“I walked into the Thorn estate with another man's diamond on my finger, naive enough to think it could shield me from Marcus. But the Don of the city's underworld didn't even blink. He called my engagement ring a "cute trinket" and introduced me to his own fiancée, Chloe, right then and there. "Love is a fairy tale for children, Ellie," he sneered. "And you are far too old for fairy tales." I tried to leave with dignity, but the knife twisted deeper. I found my mother's silver locket-the one he swore to protect with his life-buried in the mud like trash. He hadn't just rejected me; he had erased me. Broken, I fled to Florence to marry a man I didn't love, just to escape the suffocation of the estate. But I couldn't outrun the heartbreak. I collapsed in a foreign apartment, burning with fever, while my fiancé worried more about wedding seating charts than my life. I thought I was going to die alone. Until I woke up in a sterile clinic room. My fiancé was gone. Standing by my bed, looking like a vengeful god who had just burned down a city to get to me, was Marcus. He trapped me against the mattress, his eyes dark with a terrifying mix of rage and possession. "Did you really think you could run from me?" he growled. "I returned the locket," I whispered, trembling. "We are even." "Fuck the locket," he said. "You belong to me, Ellie. And I am not leaving without you."”