Cruel Bindings

Juliet Everett's life was supposed to be perfect. A college senior with a bright future, the beloved daughter of a powerful man, and the girl who always smiled the way everyone expected her to. But one brutal night shatters everything. Stolen off the street by a stranger with cold eyes and blood on his hands, Juliet wakes in a nightmare she doesn't understand-where every truth she's ever known starts to unravel.

Ronan Slade doesn't ask questions. He doesn't make mistakes. His orders are simple: deliver the girl, disappear, and forget. But from the moment Juliet fights back-fierce, stubborn, unyielding-he knows this won't be simple. There's a fire in her that refuses to die, even as her life is ripped apart. And for the first time in years, something cracks in his numb, dead world.

As days blur into nights, Juliet realizes that survival isn't just about escaping chains-it's about surviving the war between herself and the man who controls her fate. Ronan is dangerous, unreadable, and bound by loyalties she doesn't yet understand. But the real threat isn't outside the walls-it's the lies she's lived all along.

In a world of blood bargains, trust is a weapon. Love is a risk. And some flames refuse to die, even in the dark.