Selma writes

He hired a maid. What he got was a virgin. Now, he wants to ruin her-softly, slowly, completely. Eighteen and untouched, Christina never imagined her first job would land her in the mansion of a dangerously powerful billionaire. Bryce Alistair doesn't ask. He commands. And now, the innocent little maid is learning what it means to obey-one moan, one punishment, one wicked whisper at a time. Dark. Erotic. Addictive. She thought she was just cleaning his house. She didn't know she was walking into his cage. Christina is eighteen, broke, and desperate. Her first job lands her in the mansion of Bryce Alistair-a cold billionaire with eyes that strip her bare. He's older, richer, and terrifyingly magnetic. She tries to keep her distance, but her innocence draws him in like a flame. He doesn't want love. He wants obedience. And she's about to learn what it means to kneel. As their dangerous relationship deepens, lines blur between pain and pleasure, punishment and reward, fear, and yearning. But behind his sharp commands hides a man darker than she imagined-and she's about to discover that taming the virgin maid isn't just about breaking her body... It's about owning her completely

Eden's eighteenth birthday was supposed to be her moment-the night she'd finally tell him. The boy she grew up loving. The one who kissed every girl but her. The one she saved her virginity for. She's spent years dreaming of Liam, chasing his smile, starving for his attention. But tonight, all he sees is the next girl he can break. And Eden? She's not enough. Desperate to change that, she does the unthinkable. She turns to Hunter Cross. Captain of the hockey team. Cold. Arrogant. Brutally sexual. The kind of man girls dare not fantasize about-but Eden does. She begs him to teach her how to flirt, how to kiss, how to touch a man until he forgets every woman before her. Hunter agrees-but only under one condition. "If I teach you how to seduce him, then for one month... you belong to me. Fully. No questions. There are no limits." Now Eden is learning far more than she bargained for-lessons in pleasure, in control, in giving up her body piece by piece to a man who doesn't believe in love. Each touch Hunter demands pushes her deeper into the kind of sin she never imagined, the kind that leaves her shaking, soaked, and begging for more. But the deeper she falls, the more dangerous the game becomes. Because Hunter's not just training her for another man. He's breaking her for himself. And he has no intention of ever letting her go. For fans of Haunting Adeline, Twisted Games, and Credence-this is a dangerously seductive enemies-to-lovers story with a filthy slow burn, a dominant hero, and an ending that will leave you breathless. Warning: This book contains explicit adult content, power-play dynamics, rough language, and high-heat scenes intended for mature readers only.

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

I was three days away from marrying the Underboss of the Fazio crime family when I unlocked his burner phone. The screen glowed toxic bright in the dark next to my sleeping fiancé. A message from a contact saved as 'Little Trouble' read: "She is just a statue, Dante. Come back to bed." Attached was a photo of a woman lying in the sheets of his private office, wearing his shirt. My heart didn't break; it simply stopped. For eight years, I believed Dante was the hero who pulled me from a burning opera house. I played the perfect, loyal Mafia Princess for him. But heroes don't give their mistresses rare pink diamonds while giving their fiancées cubic zirconia replicas. He didn't just cheat. He humiliated me. He defended his mistress over his own soldiers in public. He even abandoned me on the side of the road on my birthday because she faked a pregnancy emergency. He thought I was weak. He thought I would accept the fake ring and the disrespect because I was just a political pawn. He was wrong. I didn't cry. Tears are for women who have options. I had a strategy. I walked into the bathroom and dialed a number I hadn't dared to call in a decade. "Speak," a voice like gravel growled on the other end. Lorenzo Moretti. The Capo of the rival family. The man my father called the Devil. "The wedding is off," I whispered, staring at my reflection. "I want an alliance with you, Enzo. And I want the Fazio family burned to the ground."

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York. I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him. But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash. In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress. He forced me to watch him court her. At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her. He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain. He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life. I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god. I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole. He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps. So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother. I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars. I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia. By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost.

I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

I was the "Caged Canary" of the underworld, a biological asset designed to merge two crime families. My fiancé, Bryant Barnes, didn't love me. He loved the power I brought, and he loved his mistress, Kalia. The night Kalia broke into my penthouse and stomped on my hand, crushing the bones and my fashion career, Bryant didn't help me. He told the police she was my guest and warned me not to embarrass him with a cast. That was just the beginning. When Kalia lied about feeling unsafe, Bryant dangled me off a balcony. When she faked a kidnapping, he locked me in an industrial freezer for six hours until I turned blue. And when I fell into the marina, he swam right past me to save her, leaving me to drown in the freezing water. He destroyed my body and my dignity for a woman who was stealing my designs and faking a pregnancy. He thought I was just a broken obligation he could discard. But he made a fatal mistake. He didn't make sure I was dead. I dragged myself out of the water and made a call to his greatest rival. On the night of our grand merger, I walked onto the stage wearing royal blue instead of white. I rolled up my sleeve to reveal the scars he gave me, looked him dead in the eye, and grabbed the microphone. "I hereby terminate my engagement to Bryant Barnes. And I am proud to announce my betrothal to the true King of this city."

