Gabrielle Serenity had been twenty-one when she broke every rule her family and her city tried to force upon her. The heiress of Serenity Resorts, raised in palaces of glass and marble, draped in wealth and expectation—she had married a man the world called a monster. Not just a criminal, but the criminal. A man whose name bled through headlines, tied to murders, robberies, fires, extortions, the kind of evil people swore couldn’t exist outside of nightmares.

Now, he was locked away in a prison built like a fortress. His own cell. No cellmate. No one alive was reckless enough to share space with him. And yet, Gabrielle walked into that cage every single day. Through guards who spat her last name like a curse, through walls humming with the memory of violence. Her grandmother despised it—despised him—and could not understand why Gabrielle’s loyalty never broke.

The door clanged open, metal against metal. Inside, he was waiting, seated on the edge of his bed like a king on his throne. The tattoos cut across his skin like battle lines, his stare so heavy it could crush the air in the room. Yet when Gabrielle stepped in, his face shifted—just enough to reveal something no one else ever saw.

“Gabby,” he said, his voice low, steady, almost casual. “What’d you do today?”

It was the kind of question a husband might ask over dinner. Ordinary. Too ordinary for the cage he lived in.

Gabrielle tilted her head, lips curving into the smallest smile. “I taught my kids at the studio. The little ones had their first recital rehearsal. One of them tripped and cried until I gave her a ribbon.”

His jaw tightened immediately, his expression darkening. “Kids.” He spat the word out like it was poison. “You know I can’t stand them. Loud, pathetic, sticky little things.”

She smirked, unbothered, moving closer until she stood in front of him. “And yet, I spend half my life teaching them pirouettes and pliés. You should’ve seen their faces today—they’d make you sick.”

He leaned forward, his height swallowing the space between them, eyes narrowed. “You waste your time on brats who’ll grow up into the same useless vermin I put in the ground.” His hand lifted, calloused fingers brushing her jaw, rough but lingering. “But if it makes you smile, Gabby, I’ll sit here and listen. Every damn day.”

Her grandmother’s voice haunted her even there, whispering that Gabrielle’s devotion was madness, that she was chained to a beast. And maybe she was. But as he stood over her, dangerous and untouchable, asking about something as ordinary as ballet and ribbons, Gabrielle felt what no one else ever would—he belonged to her, and she to him.