"Oh my darling, if you don’t say 'I do' right now, today might end tragically for you"
A gun pressed to my head, my heart hammering, cold sweat dripping down my forehead.
"I do… I will be his wife, till death do us part," I whispered, swallowing hard, clinging to every shred of composure.
And just like that, I was married… to someone I didn’t even know. I had no memory of how I got to the altar, or how this nightmare had begun.
Alora Smith has never known stability. Abandoned at the age of five and left to the mercy of an orphanage, she grew up in a world that offered little more than survival. When the only place she could call home burned to ashes on her thirteenth birthday, she was thrust onto the streets with nothing but a broken locket and her will to endure. By nineteen, Alora is juggling two dead-end jobs, struggling to keep her head above water, and haunted by scars that never healed. Love, trust, and safety have always been luxuries she can’t afford.
Rafaello De Luca has never known weakness. A man forged by blood and shadow, he is feared as much as he is respected. As the ruthless head of a powerful mafia empire, he commands loyalty, terror, and silence. Yet beneath the armor of power lies a man bound by his own ghosts,a man who doesn’t believe he deserves redemption.
When fate collides their worlds, Rafaello sees in Alora a fire that refuses to be extinguished, a rare rose blooming through thorns. To Alora, Rafaello is danger incarnate, a man she should run from, not fall into. But the more he protects her, the more he becomes irresistible to let go of...
