Maggie Lawson Bikini

After a brutal breakup and one too many whiskies, Arielle Lawson makes the mistake she swore she’d never repeat—she calls her ex. She never saved his number; she memorized it. Heart memory. Muscle memory. Bad-decision memory. But the man who answers isn’t Daniel. He’s calm. Controlled. Amused by the drunken stranger ranting about betrayal, wasted years, and ruined wedding plans. Arielle hangs up, mortified, convinced the mistake ends there. It doesn’t. Because the number she dialed belongs to Kael Virelli, the elusive leader of a multi-million-dollar anti-government underground syndicate known as The Black Ledger—a man feared by politicians, hunted by intelligence agencies, and obeyed without question. Kael should forget the call. He should erase the number. Instead, he calls back. What begins as anonymous late-night conversations becomes a dangerous ritual neither of them can break. Arielle finds comfort in the mysterious stranger who listens without judgment and understands her in ways no one ever has. Kael becomes addicted to the only person who speaks to him like he’s human—not a weapon, not a myth. Then fate intervenes. When Arielle unknowingly witnesses a violent operation tied to The Black Ledger, the voice she trusts becomes the name everyone fears. Overnight, she transforms from a stranger into a liability—a loose end that Kael’s world would normally erase without hesitation. But Arielle isn’t just anyone. She’s the woman who called him at his most human… and made him answer. Now Kael must choose between protecting the empire he built in shadows or protecting the girl who accidentally dialed her way into his life. Because in a world of secrets, betrayal, and blood money, the most dangerous mistake he ever made wasn’t answering the call. It was falling for the girl who made it.

During the outdoor orientation boot camp, Wanda Lawson, the daughter of the richest tycoon, suddenly suffered from a heart attack. She collapsed to the ground and went through a seizure, her complexion bluish-gray. My boyfriend, Joseph Jensen, the drill instructor of the boot camp, overheard my pretentious roommate, Ella Ziegler, murmur, "She's usually fine, so why is she suddenly suffering from some sort of attack when it's time for the drills to start? She must be faking it in order to laze around!" Because of those assumptions, Joseph kicked the medication that Wanda managed to pull out of her pocket into the nearby river. "Get lost if you want to play dead! Don't drag us down with you!" I quickly dived into the river and scooped the medication out. Thanks to my efforts, Wanda's life was saved. Her father was enraged when he found out about the news and wanted to hold someone responsible. With tears streaking down my face, I begged Wanda to not expose Joseph. She nodded quietly to me. Joseph narrowly escaped the judgment. But Ella was expelled by the university right away for her malicious and provocative words. She even had a permanent stain of poor conduct marking her record. On the third day after Ella returned to her village, her family forced her to marry an older man who had remained single for far too long because of his violent temperament. Wanda's father was grateful to me for saving Wanda's life, so he listed me into the list of beneficiaries of his family's trust fund. The amount of money I received was second only to Wanda's portion. On the night news of Ella getting beaten to death by her husband got out, Joseph lovingly invited me to the place we first met so that we could go hiking. When I stood on the steep slope of the mountain, Joseph suddenly snatched the backpack filled with supplies, which included a life-saving whistle, from me. Then, he shoved me off the slope. "Why must you be such a busybody? If you never saved Wanda, she wouldn't have been able to testify against Ella because she'd have died! A murderer like you should just die!" Having broken my spine from the fall, I ended up dying at the foot of the mountain. After my death, not only Joseph got to receive the trust fund thanks to his relationship to me as my fiance, but he also began sponsoring low-income students by using Ella's namesake. That was how he reaped both wealth and reputation in one go. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Wanda suffers from the heart attack.