Book 1. "The unknown princess" This is book 2! Five years ago, Aria Castellano learned the truth that destroys most people: innocence is the easiest weapon an enemy can use. So she cut hers out. Piece by piece. She left New York to sever every tie that made her vulnerable-family, friends, and the boy she loved enough to become a liability. She traded softness for strategy, hesitation for violence, and the girl she used to be for a woman who understands that survival requires dirty hands and an even dirtier conscience. Now she's back. Not for forgiveness. Not for closure. But to finish the war that began long before she knew she was part of it. Her return exposes traitors, rattles alliances, and forces her to face the one person she swore she'd never see again. And the worst part? It hurts. It shouldn't- but it does. Still, pain is a small price. Because Aria isn't in New York to feel. She's here to win. And she stopped fearing the monster inside her the moment she realized- monsters survive longer.

Seventeen-year-old Aria Castellano thought she knew who she was - a scholarship student, a good daughter, a girl with simple dreams and a mother who made the world feel safe. But when her mother dies in a car accident, the life Aria knew unravels overnight. A letter. A name. A father she's never met. Now she's flying across the country to New York - to a mansion with guards at every gate, brothers who don't know what to make of her, and a father still struggling to accept the daughter he didn't know existed. Her stepmother is kind, her new home beautiful... but nothing about it feels right. At St. Augustine's Academy, power hums beneath every smile and secret. The students there were born into legacies - families bound by alliances older than the school itself, until betrayal tore them apart. Those old rivalries still live on in the halls she walks now, and Aria's arrival is stirring them all back to life. One boy in particular seems to hate her most. He's untouchable, cruel in that effortless way only someone raised in power can be. But behind the sharp words and colder eyes is something else - something that pulls her closer even when she knows she shouldn't look twice. As Aria begins to uncover the truth her mother died protecting, she learns that some secrets were buried for a reason... and that even in a world built on bloodlines and betrayal, the most dangerous thing of all might be the way he looks at her. "Some secrets don't stay buried forever. And Aria Castellano's name might be the one that brings them all back to the light"

"We could be more than just friends, Soph." • • • He was a player with the brain of a genius. She was his best friend, the only one who could resist his charm. And yet... - Hold on to your panties, because a genius is loose.