Cold-Blooded Captor

The night my brother takes the Bratva crown, he signs my life away with the same bored flick of his pen he uses to order a hit.

I wake up bound, bruised, and wearing silk instead of shackles. The man watching me from the doorway is Lorenzo Andriani—Scorpion. The Andriani family’s favored knife in the dark. My kidnapper. My new husband.

The marriage is a weapon, not a vow. My brother’s made that very clear. I’m his Trojan horse, wrapped in white lace and sent into Mafia territory with a simple command: smile, seduce, and help burn the Andriani empire to the ground so the Bratva can claim their throne.

I know the plan. I know my role. I’ve rehearsed the lies.

But Scorpion doesn’t touch me like a man who expects me to survive him. He moves with quiet patience, with a predator’s care, tracing the places I flinch and learning them by heart. He smells like gunpowder and expensive soap, like danger scrubbed clean and dressed in a suit. He brings me coffee exactly the way I like it—though I never told him how.

Every small kindness feels like another chain. Every stolen breath against his mouth blurs a line I swore I’d never cross.

I was sent into his house to break it from the inside. To bring him to his knees.

If I’m not careful, the only thing left in ruins will be my loyalty—and the girl who thought she could walk away from the Scorpion unscarred.