Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 129676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
But is it really hell if I love the way it burns?
Gia
The monster from my nightmares crawled into my reality, masquerading as my boss.
Tatum Blackthorne is Lucifer, personified.
When he discovers my weakness, he makes me an offer I cannot refuse, and I become his wife.
I always knew he was depraved, but as his twisted vendetta unfurls, so does my darkest secret.
Now we’re both the target of very nefarious people…
They’re about to find out no one matches my husband’s wrath.
Tate
I am a man of a few pleasures, one of which is destroying Gia Bennett.
Slowly. Patiently. Systematically.
My fixation with my secretary has an origin, but no limits.
When my revenge spree sparks into an all-consuming Mafia war, I expect nothing but a good time.
After all, death cannot come too soon.
Alas, it isn’t just my life that’s on the line now.
In this chess name, the king protects the queen.
Even at the price of burning down his entire empire.
Handsome Devil is a mafia-themed, enemies-to-lovers standalone romance. It deals with sensitive subject matters and includes violence, gore and explicit scenes some might find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
All of them.
(I’m not kidding.)
If you still want the full list, please visit this website.
From: Dr. Arjun Patel, MD
(arjunpatel@stjohnsmedical.com)
To: Tate Blackthorn
(willnotanswerunsolicitedemails@GSproperties.com)
Tate,
While I understand your schedule is demanding, I urge you to pay me a visit in the next couple of weeks.
I instructed my secretary to prioritize this meeting. You are not well. I repeat, YOU ARE NOT WELL.
You have multiple disorders that need to be mitigated immediately.
I understand you prefer to liaise directly, but if this is a time constraint issue, I’d be happy to schedule appointments through your PA.
I eagerly await your reply.
Dr. Arjun Patel.
Roman baths of Bath
It wasn’t on my year’s bingo card to contaminate the water of two-thousand-year-old ancient thermae, but life had a way of surprising me every now and again.
“Perhaps now would be a good time to stop flailing about, Mr. Boyle,” I suggested stonily, my voice muffled by the plague doctor mask I was wearing.
Breathing through an upholstered leather beak was decisively inconvenient, but the Roman baths of Bath were littered with security cameras, and while severely allergic to humans, I had a feeling I was even more averse to prison food.
Plus, I had it on good authority that Boyle wasn’t a fan of crows.
I always appreciated a good Hitchcockian touch.
Nothing short of polite, Darrah Boyle stopped thrashing in the shallow water upon my request, but not before hitting his head on the edge of the Roman bath’s stair and splitting his forehead. The sound of bone cracking rang and echoed through the empty arena. My nostrils flared.
I despised clumsiness.
I especially hated mess.
Crimson crawled across the green-hued water, visible even in the pitch black of the night. Clenching my teeth, I tapped on the side of my right leg twice, then six times, then twice again.
I loathed going off script. This was definitely a diversion from my plan. He was not supposed to bleed. I wanted his corpse unsoiled and bruise-free.
It’s not in your plans.
It’s not in your plans.
It’s not in your plans.
“Plans change,” I said loudly, authoritatively, to myself.
Uncurling my fingers from his blood-soaked hair, I pushed up on my heels and watched as his ashen, naked frame drifted along the rectangle body of water, face down. A minute passed, then three. Because he wasn’t Aquaman, he was obviously dead.
I briefly considered leaving him inside the columned bath to be found. It would look like an accident. An inebriated ex-felon who came for a late-night dunk where swimming was prohibited. Knocked his head and drowned.
But I couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
There were rituals to follow. A ceremony to be made.
Two, six, two.
Two, six, two.
Two, six, two.
With an exasperated, long-suffering sigh, I strode into the thermae to retrieve my prey. Water enfolded my Tom Ford Chelsea boots, soaking my Brioni pants. The fog of the spring water swallowed his body in thick mist, and I had to fish my phone out of my peacoat and turn on the flashlight.
I checked for messages, but there weren’t any. Not even from my personal assistant, Gia, whom I called a half hour ago about a missing document I needed for work.
I would deal with her later.
The quiet swishing of the water as I treaded through it drowned out my slow and steady heartbeat.
Boyle’s body floated toward a corner of the stairway.
I gripped his hair in my gloved hand, dragging him up to the limestone pavement.
I used the tip of my boot to roll him over so that he faced me. A sloppy, sodden sound rang in my ears.
His blue face was splotchy, his skull distorted and slightly caved in from the injury. His lips were liver-hued.
You couldn’t even have a clean kill, Andrin’s voice mocked in my head. You just had to make a mess of it, didn’t you, Boy?
I shook my head, ridding myself of his voice.
It was my first kill. Practice made perfect, and I had at least two more people to help hone my craft.
See, five years ago, Darrah Boyle, along with two other inmates, murdered my father in prison over a bet. A game of cards. A reckless, meaningless moment.
My father was a powerful man. The type not to land himself in prison for anything short of murder.
As it happened, he did kill someone. Accidentally.
Nothing accidental about what Boyle did to him, though.
Paying with his life was the only logical outcome. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, et cetera.
I had always straddled the murky line between a businessman and a criminal.
Tonight, I stepped over that line.
Hell, I fucking sprinted through it, all the way to another continent.
To track down Boyle and his partners in crime, I had to get in bed with New York’s notorious Camorra organization.
The Ferrante family, who ruled the Italian Mafia in New York, was a lot of things.
None of them outstanding members of society.
“I suppose you could say you popped my cherry.” I reached for the inner pocket of my double-breasted coat, producing a black thorn still attached to the twig. I pressed it to Boyle’s cold, purple mouth. It was an unordinary, telling detail. Black thorn.