The Fifth Discipline

Sage Davis was once the name on everyone's lips, a rising basketball star with unmatched talent and a promising future. But one wrong move, one selfish mis-timed dunk during a critical game cost her team the trophy and left her with a shattered ankle and a fractured reputation. A year off the court has left her anxious and stripped of the confidence that once defined her. Now 19, she is back, taller, stronger, but haunted by doubts and the pressure of living up to her former glory. Enter Andrew Jefferson, turning forty, striking, with the kind of presence that commands attention. He is the new coach of the team and, awkwardly enough, her best friend's father. Sage expected discipline, rules, and professional distance but what she didn't expect was the spark, a mere fickle at first, and then a flame. He sees the fire in her, the talent she possesses, and the fragility she tries to hide. Against all odds, she finds herself drawn to the one man she should never want. Their connection is forbidden. Dangerous. Taboo. But as the line between right and wrong blurs, Sage must decide if she’s willing to risk everything, her future, her friendship, and the fragile pieces of herself she is still putting back together, for a love that was never supposed to happen. This is a story of redemption, desire, and the kind of love that breaks rules, norms……and hearts.

“Whisper your sexual desires to me, sweetheart.” “I want your cock. Dig into my hole until I’m screaming your name. I want to moan, my hands tied to the bed frame, completely at your mercy. I want to come all over the sheets till no part of my body is still dry.” The night Tessa found out her boyfriend was cheating on her with her best friend, coupled with the fact that this was her fifth failed, so called serious relationship, her heart tore into pieces. Depressed, drunk,and desperate to be acknowledged, she found herself in the wrong hotel room and in the bed of Leo Brooks; the cold hearted CEO of Ardentia’s top company. He is irresistible and ruthless. He gave her the first orgasm of her life and agreed to a one year contract marriage—Tessa for the money, Leo for the media, business deals and his father’s pressure. Tessa also discovers that Leo is her new boss. Will she fall at his knees, begging him again to make love to her or will her pride and dignity remind her that real men don’t exist, and she shouldn’t give in to just any man? “Good girl. Now, suck my dick, princess.”

Timothy Giannato is a twenty-nine-year-old Italian multimillionaire who no longer believes in love, not since his girlfriend of more than a year of relationship, was unfaithful with a co-worker. Now Timothy prefers to live life on his own terms, no strings attached, no love, no suffering. Melody Redford is a twenty-two-year-old young woman, an animal and book lover, in her fifth semester of college studying veterinary medicine. Thanks to a night of drinking and partying, she became unexpectedly pregnant and her boyfriend Richard did not admit it and urged her to get rid of the problem. Melody’s family was no help either and forced her to make the most difficult decision any woman could make: to abort her child or to leave home and raise her child alone. Melody refused to have an abortion, so she was only three months pregnant when she moved in with her friend Lucy and got a job at a coffee shop to pay for doctor’s appointments and prenatal pills. That’s how she realized that it was going to be impossible for her to sustain a decent life for when her child was born. She was willing to do anything to avoid going back to her parents for help, let alone calling Richard. What neither of them imagined was that fate had an awfully bad joke for both of them, and it would show them that it is never too late to trust again.

Alicia’s wedding once made headlines across all of New Yorke. The man who put the ring on her finger was Matteo Vitale, the youngest Don of the Vitale family. She was not a socialite heiress. She was a lawyer who had won countless cases for powerful families. She was also five years older than her husband. When Matteo was thirty and at the peak of his career, Alicia was already thirty-five. Back then, Matteo told her that age would never be a problem between them. As long as she wanted him, he would never let her go for the rest of his life. But in the fifth year of their marriage, a young woman burst into her office and dropped a divorce agreement on her desk. “I heard you’re the best divorce lawyer on New Yorke’s East Side. There isn’t a divorce case you can’t win, right? “I want to hire you to help my boyfriend get a divorce from his wife. “My boyfriend says his wife is thirty-five now. She smells old. Every time he touches her, he feels sick.” She opened the divorce agreement with practiced ease. She looked first at the names, as she always did. [Husband: Matteo Vitale [Wife: Alicia Leon] Her fingers paused for a brief moment. She was Alicia Leon!

In my fifth year of marriage to the Don of a powerful mafia family, I find out that the protection charm he gave me causes me headaches whenever I bring it with me. As a surgeon, this raised my alarm. I retrieved the small sachets I had found inside the amulet and brought them to the toxicology lab at Kosley Hospital.. The doctor inspects the sachet and tells me that it contains a type of slow-acting poison that doesn't just cause harm to the victim's body but also renders them infertile after a while. I cry and exclaim, "But that's impossible! My husband gave this to me! His name is Vincenzo Cursley. He's also the person who owns this hospital!" The doctor looks at me in confusion. "Miss, please stop the nonsense. I know Mr. Cursley and his wife. They're very close and intimate with each other. Also, Mrs. Cursley just gave birth to a baby boy not too long ago. They're both now in the VIP ward, looking at their baby." Then, the doctor shows me a photo on his phone. Vincenzo was wearing his usual black suit with the Cursley family emblem embroidered on it. He was holding a baby in his arms, and as for the woman standing next to him… I know her. Her name is Claudia Henderson. And Vincenzo has always referred to her as his adoptive sister.

