A deal was struck. A life was traded. A girl was claimed. On her 23rd birthday, Ariella Duarte becomes the payment for a debt she never owed. The price? Her freedom, her future and her hand in marriage to a man she’s never met. Dante De Luca is a billionaire with cold eyes and darker secrets. Ruthless, untouchable, and feared in every corner of Europe, he makes one mistake: he lets her run. She escapes with her ex-boyfriend, but only for a moment. Because when Dante wants something, he takes it and once Ariella is in his home, there’s no getting out. She doesn’t know who he really is. He doesn’t care who she thought she would be. They hate each other. They crave each other. They live in the same house but on opposite sides of a war neither of them understands yet. He gives her rules. She breaks every single one. She drives him insane. He makes her burn. And when her past collides with his blood-soaked truth, Ariella will have to choose between the man she ran from… and the monster who never let her go. She was sold into a cage. She never expected to fall in love with the one who locked it. But when sparks fly between them, and enemies close in, she has to ask herself: is this a prison… or protection?