“You tell me, Aria Reyes… how do you explain all this?” My voice was low, dangerous, each word a whip. “Every account. Every transfer. Every wire traced straight to you. Who are you working for?”
She stumbled back, her chest tight, mind spinning. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Her voice cracked, high and panicked. “I didn’t do anything! I don’t work for anyone!”
I stepped closer. Too close. Her heart hammered, adrenaline screaming at her to run. “Don’t lie to me. Do you think I can’t see it? Every movement. Every trace. Your name. Everything points to you.”
“I—how could that be?” She stammered, shaking her head. “I’m a college student! I have a life, I have friends, I have—” Her hands trembled as she tried to gesture, “I have no idea what’s going on! I didn’t do this!”
Everyone fears Lucien Moretti—the youngest and most ruthless mafia CEO to ever rule the underworld.
Cold. Untouchable. Merciless.
They say he was born in blood and raised in violence.
But no one knows the truth behind the monster.
Years ago, Lucien watched his mother die in the rain after she tried to run away from the mafia life. Surrounded by enemies and drenched in blood, the last lesson his father ever gave him was simple:
“This is why we never run.”
Since that night, Lucien has believed one thing—
fear is weakness, and weakness gets people killed.
Then one name appears in the digital trail of millions of laundered dollars:
Aria Reyes.
A brilliant cyber-security college student.
Innocent. Stubborn. And completely unaware that her identity was used in a criminal scheme by her ex-boyfriend—Matteo De Luca, the heir of Lucien’s most dangerous enemy.
Dragged into a world she never knew existed, Aria suddenly becomes the key to a mafia war.
To Lucien, she is a suspect.
A tool.
And possibly a traitor.
But every time she looks him in the eye and says she just wants to go home, something inside him fractures—because those words echo the last thing his mother ever said before she died.
The more Lucien tries to control her, the more she refuses to break.
And the deeper he digs into the truth, the more dangerous the game becomes.
Because the enemy who framed her isn't just trying to destroy Lucien's empire.
They’re trying to destroy him.
Now caught between revenge, obsession, and a past soaked in blood, Lucien must decide:
Will Aria Reyes be the woman who betrays him…
or the one who survives the devil who traced her name?