"Fifty strikes," Floyd ordered, his voice devoid of warmth. I knelt in the freezing snow, watching the man I had taken a bullet for five years ago stand beside his new fiancée, Jaylah. Because Jaylah tore her engagement dress and blamed me, Floyd let his men beat me until my face was unrecognizable. But that was just the beginning of my hell. To save his alliance with Jaylah's family, he drained my blood to save her mother, ignoring my own fading pulse. When Jaylah lied that I tried to burn her, Floyd forced me to thrust my hands—my architect's hands—into glowing coals until the flesh melted. He stripped me of my name, my protection, and finally, my life. "You are a liability," he said, pushing me into the freezing pool with a skimmer pole. He watched me drown with the same detached interest he used to inspect firearms. My lungs burned, and my heart turned to ice. I died hating him more than I ever loved him. I thought it was the end. But then, I gasped. Air rushed into my lungs. I wasn't in the water. I was sitting at a drafting table, five years before the nightmare began. My hands were smooth. No scars. No burns. And when Floyd Meyers approached me on the quad, smiling like the boy I used to love, I didn't smile back. I ran.

I stood behind the velvet curtain, clutching a positive pregnancy test, waiting for the perfect moment to tell Dante our family was growing. Instead, I heard him laugh. "She is not the bride," Dante told his Consigliere, swirling his fifty-year-old scotch. "She is the bulletproof vest I wear until it is safe for Sofia to enter the city. When the bullets stop flying, we throw the vest in the trash." My world shattered. When Sofia arrived that night, she didn't just take my place; she boiled my beloved cat for dinner. Dante didn't defend me. He told me to clean up the mess or face punishment. To prove his devotion to her, he had his men drag me to "The Pit"—an underground fight club. I was thrown into a cage with a starving Doberman. I looked up at the VIP box, begging the man I loved to save me. Instead, Dante pressed the intercom button, his voice booming over the speakers. "One million dollars on the dog," he said. "She won't last three minutes." He covered Sofia's eyes to protect her innocence while the beast tore the flesh from my arm. That night, Elena Vance died in the dirt. One year later, the grieving Dante Moretti attended a gala for a mysterious new artist in New York. He dropped his champagne glass when he saw me on stage, alive, wearing a dress that revealed my ruined, scarred arm. "I didn't leave you, Dante," I said into the microphone, my voice cold as ice. "You killed me. And now, I'm here to collect my winnings."

The neurosurgeon looked at me with pity, delivering a diagnosis that severed seven years of devotion in a heartbeat. According to the scans, my husband, Dante Rizzoli, remembered how to strip a Glock blindfolded and launder millions. He just didn't remember loving me. Overnight, I went from being the cherished Mafia Princess to an unwanted stranger in my own penthouse. While I filled our home with his favorite lilies trying to spark a memory, Dante brought home Gia. She was loud, tacky, and draped over him like a cheap suit. The Capo had forgotten his wife, but he seemed to remember his lust perfectly fine. I swallowed the humiliation, clinging to the hope of his recovery, until I stood outside his office door with a tray of espresso. I heard his dark, amused laugh rumbling through the wood. "The amnesia is the most useful card I've ever played," Dante told his soldier. "It buys me time to enjoy Gia without the family breathing down my neck. Elena is a boring, safe relic. I need fire, not a porcelain doll." My heart didn't race. It stopped. The medical anomaly was a lie. He hadn't forgotten me; he was just done with me. I set the tray down silently. I wasn't going to wait for him to remember anymore. I walked out of the penthouse and dialed a number I hadn't used in years. "Get the new ID ready," I whispered into the phone. "Elena Vitiello dies tonight. Livia Moretti leaves at dawn."

He called me his wild rose, the foster kid he rescued from the streets. He built me a gilded cage and told me it was love. Then I saw the text: my best friend, Karis, showing off the engagement ring he' d just given her. I rushed to his office, only to overhear the truth. I was just a "placeholder," a "stray he picked up," a useful toy to keep his family happy while he planned his real future with her. He laughed about how easily he could control me. "A little gaslighting, a few well-placed gifts, and she'll be back where she belongs. Under my thumb." His final act of love? Drugging me and handing me over to a monster, sacrificing me as a "body double" to protect his precious Karis. He thought I was just a broken foster kid with nowhere to go. He thought he could erase me. He was wrong. As the private jet he put me on exploded over the ocean, I was already gone-saved by the powerful family I never knew I had. Now, I'm coming back, and they will pay for every single lie.