𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙈𝙍. 𝙄𝙑𝘼𝙉𝙊𝙑𝘼 || 𝙱𝚇𝙱

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦.

It's a vow wrapped in barbed wire, a love letter addressed to a ghost.

Heir to a dead man's empire, Stepan Ivanova returns to Montreal with a face carved out of frost and a legacy that won't stop breathing.

Stepan came home to bury a man he never forgave.

He knows how to command rooms and bury secrets; he does not know what to do with the drunk, sharp-mouthed stranger he finds asleep on his snow-blanketed lawn.

Arköa Grimaldi isn't a stray-he's a spark. Raised on thin margins and thick loyalty, he's all stubborn grace and bruised tenderness, the kind of boy who loves too hard and runs even harder. He doesn't belong anywhere near the Ivanova estate of saints, cameras, and quiet knives-and yet the place keeps opening its doors for him. So does Stepan.

Arköa talks like he's not afraid to bleed, dares like he doesn't think anyone's watching, and makes Stepan remember things he buried under polished shoes and old Russian guilt.

But this story doesn't begin with them. It begins with a scar-hip to hip-and the man who left it.

There are letters no one admits to writing, a photograph that doesn't belong in a drawer, and a girl named Isiadora whose voicemail still plays back in Spanish like a liturgy no one dares delete. There's a manor full of secrets, brothers with knives behind their ribs, and a boy who prays with his fists.

Some love stories aren't soft. Some don't come with happy endings. Some were never meant to be told-but are written anyway, one shaky line at a time.

**𝙍𝙀𝙂𝙐𝙇𝘼𝙍 𝙐𝙋𝘿𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙎**

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