I was the girl no one looked at twice. Until they saw me. My whole life, no one has had my back. My parents are dead, my adoptive mother is a drug addict, and the mean girls on campus mock me for my scars. So when I end up desperate for money and out of options, I agree to sell the one thing I have left: my innocence. On the night I’m meant to give my body to a brutal Russian mobster, three men storm into the room like dark shadows and kill him before he can claim me. When they drag me from the blood-soaked bed, I’m certain they’re going to kill me too.

Some people wear their heart on their sleeve. I wear vengeance like a suit of armor. I’ve got a list with six names on it. Six people who wronged me, who hurt me, who took everything from me. Six people who turned me into the monster I am now. And I’ve crossed off every name but one.

I always knew darkness crept through this city; like a shadow, it never really goes away, always watching, always waiting. People sin and people kill; it's a way of life. I just never expected to be thrown into the middle of a war I had no hope of surviving. Alexander Silver is as brutal as he is beautiful. A devil in disguise. The man destined to end me. I didn't go looking for trouble, and yet it found me, nonetheless. I could either join it or let it crush me.

Since the Final War, I’ve been doing just fine. I have a lovely cave, a darling vegetable patch, forest views . . . and if loneliness sometimes squeezes my aching heart, well, my books have always kept me company. That is, until a pack of hunters chase me from my home and right into the arms of several rather large, rather brutish ex-Army Rangers. And those brutes have the nerve to make me the rudest offer I’ve ever heard. Their protection—for my body.

When Dad died, he made me the leader of the Italian Mafia. That position was unheard of for a woman—until me. Ryder, Dex, