Chase Sterling always felt like furniture. The kind you don't notice, the kind that's easy to shove in a corner and forget. He was used to it: people looked right through him, brushed him off like lint. But it only takes one phone call to erase a lifetime of being overlooked. When his estranged family meets a tragic end, Chase suddenly finds himself in charge of the sprawling Sterling fortune. Turns out, riches aren't the only thing the family left him. There's a curse running through his blood, warping love into something hungry and dangerous, impossible to escape.

Vivian Ashford never set out to blow Chase's life to smithereens. Just one decision (a sharp, ruthless move at graduation) was all it took to set their worlds spinning out of control. While Vivian soaks up the Hollywood limelight and collects red-carpet headlines, Chase slips into his new role as Manhattan's most intimidating heir. But no matter how far they run, something keeps yanking them back together, like a stitch in an old wound that refuses to heal.

Helena's study smells like old books and older magic, all leather-bound grimoires and dried herbs hanging from ceiling beams and candles that never quite go out no matter how long they burn. We're here in secret because Dominic can't know about this meeting, can't discover that his dead ex-wife is very much alive and harboring conspiracy against Sterling Industries in her sanctuary on the outskirts of the city where curses were born and sons were doomed.


Chapter 71 - Alliance Forms