Valentina never thought her father’s mistakes would become her sentence. When the men of Dominic DeLuca, Palermo’s most feared Don, come to collect the debt owed by her father, she discovers she has been offered as payment. She wasn’t given a choice neither was she given a warning. Forced into the world of a man who owns everything he touches, Valentina must find a way to navigate through a life she never asked for while being bound to a deal she knew nothing about and drawn to a man whose cold indifference hides something she never expected to find. Dominic DeLuca has never been one to catch feelings because in their world distractions get people killed. The only thing he has ever known is power, control and ownership. But Valentina is not what he expected. And for the first time in his life, the most feared man in Palermo doesn’t know what to do with something he didn’t realize he wanted to keep.

At the hospital,I am surrounded by the sounds of beeping machines, which now serve as a lullaby that fills me with dread. The hospital now becoming a home I have known for the longest of time, embracing me with its dark cold arms and whispers of my own thoughts floating across the quiet room. Looking at my pale skin in the mirror, I wonder how I got to this point. Bills stacked, a sick mother and a life that feels like it’s falling apart. I have never felt as exhausted, as empty and as broken as I do. I couldn’t help the tears that rolled down my cheeks, a heavy ache settling deep in my chest. All these changes the moment he walked into my life, Dominic DeLuca. He came into my life like a storm with a stoic face and a brooding personality, not giving a single thing away. He is beautiful in that dark quiet way, a man who shouldn’t be looked at twice because once is enough to make you forget who you are. He is everything I was told to avoid but I still find myself constantly craving. With bills stacked and a life hanging by the thread with little to no purpose, he offers me a life changing opportunity. Little did I know, it was one of survival, one that could either make or break me. Where Dominic DeLuca is involved. There is no escape, only survival.