"Will it kill you to back the fuck up?" I snapped. "Yes, princess," he whispered sweetly against my ear, voice full of that sick affection. "It would. I would drop dead right here if I couldn't be next to you." "My lucky day," I muttered sarcastically.

Ava Quinn never knew what to make of Nolan Winters. Her best friends' troubled brother who lived next door. The boy who disappeared only to remerge with black eyes. The boy who hid secrets from everyone around him. The boy who eventually left for college, fading away as a small part of her old life. Six years later when Nolan reappears, everything's different. He's different. Ava finds herself tangled in this new version of him, his stable photography career, his attempts at bridging the gap between his family. She thinks she hates him, that she wants nothing to do with him, but fate seems to have their paths constantly crossing. Suddenly there's something new... Moments alone. Stares. Touching. Things are slipping beyond the barrier of platonic, a new found intoxication drawing them together. It doesn't help that Nolan's sister has strictly warned him away from Ava, or that Nolan's secretive past is creeping into the future... The weight of their tension is burning, hot, and very soon they'll both be drowning. 🖤 𝘽𝙀𝙎𝙏 𝙁𝙍𝙄𝙀𝙉𝘿𝙎 𝘽𝙍𝙊𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙍 🖤 𝙎𝙇𝙊𝙒 𝘽𝙐𝙍𝙉 𝙍𝙊𝙈𝘼𝙉𝘾𝙀 🖤𝘿𝙐𝘼𝙇 𝙋𝙊𝙑 🖤 18+ 𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙐𝙍𝙀

Noelle's quiet life shatters overnight, when she receives a call that her father has died. Once the daughter of a feared crime boss, she's spent the last 5 years trying to outrun her family's shadow, evening changing her name - until the debts her father left behind drag her straight back into the world she swore she'd never return to. To protect her mother from the brutal retaliation of the DeLuna syndicate, Noelle agrees to the unthinkable: marriage to the new Don, Kairo DeLuna, a man as dangerous as he is magnetic. Kairo rules with ice in his veins and secrets in his eyes-known for his lust of sadistic brutality, Noelle is given no choice. Save her mother, or watch the only family she has left face the consequences. Their union is meant to seal a business deal and bury her father's mistakes - yet what begins as an arrangement of power soon becomes a battle of desire, trust, and survival. As Noelle is pulled deeper into Kairo's world of betrayal, bloodlines, and revenge, she must decide whether her heart is her greatest weakness... or the weapon that could change everything.