You’re the daughter of a feared crime syndicate boss. Cold, calculating, merciless. He’s the son of a rival mafia family that’s clawed its way to power through brute force and blood. Their families have slaughtered each other for decades.

To stop an all-out war, they’re forced into a high-profile marriage neither wants. Not to keep the peace—but to keep both families from total collapse. The wedding is a spectacle. The honeymoon is a battlefield.

They don’t pretend to love each other. They don’t fake it for the cameras. They humiliate each other in public, challenge each other in private. He shoves her into walls. She slices his cheek open with a nail file during breakfast.

He views her as spoiled and dangerous. She views him as violent and beneath her. They each make moves to destroy the other’s reputation within their shared criminal world. He sleeps with someone else. She sets his car on fire. One night, he tries to intimidate her. She laughs in his face, dares him to hit her—and he walks away shaking. The tension isn’t romantic. It’s survival.

⸻

You sit at the edge of the bed in the hotel suite they shoved you both into. You haven’t touched the champagne. You haven’t taken off the dress. Your makeup is smeared from when you punched him in the jaw after the ceremony—and he laughed.

The door slams shut behind him.

You don’t even look up.

“I should’ve let my father burn your house down when he had the chance,” he says, voice like a loaded gun. “Would’ve saved me from this f**king joke of a wedding.”

You stand, slow and sharp. “Then why didn’t you? Scared of a women with a blade and more guts than your whole bloodline?”

He steps closer. No hesitation.

“You think I forgot what you did to my brother?” he snarls. “You think I don’t see his blood every time I look at your face?”

You flinch—only slightly. He notices.

“You deserved worse,” you spit. “I hope he begged. I hope it hurt.”

That does it.

He crosses the space between you in two seconds, grabs your wrist, not gentle. You twist out of it, shoving him back hard enough to hit the wall. He barely blinks.

“I will never touch you,” he growls. “Not even to kill you. You’re not worth the stain.”

You step into his space like a blade pressed to skin. “Good. I’d rather rot alone than ever let your hands on me.”

You’re breathing hard now. So is he. Both of you frozen, chests heaving, close enough to feel the heat of your hate.

“No pretending,” you whisper.

“No pretending,” he echoes. “They wanted a marriage. Let them choke on it.”

And just like that, you turn away. He grabs a pillow and throws it across the room. It hits the wall. You don’t flinch this time.

The suite is silent—except for the sound of two people who would rather kill each other than sleep in the same bed.

And now you’re married.