By the fifth year Dylan Crewe dropped me on a remote island, I finally learned submission. He brought his sugar baby, a college student, along with a Doberman to pick me up. I sank to my knees, wiped the sand off his leather shoes with my sleeve, and bent my back as a step for them. “Your duty from here on out is to take care of Tammy Bates. She and the Doberman are your family now.” I complied with his demand with a smile. Dylan took over my family’s empire, pushed my parents to the depths of despair until they jumped to their deaths, while I was abandoned in the middle of nowhere to break me. He succeeded in his venture. Back in the familiar manor, I couldn’t recognize the place I once called home. My alarm clock rang at 4 o’clock every morning, as my day would start with a special diet for Dobie and its grooming session. At nine o’clock, I would lay out Tammy’s outfit for the day and be her literal punching bag at the gym. I would have the drinks and food ready for Tammy’s friends in the evening, as she kidded around with her friends about how she tamed the once proud, notoriously spoiled heiress of Hedgewood’s high society.

"What do you think, Kenzo? Do I look sexy in this" pushing the door open to his suite room, he was met with the most unexpected scene, with sprawled legs on both sides of the bed, a book in her hands, in a flowy lacy thin white gown which stuck dangerously to her body, doing absolute justice to her perfectly rounded boobs which poked out dangerously through the see-through night gown, his long distance wife was right there, on the bed. She finally looked away from the book which was seated on both palms of her hands, she tucked it aside and then raised her head up, her eyes meeting his. "Missed me, dear husband?" Three weeks and four days ago was their 7th year wedding anniversary, and she wasn't available, she was never available, not for the first, second, fifth, nor sixth. So, why was she here now? After years of living totally apart despite being married, their main focus was their company, or at least, hers. They married for love, people think they didn't, they think it is a contract marriage, they married for love, or maybe just him. He married her because he loved her and he thought she did too, but maybe he was wrong. Why was she here now? This is a short, fast-paced romance designed to keep you hooked from the first page to the last.

“S-save me, I beg of you. I’ll sell my soul to you, just give me another chance to live. I’ll even kiss the devil for you,” I desperately wept in front of this dangerous looking stranger. “Woman, it’s not only your soul I will covet. It’s your mind, your body and your whole existence. Are you up for that game?” he pronounced his ownership with his domineering might. ___ Framed by her evil twin sister, Selena Morgan was beaten to death on their fifth wedding anniversary by the Morgans–her husband’s family. Convinced she was dead, her bloodied body was thrown away at a landfill. With zero chance of survival, she waited for her very last breath until a mysterious and dangerous figure appeared before her. He became her last ray of hope and offered her retribution in exchange for a dreadful price–her face, identity, and old life. Desperate and consumed by her inextinguishable wrath, she willingly closed the deal with him on one condition, the fall of the Morgans’ regime. Bearing her new identity as the wife of a very influential billionaire, Alexander Forger, she showed up at a charity event orchestrated by the Morgans where she witnessed her ex-husband and twin sister’s betrayal. With fuming anger scorching inside her, Lilith--the new face of revenge, has officially been reborn.

Alessandra Marino, 35, runs New York's most powerful criminal organization from a penthouse forty-two floors above a city she owns. She has built this empire with one purpose: to avenge her father Vittorio, murdered seventeen years ago in a warehouse on Fifth Street when Alessandra was eighteen. She has a scar above her heart from that night — a knife meant for him. She has never once questioned the direction of her war. The night she executes a traitor named Theron, she receives a call from an unknown woman who claims to know why Vittorio really died. The woman is Giuliana Torelli — daughter of the man who pulled the trigger, made to watch as a fourteen-year-old, carrying the truth for seventeen years while waiting for someone ready to hear it. What Giuliana reveals dismantles everything Alessandra believed: Vittorio wasn't killed for his power. He was killed because he was going to go federal — because his wife was pregnant with a second child and he wanted to run, to be ordinary, to give his family a life outside the empire. Thomas Accardi, the man who married Alessandra's mother after Vittorio's death, was the architect of the murder. And Accardi has always known about the second child. Her name is Mara. She is twenty-eight years old, living in Williamsburg, and completely unaware that her entire life is a lie — or that Accardi has just wired a hundred thousand dollars to a fixer named James Sullivan.

She spent her life saving hearts, until the man who ruled an empire of violence shattered hers. Jenna Blake should have been finishing her final year of cardiology, standing at the edge of a future she had built with discipline, sacrifice, and quiet determination. She was gentle, obedient, a healer with steady hands and a soft heart, someone meant for hospitals, not the shadows of the mafia. Everything changed the day Evan Grant stepped into her life. Forced into marriage with the man who commands fear and respect, Jenna loses her career, her dreams, and the life she fought to create. He is feared by all, yet the feared look up to him. Power comes naturally to him. Control is instinct. Compassion is optional. On the day she became his bride, he offered no comfort, only a reminder of the fiery message she sent him during their disastrous first encounter. Yet he also placed a ring on her finger, a token meant only for her, a symbol that even in a world of violence, he claimed her in a way no one else could. Her freedom vanished. Her life was rewritten. But when secrets surface and past betrayals collide, enemies are forced to confront the truth. A dark mafia romance thriller with enemies-to-lovers tension and a second-chance love that could consume them both.