I wasn't raised by a loving father. I was raised by the wolf who stole me from my crib.

Cassian Vance. The Underboss of the Shadow Syndicate. He kept me in a gilded cage for fifteen years, telling me the world outside was dangerous. He trained me to fight, to shoot, to survive. He was cold, ruthless, and the most terrifying man I’d ever met.

I counted down the days until my eighteenth birthday. The day I would escape. The day my real family, the powerful Governor Morell would finally find me.

But when they finally came... they didn't come to save me. They came with silencers.

As the bullets flew, I realized the sick truth. The man I called a monster was the only one shielding my body with his own. And the "hero" father I’d prayed for? He was the devil who wanted me dead.

Now we are on the run. The Captor and the Girl.

Cassian says I’m his leverage. He says I’m just a pawn in his war. But the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m sleeping? That’s not hate. That’s hunger.

He taught me how to be a weapon. Now, he’s about to find out... I’m aiming at the wrong target.

The North Atlantic was not a body of water. It was a graveyard in motion.


We were six hours out from the coast, cutting through fifteen-foot swells in Don Ricci's flagship interceptor, The Vengeance. The fleet was small but lethal—three fast-attack boats loaded with Ricci's heaviest enforcers, all of them itching to kill the men who murdered Luca.


I sat in the main cabin, gripping the edge of the steel table until my knuckles turned white.


The boat lurched violently, dropping into a trough between waves.


I clamped a hand over my mouth, the taste of bile rising in my throat.


"Easy, Principessa," Don Ricci grunted from the captain's chair. He was cleaning a massive desert eagle pistol, looking unaffected by the storm. "Get your sea legs. We have a war to fight."


Chapter 44 - Chapter 44: Black Sea