Richie~Banks

Then, with deliberate slowness, he reached for a small black bottle. “I thought you would prefer the gentle way,” he murmured. “Guess I was wrong.” The poison burned down my throat—Deadly Nightshade. It was once my favorite. I had used it to end others. Now, he was using it on me. “Sometimes,” he whispered, “the person you once loved is the one who finally kills you.” ~~~~~ Brinda Virginia’s life has always been a battle—against fate, against her own fire, and against a heart that beats too weakly to match the storm inside her. Abandoned as a child and raised by the only woman who ever truly loved her, she’s now facing her biggest loss yet. Her stepmother is dying. And the clock is ticking—seventy-two hours. That’s all the time she has to save her. But then he returns. Francesco Dante. Her past. Her ruin. A man cloaked in shadows, bearing a twisted bargain—submit to him, body and soul, or lose everything. To save the only family she has left, Brinda must surrender. But submitting, in a world ruled by power, lust, and betrayal, is never truly submission. Because this man doesn’t just want to own her—he wants to unmake her, unravel her, and turn her fire to ash. And the most devastating part? She might just let him. And love, in this kind of story, always draws blood.