Private Armies

“I shake the mountains, blew the wind, burnt the fire; but when you got me, you wreck everything of me.” —Rage Koughart Thompson A hopeless romantic, Graceian Herrit Simson is content with her simple life. Being so inlove with her long timed fiance, Bill Marco, she never wish something more. Now, their relationship lasted long for years now, believes that her fiance would be the one and last man who will come to her life. Although, unexpected things happened; doubt leads to mistrust, she just saw herself hiring a private investigator to check her fiance. There, she met the investigator, Mr. Thompson, who should be Mr. Baltemore. She induced him being the most rude investigator ever which she shouldn't supposed to. Rage Koughart Thompson, a CEO of Thompson Cruise Corporations, an indeed business minded person, have already announced to media that he had no time to such unnecessary things. For him, time is millions, not worth wasting for something or someone nothing to do with his life. Unfortunately, he just found himself keeping a woman who doesn't even do good to him. As an accident happened, his uncle, Brando Baltemore, the best private investigator needs to hide as his life is at danger. Rage took the old man's responsibilities, not expecting that he also need to make an effort for a useless woman. His wasted time for Grace is like a waste of millions on his hands. And an offended Grace, she can't admitted that even she's mad, her hopeless heart still love and hopes. She dealt fasts her long time fiance but dealing with a rude man were the worst. She tried to move on but little did she know, she played fire with fire. Her heart keeps on bouncing back to its cage like nothing had harmed her.

On the night of our anniversary, I had prepared a new set of lingerie for my Mafia husband Joey, but he had prepared divorce papers for me instead. A Cuban cigar was clamped between his teeth, a look of pure entitlement on his face. "Adriana, we need to divorce. Vivian's father is a capo. If I marry her, my future's set." "Look, sweetheart, you're just a broken family's leftover daughter. You should be grateful I kept you around this long." "Once I have the family ring, maybe I'll throw you a few scraps, let you be my little side piece." Everyone expected the daughter of a fallen family to step aside for his ambition, to be the loyal dog I'd been for the past seven years. But that night, I made a deal with the devil. I accepted a match arranged by my family and married the true king of New York's underworld. I vanished from Joey's world completely. Three years later, I returned to New York on my husband's arm. We were there on family business. Dante was called away for something urgent, leaving me to wait for him at his private club. I never expected to run into Joey, the man I hadn't seen in three years. "That's enough, Adriana. Stop with the childish tantrums." "Our son Angelo's almost six. He needs care. I'm being generous, offering you a position as his nanny." I laughed. What was this idiot talking about? He was calling the most feared and revered Donna in all of New York a nanny?

Anastasia Gastiello, is not your typical girl. She was once the meanest, baddest, most cruel cheer captain in Grimsborrow high. That changed after the accident. When she woke up with no memories from the first day she entered high school, covered in her blood with the dead bodies of her family scattered around her. Anastasia isn’t the main suspect, no in fact the police know that she didn’t do it because her injuries show that she’s supposed to be dead. But somehow she survived. As Anastasia tries to get back into her school routine, while the people she bullied seek out revenge, HE shows up to save her. Griffin Masters scares her. This big black furred wolf hybrid is dangerous, and should not be trusted. But he won’t leave her alone, and seems obsessed with helping her uncover her memories of that night. He is the bad boy every parent warns you about. They begin their investigation in private, away from the cops and some very powerful people who are hell bent on ensuring she never regains her memory, and that the truth about what happened to her family never gets out. Anastasia desperately wants answers, and the closer she gets the more she realizes that the truth might not be worth discovering after all.

Introduction A year ago, I had my eyes on the winning prize in the arena - a rare red gemstone, and wanted to win it back as the mating ring with my Alpha mate Damien. Just as I was about to claim victory and take the prize, Damien's secretary Celia stepped forward to challenge me. Damien laughed helplessly. "Young girls love these shiny things. As the Luna of our pack, you should be generous and let her have them, okay?" I refused outright and defeated her. That day, Celia ran off the platform crying. I proudly showed Damien my prize. He kissed my forehead helplessly. "My stubborn little wildcat." After our mating ceremony, he claimed me night after night for a whole year, in every way imaginable, never giving me a moment's rest. But one year later, I received an invitation to a private combat arena. Videos and photos of me beneath Damien, my eyes hazy with desire, were brazenly displayed as the victor's prize. Damien had his arm around Celia's waist. "Don't you love fighting? There are over a hundred people here. I'll have them challenge you one by one. Whoever wins gets a sex tape of you and me. A whole year's worth."

