A Crown's Due| 18+

She owns flannel
He owns Chicago...

Avelle Evans was just an average twenty-five year old bartender, drifting through life and trying to get her shit together. When she applied for a live-in nanny position with one of Chicago's wealthiest families, she naturally expected her application to disappear beneath a stack of polished résumés.

She never expected to actually be accepted, much less offered an obscene amount of money-and it begins with six-year-old Maribelle Archer. The sharp and far too perceptive little girl now in her care, who bets Avelle won't last past a month.

However the father, her boss, that rules with an iron fist within, is much worse. The epitome of control in a fortress of biometric locks, armed guards, harboring secrets disguised as luxury. All contained within a penthouse sixty-three floors above Chicago.

Caidan Archer built his empire on blood, influence, and absolute control. In Chicago's most powerful circles, his name is fearfully whispered behind closed doors.

He watches her like an intrusion, questions her like a suspect, and makes it painfully clear that his daughter's trust will never earn her his.

Avelle refuses to be intimidated, bringing all her outsiders glory into Caidan's carefully crafted world with her vintage thrift wear , sarcasm, and refusal to perform with the obedience he expects.

But the higher she climbs into his elite society, the more dangerous its rules become. Old alliances begin to shift. Every unanswered question draws her deeper into a world built on inherited loyalty, private power, and secrets carefully protected across generations.

Every glance feels like a warning from a grave Avelle was never meant to disturb.

Until one truth becomes damn near impossible to ignore:

Avelle was never hired by accident.

She was placed inside Caidan Archer's world.

And no one enters his empire without paying in blood.