Quiet small-town art student Elena Hale has no clue the city’s shadowy criminal underworld lurks just beyond her peaceful, ordinary life — until her father’s long-hidden old debts force her into an unthinkable arrangement she never could have imagined. She is bartered as a bride to Damien Voss, the feared, ice-cold mafia don whose legendary ruthlessness leaves every player in the city’s criminal circles too terrified to cross him. No one anticipates the twist: this guarded, hardened kingpin, who spent years clawing his way to absolute power and long ago shut all softness out of his harsh, high-stakes life, lets the gentle, wide-eyed innocent Elena slip straight past the steel walls around his long-frozen heart.
