Xavier Petrov I came here for my younger brother, Louis, so he can live out his dreams and know I'm always behind him to protect him. We had to transfer universities from California because someone figured out who we were, that there were Petrovs in California and now here we are. In some small town in Vermont and in it, the past two years here have been good. Silent. This is my last year of this academic bullshit before I can finally go back to Italy, begin working alongside Alessio and fight for the three mafia alliance. I expected the months to go by fast. I planned to stay completely focused on my own world, boxing at an underground ring to bring money in and keep my friend's gym afloat. But what I didn't fucking expect was her. And god, she runs so pretty, like her name. A river flowing and running a continuous stream...Until you throw a rock in and fuck up the entire stream. Im coming for you River and there is nowhere you can run where I won't find you... River Hayes I've lived in this fucked up town my entire life. I'm barely surviving to get through my last year of this absolute hell. Every single day is a battle to keep my head above water, living under a roof where peace doesn't exist. My dad is an alcoholic with heavy fists and a temper that goes off like a landmine and my mother is a broken woman who was driven to drugs after seeing how miserably her life had failed her. I can't end up like them. I won't let myself. That's why I do what I do. That's why I've spent the last three years of my life selling my body at a gentlemen's club in town, a place where only the elite travel to such a little town to watch strippers dance and throw money at them. It's humiliating. No one from school even knows what I do and still I feel disgusting, I feel worthless, like nothing of mine is even mine anymore. But I'll keep doing it because I have no other choice, I need to get out of here and this degree is my one way ticket out. Or at least, thats what i thought...

He was the boy who left to save her and the man who came back ruined. Cold when he shouldn't be, silent when all she wants is for him to talk to her, Dominico Cruz learned young that loving someone means losing them. So he left first. He always leaves first. But her? Katerina Petrov was never someone you could leave behind. She was fire and fury and loyalty sharp enough to cut throats, she loved like a war and hated like a storm, and he was the only man who ever survived both. "You don't get to leave me again and call it love, Dominico. That's not love. That's cowardice." He would burn cities for her, kill kings for her, destroy himself for her, but the one thing he can't do is stay, because he believes loving him is a death sentence. She thinks he abandoned her. He thinks he's protecting her. And neither of them realizes they're destroying each other in the process. In whatever is between the world they've been born in, love isn't gentle. It's possession, sacrifice, blood and worst of all...Brutal. And the most dangerous thing in Dominico Cruz's life was never his enemies. It was always her.

Nikolai Petrov is the ruthless leader of the Russian mafia, feared by all who cross his path. When he forces Vera Moretti, the innocent yet broken daughter of a rival mafia family, into an arranged marriage, he expects obedience and submission. But Vera, scarred by her past, hides her pain behind a facade of strength and grace. As the lines between power and desire blur, Nikolai finds himself captivated by the one thing he can't control-her heart. In a world of danger and deceit, can love survive, or will it destroy them both?

They were never meant to trust each other. Let alone bleed beside one another. Elena Corsi is a strategist, a cold-blooded heir to one of Italy's most ruthless mafia legacies. She's never needed backup, and she certainly doesn't want it, not from a Russian, and especially not from Aleksander Petrov. He's the Bratva's second in command. Silent. Brutal. And impossible to read. Sent by Giovanni Moretti to "assist" her in training the next generation of soldiers and to stabilize the Italian mafia after it's new take over, Aleksander is everything Elena hates, detached, arrogant, and unreadably dangerous. He doesn't respect her rules. She doesn't care for his silence. But with the old families rising, alliances fracturing, and a target growing on both their backs, Elena and Aleksander are forced into uneasy proximity. Between training sessions, strategic meetings, and the looming chaos of the annual mafia ball, tensions crackle and control slips. Because loyalty is currency in their world-and attraction? It's a liability neither of them can afford. But when bullets start flying, and betrayal hides behind familiar faces, the real question isn't who they can trust... It's whether they'll survive long enough to figure out what they really are to each other.