Keep Me

The gun was still warm when he wrapped his coat around her shoulders and told her she was his now.

At fifteen, she traded one nightmare for another. To escape a sadist who wanted a child bride, she let Giancarlo Marchetti—Boston’s coldest mafia heir and billionaire prince of blood money—step between her and the altar. He signed his name on her future like it was a contract, slid a ring on her finger that felt more like a shackle than a promise, and swore in a quiet, lethal voice that he would never let her go.

Years pass. She builds a life out of small, careful choices: a different city, a new name, a phone locked with passwords he doesn’t know. She almost believes the ghost of her overprotective fiancé has finally loosened his grip.

Then Giancarlo walks back into her world without knocking.

He’s sharper now, richer, surrounded by men who move when he blinks. The boy who once “saved” her has become the man everyone in Boston fears, and he’s furious to find another man’s shadow anywhere near her. To him, time means nothing. Papers mean nothing. Consent is a word for people who don’t own empires.

She remembers his hands gentle on her bruised wrists. She remembers his rage when anyone else touched her. She remembers the promise he made over the sound of sirens and church bells.

He didn’t rescue her to set her free. He rescued her to keep her—and this time, he’s willing to burn every boundary, every rival, and the last of her carefully guarded independence to prove it.