Rule #1: This marriage is a contract.
Rule #2: This marriage is protection.
Rule #3: This marriage is not love.
Alessandra "Lexa" Rossi is twenty-seven years old and the reluctant Don of the most powerful crime family on the coast. For Lexa, leadership is not a crown-it's a cage made of duty, control, and absolute ruthlessness. She has no time for softness, no room for weakness, and certainly no desire for the eighteen-year-old boy bleeding on her doorstep.
Dante Moretti is the black sheep of a rival, ambitious family. Beaten, broken, and running from a father who wants him dead for being nothing more than a dangerous mistake, Dante has nowhere left to go. He only has one thing in his favor: he is the best friend of Lexa's beloved younger brother.
When Lexa discovers the boy hiding in a forgotten safe house, injured and begging for sanctuary, her protective instincts clash with her Don responsibilities. His family-led by his cold, calculating father-is using Dante's disappearance as leverage to challenge Lexa's unsteady grip on power. They want him back to kill him, but they'll accept a hefty financial and political payout if she fails to produce him.
Lexa has only one way to claim Dante and signal to the entire underworld that he is untouchable: A forced marriage of convenience.
Now, Dante is no longer just her brother's friend; he is Lexa's husband. He is her property.
To save her empire, Lexa must banish him. To prove his worth, Dante must risk everything.
Can a relationship born of desperation, duty, and darkness survive when the only way to win is to choose between love and survival?