She was raised to hate his name. He was ordered to end her bloodline.
When Isabela Rossi’s family empire collapses in a single bloody night, she wakes to find herself alive only because the man who orchestrated the massacre decided to spare her. Damiano Valente. The Rossi family’s oldest enemy, and the one man in New York with every reason to want her dead.
He was supposed to kill her. Instead, he keeps her close, telling himself it’s strategy. A hostage. A bargaining chip in a war two generations in the making.
But Isabela isn’t the weapon he expected. She’s sharper than her father ever was, and twice as dangerous, because the longer Damiano watches her, the less he remembers why he wanted her family gone in the first place.
In their world, mercy gets you killed and wanting the enemy gets you buried beside them. Every stolen moment between them is a betrayal of blood neither can undo. And when the rest of his organization learns he’s protecting a Rossi instead of burying one, Damiano will have to decide what matters more: the empire he built, or the girl he was supposed to destroy.
“In this life, love doesn’t save you. It just gives them one more way to hurt you.”