Martyr

"We're both taken, Smurf. But your boyfriend could never have you screaming like I did. Call it unethical. I call it self-awareness."

✰✰✰

After years in Russia, Nicholas returns to America ready to take the throne waiting for him.

Power is easy. Violence is easier. Forgetting her was never an option.

She was the woman who never noticed him-emotionally bound to someone else while he burned in the background, unseen and unwanted. Distance didn't kill the obsession. Time turned it into something dangerous.

Now married and fully aware of what wanting her could cost him, Nicholas makes the choice anyway.

Even if it costs him his name, his marriage, his empire.
Even if she becomes the one thing he can't afford...

And refuses to release.

✰✰✰

Araceli has rebuilt herself into something unbreakable.

A survivor turned trauma therapist, she dedicates her life to helping others reclaim what was taken from them. Her work is her anchor. Her boundaries are firm. Her past is buried.

Until her next client arrives.

A man she hasn't seen in years.
A man she once ignored.
A man whose presence drags memories to the surface she thought were long gone.

She never expected to see him again.

Now she can't stop seeing him.

It's forbidden.
Unethical.
Unprofessional.

He's married. Sexually reckless. And there is something deeply wrong about why a man like him would willingly sit in a space meant for survivors.

Araceli knows what he represents.
What crossing that line would make her.

She asks questions anyway.

Because whatever once drew her to him is still there-quiet, insistent, dangerous.

And as the truth begins to surface, only one question remains:

How far will he go to have her?

𝐀 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐛𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞.