Unabridged Books Chicago Novels & Stories

**Dark Romance** Being the new girl is hard, Mary is shy, introverted, and prefers the solitude of being with her books than people. But in her new school, things became different as she got noticed by the wrong people. She catches the attention of the school's bad boy who begins to taunt and ridicule her. ***** I played with my fingers as he stared, he didn't stop staring and I was finding it hard to maintain eye contact with him. His stare was making me feel uncomfortable. I couldn't help but wonder what he was doing here alone. "Mary Davies," he whispered my name. "You are still a virgin right?" He asked smirking. "Hmmmn... Untouched. Innocent. Just like I have always wanted." He whispered, trailing a finger down my collar bone. "I am going to have so much fun with you," he whispered again, kissing my ear lobes. "So much fun." He added, stepping away from me. He began to walk towards the door. "See you tonight."

Sometimes being outnumbered is a good thing--a very good thing! Harper When I signed up for an app that let me make some extra cash attending events with single men, I had no idea it would lead me to fall in love--four times! Scott is a caring organic farmer with muscles like no other. Damien is one of the richest men in the world who knows how to spoil me. Rafe is a famous quarterback who always hits me in the right spot. And then there's Tomas, my former professor turned Latin lover. It's scary dating four men, but they don't mind. In fact, they like how happy I am this way. Jack, however, my ex, is not exactly happy to find out my new situation. He'll stop at nothing to have me as his own--and share me with no one. When he goes too far, will my men be able to save me? If you love steamy reverse harem books, this new series from the author of Realm of the Chosen and Ember's Flames is perfect for you. Why choose if you don't have to?

"Please turn the lamp off, Maximilian. You do not want to see my stomach under this bright light," I whispered, pulling the heavy blanket over my chest. "I am never turning the lamps off again, Alexandra," Maximilian replied. He gently pulled the blanket out of my hands and tossed it aside. "Your ex-boyfriend was a blind fool. I want to look at every single inch of you. I am absolutely obsessed with your full hips, your thick thighs, and your soft stomach." For two years, data intern Alexandra Petrov believed her boyfriend turned the bedroom lights off because he was traditional. On the night of their second anniversary, she discovers the devastating truth. She finds him fully naked in their brightly lit apartment with her painfully thin older sister. He explicitly confesses that he only demands darkness because he is completely disgusted by Alexandra's heavy, curvy body. Heartbroken and humiliated, Alexandra runs into the freezing Chicago rain and directly crosses paths with Maximilian Volkov. He is the ruthless billionaire CEO of Volkov Industries, and he is secretly her ultimate boss. Maximilian is instantly captivated by her gorgeous face and her plump figure. He moves her into his highly secure penthouse and establishes a strict physical rule. There will be absolutely no hiding in his home. Maximilian will use his massive wealth to ruin the people who destroyed her self-esteem, and he will spend every single night worshipping her beautiful curves with all the bedroom lamps blazing brightly.

By day, he's Chicago's most powerful billionaire. By night, he's the city's most dangerous protector. Elena Moretti has spent years fighting for the forgotten—rescuing at-risk youth from the violence that claimed her brother's life. She doesn't trust wealth, power, or the men who wield them. So when enigmatic billionaire Dante Salvatore walks into her struggling community center with a check that could change everything, she knows there's a catch. Men like him don't save neighborhoods out of the goodness of their hearts. But Elena doesn't know Dante's secret: by night, he becomes The Sentinel, a masked vigilante dismantling the criminal empire that murdered his sister. As their worlds collide and attraction ignites between them, Elena begins investigating the vigilante whose methods both terrify and fascinate her—never suspecting the man she's falling for and the man she's hunting are one and the same. When a ruthless crime syndicate discovers The Sentinel's identity, Elena becomes the bait in a deadly trap. Dante must risk everything to save her, but when Elena uncovers the truth about the man behind the mask, she's forced to decide: Can she love someone who lives in shadows? And can a man who's spent years seeking vengeance ever truly step into the light? In a pulse-pounding tale of passion, danger, and redemption, two wounded souls discover that the most dangerous risk isn't fighting for justice—it's fighting for love.

The morning was cold and I was currency. My father handed me to Dimitri Volkov, Bratva, like I was a contract clause. I said no at the altar. Loud enough for everyone to hear. The priest kept going. Dimitri didn’t even blink. That was fact one: I was married without consent, in Chicago, to a man who accepted silence as agreement. I left him later. Not in rage. In clarity, after I saw another girl get caught in his world with no choice, just like me. Then I went to war. Law school had taught me precision, so I used it. Civil suits. Asset forfeiture. Anonymous tips to the right agencies. I took apart everything legitimate he’d built, piece by piece, until he bled territories and pride. He showed up bruised once, signed over forty percent of his clean empire to my name, brought therapy receipts. That was fact two: I dismantled the man who caged me, on paper, without firing a shot. I still have the necklace. The one he left in my lap that first night. I wore it through the worst, through the year I rebuilt alone, through every hearing. Last month I was pregnant in a courtroom, arguing a case I won. He was in the gallery. The diamonds sat above my collar. No one asked. I never explained. That was fact three: I took something from that night and made it mine. It doesn’t belong to him anymore. It doesn’t belong to what he did. It belongs to me.

At another Sunday dinner at the Bellandi estate, Luca Bellandi's assistant, Ava Marino, was sitting in my seat. It was the first chair to Luca's right at the long walnut table, the seat everyone in Chicago's underworld knew belonged to Mrs. Bellandi. Ava sat there as if she had been born into it, her pale wrist brushing Luca's sleeve while she poured his wine. I stood in the doorway and looked at him. "She's in my seat. You don't have anything to say?" Luca raised his eyes. "You were late. Don't blame someone else for sitting down first. There are empty chairs over there. Sit if you want. If not, get out." The dining room went dead quiet, and before I could answer, his thoughts slipped into my ears. [Vivi, don't go. Come sit beside me. Tell them it's your seat. Tell me you still want to be my wife.] [Please get mad. Please care. Say you need me, and I'll give you the whole world.] In the past, those soft, trembling thoughts would have been enough. I would've swallowed the insult and stayed beside him like a loyal dog that didn't know when to leave. This time, I didn't. I slipped the wedding ring off my finger and laid it on the table. "If the Bellandi family can't even keep a wife's seat for me, then I guess this family doesn't need a wife anymore. Luca, let's get divorced."

I became the ultimate simp for Shannon Seay, the school's notorious flirt, and everyone assumed I was head over heels for her. When she skipped classes to pick fights or chase thrills, I'd copy notes and homework for her. When she tangled in ambiguous flings with other guys, I'd provide alibis to cover her tracks. For three grueling years, I poured my heart and soul into transforming her into an academic star, securing her spot at a top university. But right before orientation, she dumped me. Towering over me, she declared, "I know you've had a crush on me forever, but you're all books and no spark. Compared to Hunter, you're too rigid. We're done. I'm with him now." The crowd held its breath, anticipating my meltdown. I peeked at my phone, confirming a $50-million transfer, and replied with genuine nonchalance, "Alright, congrats." No one knew my unwavering devotion was purely because her father had paid handsomely for it. Now that the pay had been secured, it was time for me to vanish.

Ling's parents have been separated since she was young, and she copes with the separation by taking good care of her father. When the public school her father works at receives news of a donor who'd supply the school with new books, Ling becomes enthusiastic. But upon meeting Joshua Aragon Villafuerte, the donor, all her senses tell her this handsome, rich boy is more than what he is. Joshua grew up never knowing what a mother's love was. He doesn't mind though since he sails through life easily with a rich father as his support. Though charming and your general nice guy, behind his easy-going smile Joshua isn't faring well--not when you witnessed your own mother put a bullet to her head at the tender age of six. Just when two people try to overcome their childhood heartaches, Ling and Joshua discover what links them together. And whatever truth comes out of their predicament, they can't deny that they need each other to get pass their demons.

One Year to Lose You Maya Bennett has twelve months left to live. At twenty-one, she has everything: bestselling books, wealth, and a man who loves her enough to kneel with a ring in his hand. So she breaks his heart. On the night he proposes, Maya tells Ray she has fallen out of love. That she wants someone else, she walks away before he can see her fall apart because it’s easier to be hated than mourned. Then she meets Jay, a stranger in sportswear who can’t pay his taxi fare, so she thought… but in the real sense, he is the man the city knows as billionaire Jay Naire. She offers him a deal: pretend to be her boyfriend for one year. Make it convincing for Ray to forget her before she’s gone, and Jay agrees. But the more they fake it, the more real it becomes. And before the year runs out, Maya finds herself trapped between two men, the one she tried to save, and the one who refuses to let her go. Will twelve months be enough to lose both of them? Or will she run out of time first?

“WAKE UP, DANIELA!” The death warning, yet rather a call that Daniela dreamed about after walking up in the series of chances, greed, sacrifices, and the seven deadly sins, and from an inevitable chance to turn back into time and run into the loop of space and dimension. To her life that was surrounded with lies, blessed fate, but curse destiny she is entwined to save the person who is long dead from the present that she never had in the first place. Now being stunned by the life she never dreams of having, she runs toward the series of miseries behind the hidden books of the reincarnated blood she bares. “Death reincarnated, that is your world and your book.” To the chances that were led by greed, longing or hope, will the past that alters by the son of darkness, will long be able to vanish? What if what everyone knew was a lie, and the lie that they are trying to run away from is the truth they are seeking after all? Will the world they are walking that is filled with the unknown they only knew will lead them to the truth of who is the clone from the original? Can she solve the puzzle of the first book in her world that revolves in the mystery of a tarot deck? From the series of reincarnation and dimension can she solve the real mystery of ‘Who is the real dead one?’