I didn't realize I was already lost. I didn't realize someone else had already started pulling me. I didn't realize Zeon was watching me from the corner of every room, every group chat, every argument, every breath. I didn't realize how easily he would unravel me. But that's the thing about stories that change your life: They never start with fireworks. They start with something stupid. Like a group assignment. Like a boy who refused to work with anyone. Like me- wounded, furious, fresh off a breakup. Standing up and choosing the one person who swore he'd never choose anyone at all. And that... was where everything began.

Bellamia Vontreaux (Bella) was once a child raised in curated perfection, where the world still felt safe and certain and monsters existed only in stories. But perfection is brittle. When her father's deals ignites a chain of events that ends with her home in flames, Bella stands helpless in the ashes of the only life she has ever known. Shock gives way to something colder, something harder, and the girl who believed in safety disappears with the smoke. Along with her sister, Theodosia, Bellamia is taken by a ruthless Russian organization known as the Kol-tso Gadyuki, and is thrown into a world ruled by shadows, where money is power, loyalty is currency, and mercy is rarely offered. Survival demands a price. To live, Bella must strike a bargain with the man who controls it all. And the cost is everything she once was: Her name. Her innocence. And the fragile pieces of the girl she used to be. But some souls refuse to break. In a world where power is control and death can be the only mercy, Bellamia Vontreaux will learn that surviving the fire was only the beginning.