Sonic Knuckles

I help my students gain admission to top state art academies, yet my boss, Sebastian Emerson, withholds every cent of the pay I earned from 24 consecutive days of overtime. When I confront him in anger, he accuses me of stealing 120 thousand dollars in training fees from the students. "Honestly, being poor is no excuse for being shady. And having disabled parents doesn't give you the right to steal. "You've got two days to pay it back! Otherwise, I'll make sure you spend a few nights in jail, and I'll even inform your parents!" When a student calls, he snatches the phone and starts screaming, "There's no money! All your tuition went into buying your art supplies! If you've got a problem, go ahead and sue me, brat!" Meanwhile, Jayla Buckley, who is curled up in his arms, keeps placing order after order of Chaennal haute couture without the slightest hesitation. Watching the two of them colluding so shamelessly, I grip my attorney license in my pocket until my knuckles ache. Take it to court? Litigation? That's my arena. And I'll make sure both of them end up exactly where they belong—behind bars.

I watch as he gently places the gun on the table. Seconds tick by a heavy silence filling the room. He takes a stand and makes his way to me. He takes a stance behind my chair and places his firm arms on my armchair, caging me. I bask in his scent and warmth. "You choose now Lana, here and now." He whispers into my ear. His traces my knuckles before grabbing my notebook out of my hands, and tossing it on the table. "I wasn't done with that." I say. He laughs, I feel his chest rumble as he laughs. I turn to face him, feeling my breaths shorten with each passing second. "Eyes on the prize, Lana." He turns my head back towards the table. "You choose the notebook you can go back to living your life in fear and delusion, then one day end up dead in a dumpster or," He brushes a strand of hair from my face, " You could pick up the gun and hunt your past which shall it be Lana?" I feel beads of sweat on my back and my anxiety prickling through my skin. I have to choose, here and now. I extend my hand and pick my choice.

To protect my boyfriend, Nico, the illegitimate son of our allies, the Moretti family, from their internal power struggles, I agreed to leave New York with him. But on the eve of my adoptive father, the Don of the Falcone family, signing our transfer orders, he backed out. Through the hidden door of the cigar lounge, I heard his right-hand man tease him: "So you really kept up that act for three months just to get rid of the princess?" "But she's your childhood sweetheart. You really have the heart to some miserable fishing village in the Baltics all by herself?" Nico's voice was nonchalant. "It's just an outpost across the pond. How far can it be?" "Scarlett is too controlling. If I don't get her out of the picture, how am I supposed to get any breathing room? Besides, I need to put Chloe at ease." I stood behind that hidden door for a long time that night, my grip on the doorknob tightening until my knuckles were white, before I finally let go. I turned and walked away, pulling out my tablet to change my flight plan. I changed the destination from the official plan of that desolate Baltic outpost to a seat at the High Table in Sicily, which is the absolute center of old-world Mafia power. Everyone seemed to have forgotten. I am the princess of the Falcone family. And he is nothing but filth from the gutter. We were never a match.

At three in the morning, I stare at the unknown transaction record on my phone screen, my fingertips turning cold. The record is for a payment of 2980 dollars, made for an executive suite at the Wisteria. The time of payment was 8:00 pm last night. My husband, Tristan Griffin, is a detective. He was on the night shift last night. I clutch my phone, my knuckles turning white as I text Tristan, "I just saw your credit card bill for a hotel stay last night. What's up with that?" His reply is instant. "Our team had to work overtime at the last minute, so they put us up at the hotel. I forgot to tell you about it." I scan the text and sputter. The Wisteria is located in the western region of the city, which is on the other end from where his squad is stationed. I don't press him for more details and click on the bank app on my phone. Having found the vendor's address through the payment record, I sent it to my best friend, Rowena Sheffield, who works as a private detective. She replies instantly with an "OK" emoji and follows up with, "Give me a second. I'll find out everything you want in a jiffy!"

"I hate you Mason Livingston," I mumbled breathlessly, my knuckles wound tightly around his collar, as my knees threatened to buckle under me. "I know," his throaty whisper threatened to undo the very last of my resistance. I had to resist him, I had to resist his kiss, his touch, his smell, I had to resist him. He broke my heart before. "But just for tonight," he brushed his lips lightly against mine and the very last shred of resistance gave way. "Just for tonight Imogen, I want to feel your passion, raw and untamed..." Just for tonight... Was my last thought before he claimed my lips with fiery passion. *** Imogen Grey wanted nothing more than to be loved by Mason Livingston, heir to the multi billion dollars Livingston empire. That was until he broke her heart in the worst way possible. Six years later, fate brings them together. Now Imogen wants nothing than to ruin Mason Livingston and also to protect her 6 year old son from him. But Mason is not the same playboy she knew six years ago. Now with everything riding on the line, Imogen must choose, passion or revenge

