Seraphina Esposito is a mafia queen.. cold, ruthless, untouchable. At twenty-five she rules an empire built on fear, wielding power like a blade and believing feelings to be nothing but weakness. Love, family, softness.. those are luxuries she's burned out of herself. Or so she thought. Then comes Elowen Morgan. Beautiful. Too emotionally intelligent. Kindhearted. Too pure for a world like hers... and yet, impossible to ignore. With honey-brown eyes that see too much and a quiet defiance behind her smile, she unsettles everything Seraphina thought she knew. Seraphina doesn't do love. But desire? Obsession? The urge to claim what should never have been hers? That, she can't seem to resist. What happens when a woman who feels nothing meets the one person she can't stop feeling?

A stranger to her own existence, Kayla moves to a small town with the hope of finding comfort in a fresh start. But as she steps inside the unfamiliar classroom on the first day, standing in front of the class is a mysteriously familiar face, one that rouses memories of a time she believed had gone by. With past baggage catching up in the most intrusive ways, she stumbles upon unexpected comfort of friendship, unconditional love of found family, and a beautiful yet complicated bond between two hesitant souls. "This book was like a warm hug, and I might believe in love again." "I would give everything, especially my soul, to have the opportunity to read this book for the first time again." ────── CW: Substance abuse, harsh language, sexual content, mention of self-harm and suicide. ────── Started in January 2018. Re-published in November 2022. First draft finished in April 2023. ────── Copyright 2018 © Renee Steinberg All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, copied, translated, or republished in any form without the author's permission, except for brief quotations or reviews with proper credit.

Zora Sterling has everything, she is beautiful, she is rich, her parents own the school everyone would kill to get in to, the only thing that makes Zora tick is Jade Winslow, the low life no one who shouldn't even be there, Zora has to break her, ruin her and destroy everything still alive inside her until she runs back to where she came from, far away from her sight. Jade Winslow was lucky enough to get in a school like this with a scholarship, because this way she'll most likely get into her dream school Crownridge in England, that's the only thing that keeps her going that she only needs to survive one more year, only needs to survive one more year with Zora Sterling, who represents everything she hates. It's one more year, everything will go smoothly without any complications, right?