we would get along, how do I tell them we have gotten along just not in the way they think? Extract: “Fratello,” he murmured, his lips curling into that maddening grin. “What?” My chest tightened. “That’s your safe word,” he said. “Say it once, and everything stops. I won’t touch you again. From that moment, I’ll only ever treat you as my stepbrother.” Even as he spoke, his hand gripped me, and I gasped, trembling. My body betrayed me, responding in ways I hated and craved all at once. “Until you say that word,” he whispered, eyes dark with something between amusement and hunger, “you’re mine. Mine, brother.”

Reina Eliara Sollivierre is the heir to a powerful corporate dynasty, trapped by expectations and a future she never chose. One reckless night, she gives in to freedom and to Vesper Saelas Luxmooré, a dangerous stranger she never expects to see again. Days later, Reina discovers Saelas is her new private tutor. Forced into close proximity, their forbidden attraction spirals into obsession until she learns he is already engaged. Betrayed, Reina cuts him off and accepts a new tutor, Gavin Edmund Luxmooré, a gentle and steady presence who becomes her refuge and quietly falls in love with her. What Reina does not know is that Gavin is Saelas’s estranged brother. When Saelas discovers he has been replaced, he publicly announces Reina as his fiancée and reveals himself as the heir to the Luxmooré empire. Heartbroken, Gavin lets Reina go and leaves the country after lying about his feelings to set her free. Years later, he returns for the wedding of the woman they both loved. And with his return, buried truths and unresolved emotions resurface, revealing the true cost of love, freedom, and sacrifice.

They called it forbidden. Dangerous. A love that should never exist. I thought death was the end. I thought being beaten, broken, and buried would free me from the pain of my past. But fate… had other plans. I woke up in her body. A princess everyone despised. A life I never asked for. To atone for a sin I didn’t commit, left to carry the weight of a crown, a family, and a love that wasn’t mine. Then I saw him. My soon-to-be husband. The king who despises me with a hatred so sharp, it cuts deeper than any whip ever could. Three days. That’s all he gave me—to vanish, to stop existing. But within those three days, in the shadows of his rage, something else stirred. A desire just as forbidden as the love I was once murdered for. One that threatens to consume us both, that lingers like fire under our skin, that promises trembles neither of us can resist — and might destroy us entirely. Three days. One body. Two hearts at war with fire, hatred, and an impossible, intoxicating craving. Will I survive… or is another brutal death waiting?