My father died when I was eight years old.After that, it was always just me and my mom trying to survive quietly together.So when she sat me down one rainy evening and told me she wanted to remarry, I smiled for her even though something inside my chest felt painfully tight.I thought moving into the Vale mansion would be the hardest part.I was wrong.The hardest part was Asher Vale.My new stepbrother.He was the kind of person everyone noticed the second he walked into a room. Tall, beautiful, cold in a way that made people chase after him anyway. Every girl at Blackthorn Academy wanted him. Including his perfect girlfriend.At first, he barely spoke to me.Then he started noticing everything.The boys who talked to me.The bruises I tried to hide.The things I liked without ever telling him.He said he was protecting me because I was family now.But brothers don’t look at their sisters the way Asher looked at me when he thought nobody was watching.And they definitely don’t kiss them like they’ve been trying not to for months.

I saved a dying man on a rainy night.I should have let him bleed.Alessandro Moretti was dangerous long before I learned his name.A mafia king with blood on his hands and obsession in his eyes.The moment he looked at me, my life stopped belonging to me.My breathing stopped the second Alessandro touched my face.I hated how easily my body remembered him.Six years later and he still looked at me like I belonged in his hands.“Run again,” he whispered softly.His thumb brushed against my cheek.“And I’ll destroy every place that hides you.”I did run.But he always finds what belongs to him.