[MATURE CONTENT] "Please..” I begged, my body trembling with want. “Please let me cum. ” Despite my desperate pleas, he smiled, that twisted dark smile that never failed to make my heart stop. His knuckles graze my cheeks as leaned in, the gentleness of his caress was a huge contrast to pain he'd inflicted on me. “Sorry darling.” He rasped, his eyes darkening with a mix of satisfaction and amusement. “You don't deserve it.” *** Aurelia Ravenwood was fed up with her boring love life, but she never had the courage to explore her wild fantasies. After she comes across a peculiar survey site, it rewards her with a sex bucket list that brought her carnal desires to life, a list that requires her to fill in her top three candidates who would help her complete her list. She adds her long time crush and coworker first, followed by a charismatic actor, and finally her enigmatic boss. But her life turns upside down when the list is leaked in her workplace, and the first person to call her in is her boss. Aurelia had feared and expected him to punish her, but instead she gets a shocking offer; He would help her complete her list if she agreed to be his new plaything.

On the eve of our wedding, Ellis Stewart threw a tantrum and hurled the wedding ring I had given her. I spent the entire night searching through the icy lake until my numb fingers finally closed around it. When I went to return the ring to her, I overheard her speaking with a close friend. “How many times have you toyed with Jonathan already? “It’s been three years since Gregory’s passing, and you still can’t forget him?” “If Jonathan hadn’t clung to me three years ago, begging me to pick him up, how could Gregory have died in that car accident?” Ellis replied coldly. “He’s the one who killed Gregory. Everything that happened was nothing but his own doing.” My knuckles whitened around the ring, and for an instant, it felt as though all the blood in my body had turned cold. So Ellis had never loved me at all. My unwavering devotion had been nothing more than a crucial piece of her revenge. In silence, I let the ring fall from my hand. Then I pulled out my phone. “Dad, Mom, I’ve figured things out. I agree to the marriage you’ve arranged. Let the wedding be in three days.”

My name is Elvira Rossi, daughter of Don Rossi, head of the Itavelle mafia family. Three months ago, my father was killed. Our operations were stripped bare, nothing left. The accounts were draining fast, and the family still had mouths to feed. Then a DNA report surfaced out of nowhere. According to it, I was the LaRosa family's long‑lost true heiress, missing for eighteen years. Money, at last, had found its way to me. For the sake of my people, I was willing to set aside my pride and play the part of a sheltered heiress. The car sent to escort me back to the estate broke down halfway up the mountain? I steadied it with one hand and carried it the rest of the way to the hilltop manor. The fake heiress dissolved into tears, accusing me of pushing her? I answered by striking the century-old tree in the courtyard, splitting it clean through. She went silent immediately. My fiancé sent bodyguards to "teach me self‑defense"? My two friends politely introduced them to the concept of being permanently embedded in a wall. As my so‑called "family" shook in fear, my knuckles cracked softly. After all, before inheriting the mafia, I inherited my father's favorite rule: "If violence can solve it, don't waste words."

My boyfriend Orion was the leading hunter of the Bright Moon Pack, who was sent on an S-class mission three years ago. Before he left, he told me to wait for his return, after which he would mark me. Holding him to his promise, I waited for over a thousand days, and he eventually did come back. I was delighted, but just ten days after I blissfully prepared for the marking ceremony, I overheard him speaking with his fellow hunters. "Are you sure you're going to mark Elara? What about Dahlia and Emery? Especially Emery—the pup's two years old and looks just like you. There's no hiding it at all." "Hell, the whole thing about a secret mission was a farce, to cover up for you hanging around for Emery's birth. If Elara knew the truth…" Orion shot his deputy a sharp glare right then. "Just tell Dahlia to keep her mouth shut and hide the pup. Elara's the only one for me." Dahlia? The pup? As it turned out, in those three years I was worried sick for him, he had a pup with another woman. My knuckles clenched, I returned to my room and called my father. "Dad, I want to go home."

“You really think a chrome leash makes me yours?” Timothy’s voice was a jagged shard of glass, his pulse thrumming frantically against the cold metal of the Blackwell collar. Kan leaned in, the scent of expensive bourbon and gunpowder clinging to him. He captured Timothy’s chin, forcing those defiant lavender eyes to meet his own. “It doesn’t make you mine, little ghost. It just keeps you still long enough for me to show you why you’ll never want to leave.” Behind him, Gideon’s shadow fell over them both, heavy and suffocating. “Careful, Kan,” the enforcer rumbled, his knuckles still stained with the blood of the men who’d tried to stop them. “He’s a reaper. He doesn't want a home. He wants a body count.” One Ghost. Two Predators. No Escape. Timothy Gal is a shadow. A high-level operative for the Nash Rebellion, he’s spent his life as a nameless tool in the war-torn Sopttyi District. He doesn’t feel, he doesn’t miss, and he certainly doesn't belong to anyone. But when a routine surveillance mission in Saati Town goes south, he catches the eye of the two most dangerous men in the Blackwell Mafia. Gideon Blackwell is the muscle—a man of controlled violence and territorial hunger. Kan Nelblack is the mind—a predator with a silver tongue and a taste for absolute submission. They don’t just want Timothy’s secrets. They want his soul.