T-misha
Romano De Rossi was never meant to notice her.
Wandering into a world where women don't last long is Xenia Beaumont. The New York Outfit, during an inauguration steeped in dark politics and blood-bound secrets, is no place for a spineless bystander.
She's not just an outsider. She's uninvited. Unarmed. And unaware that her very presence is a death sentence.
This sentence comes knocking in form of Don Morelli ordering her painful execution, but Romano does the unthinkable when he lowers his weapon. The enforcer who built his name on loyalty and ruthlessness suddenly and secretly defies his Don for a woman he doesn't know and shouldn't care to know. He tells himself it's the right thing to do.
It isn't.
Right doesn't exist in their world. And Romano is reminded of that when Xenia resurfaces weeks later, no longer as the terrified girl he once spared, but as a sharp-edged infiltrator working for the Knights, a rival Family. She isn't innocent anymore. She's dangerous. She's a walking threat to his life.
The man who swore to forget her is now tasked with breaking her. It becomes a war of the mind, one that strips away more than secrets each time he peels back another layer of her identity. There's no armor underneath, just survival. No motivation, just compliance.
And he needs to know why.
So, he stops at nothing to uncover the truth of her role as his would-be executioner and knows she has to remain dead to the world, even though she's very much alive and in love with him.
But some secrets only stay buried if you're willing to kill for them. And Romano De Rossi will do far more than kill to protect the one woman who could destroy not just his place in the Outfit, but his heart.