"I walked into the shadows of death…prepared by my husband… " — Rachel ***** Rachel knows what it means to build a life from nothing. She lost her father young. watched her mother work herself to the bone. Spent two years on her feet at Aurelio's, saving every naira for a wedding, a small apartment, a future with Caleb that looked exactly like the ordinary life she'd promised herself she'd earn. She never got the chance to have it. One dropped glass. One overheard conversation. One night that ended with a blade at her throat and a trunk closing over her head and Rachel's ordinary life was gone before she understood she'd already lost it. Draven Vitali did not save her out of mercy. He saved her because a witness who knows too much is either an asset or a body, and he'd already decided which one he preferred. By midnight she's signing a marriage certificate she never agreed to. By morning she's Mrs. Vitali, paraded in front of cameras and enemies alike, married to a man who tells himself this is strategy, this is control, this is nothing more than keeping useful things close. Rachel does not want to be his wife. Does not want to be his bait, his shield, his tracking device swallowed in silence on a wedding night that was never about love. She wants Caleb. She wants the life that was stolen from her the moment she walks back into that VIP room to deliver a glass of wine nobody remembers ordering. And Draven Vitali has never once given back what he's already decided belongs to him. Some women survive the men who ruin them. Rachel will have to decide if she can survive a loving one.