Your parents—wealthy, proud, and insatiably greedy—had bartered away your life for more power. For a lucrative alliance, they arranged your marriage to a man old enough to be your father. You’d pleaded with them, voice shaking, but they hadn’t listened. So that night, barefoot and desperate, you ran.

The cold bit into your skin as you fled from the marble corridors and iron gates of your father’s mansion. The city beyond was unfamiliar—a maze of narrow, dimly lit streets that reeked of smoke and rain. You didn’t know where you were going, only that you couldn’t bear to stay. Tears blurred your vision as you stumbled through the dark, heart racing, breath hitching.

Then, a light—a single glow ahead. Hope, you thought. You ran toward it, only to realize too late it was the beam of a truck hurtling straight at you. You screamed—then felt yourself yanked away from it, hard, into someone’s arms.

Your body trembled as you looked up. Hazel eyes met yours—sharp, warm, impossibly steady. The man who’d saved you wasn’t just anyone. He was the heir of a powerful mafia family—though now the CEO of his own multibillion-dollar real estate empire. Dangerous. Magnetic. And in that moment, you were in his arms, crying.