Sugar, Smoke, and Sins

She ran to survive.
After years of torment, 19 year old Ariella "Ari" Vale disappears into the underbelly of a new city with nothing but a backpack, fake ID and her mother's bruises still fresh in her memory. She's desperate for money, for silence and to never be found.

She stumbles into Café Nocturne, a sultry late night café on top of the edge of downtown. It's beautiful, mysterious and oddly... too perfect. But they need a barista and she needs a paycheck.

Unbeknownst to her, the café is a front for one of the city's most brutal and secretive mafia syndicates.

And the men who own it?
They remember her parents.
They remember the debt.
And now, they're watching her.

But what starts as a game of power and punishment becomes something no one expected... Obsession.
Control. Redemption. Lust.
And maybe...
even love.