Theo Judas used to believe restoration was a kind of resurrection - that if your hands were careful enough, the past would forgive you for touching it. But after a public failure in Florence leaves his career in ruins, he's given one last chance: an invitation to a discreet collaboration inside the Louvre, a letter that was sent to three others like him. The project sounds simple - the restoration of "orphaned artifacts," relics without provenance recovered from private collections. The curator overseeing the project speaks of art as if it were divine punishment. Every brushstroke, every late-night conversation, every sealed envelope draws Theo deeper into a design he can't yet see - one drawn by a man who believes beauty is worth stealing for, and faith is worth breaking. What follows is a descent through art, faith, and illusion, where every restoration is a forgery, and every forgery reveals what truth was never meant to survive. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐕𝐑𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

shuntaro chishiya x oc The last King had ruled through paranoia, through the kind of weak-willed fear that saw threats in allies and let power slip through trembling fingers. The noise swelled, folding in on itself, growing larger than the sum of its parts. It was no longer sound; it was weight, crushing down on me, sinking into the marrow of my bones, pressing into hollow spaces of my mind. It tangled with my thoughts, wrapped around them like a vice until I couldn't tell where the shouting stopped and where my mind began. The wall bore the marks of time, not in cracks or stains, but in etchings of survival - a tally of days carved with a dagger. At first, I had carved them close together, expecting to leave before the space ran out. But as the marks stretched, as the numbers climbed, the gaps between each tally mark grew wider, as if denial could be traced in spacing. I ran my fingers over the final mark, the last one I was allowed. I focused on the way the air felt when no one else was breathing it. The visa was not an empty threat, nor an arbitrary limit designed to keep me playing - it was a fuse reminder that time did not stop simply because I had.

"Don't touch me" He said through gritted teeth, "I don't know what I'll do if you touch me" My heart dropped. "I don't want to see you like this" I frowned and hesitantly tried to touch his shoulder, but he grabbed my hand tightly but gently. "Fuck it" He murmured as he held my jaw and pressed his lips on mine. (The guy is 22 and the girl is 17 a few months away from 18. If you're bothered by that please don't read it.)

Peach McCoy It's fun to dance with the devil until he drops you during a leap. At first, I'd thought this devil was none other than the Don of the Russian Bratva, Viktor Makarovich. He was hunting me down for hacking into his mafia's secret network and knowing a little too much about his little illegal fraternity. He caught me, I escaped and this was the dance I thought would get me killed but someone wants us both dead now. The beat of the music has changed and we have to dance together and not against each other if we want to find the guilty party and be alive to tell the tale. There's something about Viktor that lights a spark in me I thought was long gone. The thing is, what I wish we could have cannot happen while we move to what might be the end of our song. I'm smart and I can figure out how to hack into anything I want but for some reason... I only want to know The Code To A Don's Heart. Viktor Makarovich I was just supposed to track down a hacker. It was my way to get away from the Bratva for a while because since my dad and older brother were dead, the mafia was mine. I didn't want it. I just wanted to hunt, kill and protect under someone else's rule but... things have changed. The woman I thought I was going to kill somehow became my only accomplice. Someone wants me- us- dead and I'm sure I know who but the deeper I dig into the affairs of what is now my Bratva, the more unsure I become. The connection I feel to Peach isn't helping. For the first time in what seems like forever, I'm more focused on keeping her alive than myself. She challenges me, pushes me to my limits and being around her is more of a high than I've ever felt on a hunt. She doesn't know it but that great mind of hers, in her words, is finding The Code To A Don's Heart.

Originally "My girl." NOT EDITED⚠️ "You love hugs Don't you?" "Only yours." - "You know, if you wanted a kiss you could've just asked, princess." he said seductively in my ear, his hand rubbing up and down my waist. - He slowly lifts his gaze to look at me. "You're scared, aren't you." - "Ava, my dick is rock hard and we're going to the fucking pool, it's taking my all to not take you right here in this fucking elevator." He grumbled causing my eyes to trail down to see it. - She was like a ray of sunshine. He was the devil. Join Ava and Kai on a journey of love, redemption, and the power of finding light in the darkest of places. You know what they say... opposites attract;) _______ Read to find out ;) ⚠️P.s... the ending to this book is SAD, read at your own discretion...Enjoy! ⚠️ ©️2023

HEIRS SERIES #1 ~Eres Academy~ Paige Bennet is a commoner, forever chased by her life's monsters. Wealth, comfort, and security aren't part of her world. But what she does have is intelligence, and that's what's earned her a scholarship to the world's most prestigious school for the Royal and the elite: Eres Academy. In an instant, she's thrust into a world vastly different from her own-a world that dazzles at first glance with sports cars, glimmering gowns, entitled rich kids, and spoiled royals. Amidst its glamour, Paige is confident in her smarts and certain that a group of wealthy, golden-bathed teenagers won't intimidate her. But soon one learns that all that glitters isn't gold, and even the rich have monsters of their own. Which no textbook could ever prepare her for. Blake Carlisle isn't someone to mess with. He's rich, he's handsome, he's elite. Oh and one more thing-he's a bully. Life experiences are said to shape us, in Blake's case, they've shaped him for the worse. Ever since his birth, he'd been at the top of life's food chain. Commoners are preyed by the wealthy, thus, in Eres, to him, they don't belong. And he makes sure they know it. This school year, he's planning to do the same. But things change when the commoner isn't like the others. She's a fighter. Yet no matter the fire in her eyes, she was just another commoner who would always remain beneathe him, he just needed to her remind her of her place. And in Eres, he wanted her gone. But what happens when a fierce rivalry turns into attraction? When the target lowers her guard, and the bully's heart turns soft? One thing's for sure: We'll all be damned. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For only fire can melt even the purest of gold. And her flames are those he'd never thought to behold. _________________________ Highest Rankings. #2 teen fiction #1 Monarchy COMPLETED