A simple statement started it all. A sweet private life turned into a storm of chaos and confusion. She never meant to cross a line or catch his eye. Maybe she did want to catch his attention, but not the way she did. One statement ruined three years of Senior school. Is it just school memories about to go down the drain, or her whole teenage life?

Emma Richards is a single mother. She has a seven-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, who wants a dad. Emma decided to go into a contract marriage with a billionaire who, unknown to her, was the CEO of the hotel where she works. Ethan Williams is a billionaire and a successful businessman. He is the CEO of TLMC. He is in the hospitality business. They have over ten hotels and resorts all over the country. Ethan wants to purchase a private Island and a resort. But the seller wants a responsible buyer and not a playboy. So. Ethan, through a marriage Agency, looked for a contract wife. Their union leads to an unimaginable future that comes with secrets and discoveries

Drugged by her father, stepmother and step-sister, Trina Ryder had a passionate one night stand with a total stranger. As if that betrayal wasn't enough, her conniving family took away all hers and her ailing mom’s vast inheritance and sent them away from their ancestral home. Eager to regroup so as to become powerful enough to reclaim what’s rightfully hers, Trina relocates abroad, only to find out that she's pregnant for the mysterious stranger she had a one night stand with! Six years later, she returns to her homeland with a five year old daughter in tow. With her degree in hotel management and excellent skills in cooking, she got the much-coveted job as the private secretary/ personal chef to the richest and most successful businessman in the whole United States of America, Zane McAllister. When an incident led to her  cheerful, boisterous and mischievous daughter, Eleanor Ryder and Zane McAllister’s mini version— the cold, aloof, indifferent and extremely smart five year old Jayden McAllister to discover that they are actually biological twin siblings, their two unsuspecting parents are in for a roller coaster of surprises! Jayden and Eleanor formed an alliance and their mission; place a trap for their parents such that they have no option but to fall.  But exactly what will Zane and Trina fall into? Undying love or a reckless battle of custody? 

She was a sanctioned knight, he a mysterious stranger; two unlikely allies joined forces to protect the Dragomir line. But what happens when their loyalties are tested, when one moonlight battle alters the young warriors lives indefinitely? Long ago and miles away, there was a young princess, orphaned in a time of war. She was called upon to lead the armies of her kingdom, for there was no other. She was the fiercest of warriors, beloved of her people, unstoppable on the battle field. She rode out day after day and saved her subjects in battle after battle. But every night, when the fighting was done, she was alone. Until one day, a peasant boy came looking to join her army, looking lonely and angry and fierce as she. For the first time, she found that when she rode out into the field to save others, there was someone at her side...who had come to save her too.

I have a secret about my body. When I'm intimate with someone, my private part emits a fragrance. Despite being married to me for a decade, my live-in husband has never smelled it. One day, my family goes bankrupt, and I'm forced to become an escort. He looks at me imperiously as I kneel on the floor. He says coldly, "I'll pay you a hundred thousand dollars to let me smell you once."

Eidolon Avenue: Where the secretly guilty go to die. One building. Five floors. Five doors per floor. Twenty-five nightmares feeding the hunger lurking between the bricks and waiting beneath the boards. The sequel to Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast (“a great read...powerful and jarring” - Cemetery Dance) returns to the voracious Eidolon as it savors The Second Feast. A narcoleptic man in apartment 2A battles a vengeful past determined to rob him of everything as he runs from the barbaric disaster of a delusional love. A woman in 2B, reinventing herself to please a callous boyfriend, discovers the horrors that wait in the shadows of her self-renovation. The man in 2C, a teacher at the nearby Catholic girl’s school, collapses beneath the brutal consequences of his lecherous desires. An older woman in 2D, after decades dedicated to the church, is cornered at last by the grisly carnage beating at the hollow center of her faith. And a college student in 2E, hungry to escape an ignored life of invisible anonymity, finds herself captured between the pages of a ravenous book. All thrown into their own private hell as every cruel choice, every drop of spilled blood, every silent, complicit moment of cowardice is remembered, resurrected and relived to feed the ancient evil that lives on Eidolon Avenue. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing