Valentina Cruz, a poor but defiant college student, is thrown into a deadly world of mafia politics after her estranged father gambles with her life to pay his debt. In a cruel twist of fate, she is forced to marry Rafael D’Amico, the cold-blooded heir of a brutal mafia dynasty known as The Beast.

At first, their hatred is mutual. But as danger closes in, secrets unravel — including Rafael’s tragic past love, Valentina’s buried rage, and a passion betweValentina Cruz, a poor but defiant college student, is thrown into a deadly world of mafia politics after her estranged father gambles with her life to pay his debt. In a cruel twist of fate, she is forced to marry Rafael D’Amico, the cold-blooded heir of a brutal mafia dynasty known as The Beast.

At first, their hatred is mutual. But as danger closes in, secrets unravel — including Rafael’s tragic past love, Valentina’s buried rage, and a passion between them that refuses to die.

In a world ruled by violence, can love survive betrayal?
Or will it be buried beneath blood and bulen them that refuses to die.

In a world ruled by violence, can love survive betrayal?
Or will it be buried beneath blood and bul

It was early. Barely light out. The air had that heavy, dead kind of silence — like the world was holding its breath.


I threw on a hoodie over Rafael's oversized shirt — don't judge me, the man has disturbingly good cotton — and followed the sound down the hallway, barefoot and braless, because trauma doesn't wait for underwire.


I hate when people say that. It's never an avocado tree or a surprise puppy.


There was a crowd of Rafael's men already gathered, weapons holstered, radios crackling.


And there, hanging on the iron bars of the gate, was a message.


A crude heart symbol, dripping and dark. And inside it, a single name:


Camilla stood beside me, arms crossed. "Welcome to the family."


Instead, Rafael appeared behind us like a shadow — all sharp lines and silent fury. His jaw was clenched so hard it could've cracked steel.


His eyes met mine. Cold. But under that — fury. No, panic. A quiet storm he was keeping on a tight leash.


"This is why I have rules," he said. "This is why you don't wander."


"You're the reason they came to my gate."


"You've always been the bait," he said. "You just didn't know it."


That stung more than I wanted to admit.


I folded my arms. "So what now? Do we run? Hide? Pretend none of this happened?"


Later, Camilla cornered me in the hallway.


"You really don't get it, do you?" she said.


"This man," she said, motioning to the marble floors, the guards, the freaking fortress we lived in. "He kills people for looking at him the wrong way. But he let you yell at him in front of twenty witnesses last night."


"So that makes you the most dangerous person in this house."


I stared at the ring on my finger — the mafia's version of a leash — and thought about how quickly everything had flipped. From library late nights to blood on gates. From ramen dinners to silent bodyguards outside my bedroom door.


But as I lay there in his bed, with the faint smell of gunpowder and cologne still lingering in the sheets, I realized something worse than fear had crept in.


Who was Rafael D'Amico before the blood?


Chapter 6 - chapter 6