Laurie:
I know my dad is a mob boss , but what bothers me the most is that he and my mom are trying to force me to marry a fellow mob boss's son
I don't want to marry for dirty mob money, I want to marry for love, but my parents don't want to hear of it
At my 21st birthday party, I met a lovely man-or so I thought-until he drugged, bound and abducted me, leaving me in a metal holding cell in a dank, dirty warehouse basement with two disgusting goons
But just when I thought my life was all but over, that same guy became my savior
Now, I'm having feelings for him that don't make any sense, but they're stronger than anything I've ever felt in my entire life
What the hell is wrong with me?
Zack:
I wasn't supposed to fall for her. That's not how it was supposed to go-at all
Abducting and beating up bad guys who owe even badder guys money was my job, but I never hurt women or children
So kidnapping an innocent young woman-the daughter of a huge mafia boss, at that-was not in my nature
I never would have done it had the payment not been so irresistibly high-so high that it freed me from the clutches of this dirty agency for the rest of my life-as long as I did it their way
But when they told me to leave her in a caged cell in a nasty warehouse basement with two despicable hoodlums, something inside of me snapped
I knew what they were planning to do to her and I couldn't let that happen, but saving her also meant declaring war on my former underground employer-and they would hunt me down until they killed me
Now, I've fallen for the one woman I know I don't deserve, but I will protect her until I breathe my very last dying breath...
As Claire aims to leave her oppressive stepfamily behind, she befriends Zion. Will he be her ticket to freedom or a distraction in achieving her dreams?
*****
Claire Olsen has had a crush on Zion Petrakis since the first time she laid eyes on him, but he never noticed, instead only having eyes on the school's it girl, Maddie Jennings. Knowing she couldn't compete with Maddie, Claire hid her feelings for Zion, satisfied with admiring him from afar. However, when a series of events led Claire closer to Zion, her feelings for him grew from infatuation to love. And despite fighting hard to keep her feelings contained by distancing herself from Zion, he was determined to show her that he's earned a spot in her life.
[[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]