
ADELINE<br /><br />I didn’t choose this life.<br /><br /> I didn’t choose him.<br /><br />One day I’m living quietly in California, and the next I’m dragged into the Marchetti world—married off, marked, watched, and expected to obey a man I can barely look at without wanting to claw his eyes out.<br /><br />Angelo is cold, unreadable, infuriating… and he sees far too much.<br /><br />He sees the bruises I hide, the nightmares I pretend aren’t real, the cracks I don’t let anyone touch. And when my past resurfaces—my father, the darkest part of me, the trauma I thought I buried—my mind starts slipping again.<br /><br />Sleepwalking. Flashbacks. Losing time.<br /><br /> And somehow, always ending up near him.<br /><br />I hate the way he gets under my skin.<br /><br /> I hate the way my body responds when he’s close.<br /><br /> But the worst part?<br /><br /> I think he knows something is wrong with me… and he refuses to let me fall apart alone.<br /><br />ANGELO<br /><br />She wasn’t supposed to matter.<br /><br />She was a means to an end, a necessary tie to a war I’ve been fighting since before she ever entered my orbit.<br /><br />But every time she disobeys me, every time she challenges me, every time she looks at me like she’s daring me to choose her… something inside me snaps.<br /><br />Her father’s death is haunting her.<br /><br /> Her body is covered in marks she doesn’t fully understand.<br /><br />She walks through this world like she’s made of fire and glass — dangerous, fragile, but trying so damn hard not to shatter.<br /><br />And now everyone wants her — Lorenzo, my enemies, the men who want to use her against me.<br /><br />I can’t allow it.<br /><br />I won’t.<br /><br />She thinks I’m the villain in her story.<br /><br />Maybe I am.<br /><br /> But I’m also the only one who knows exactly how to keep her alive…<br /><br /> even if it means becoming the only man she can’t escape.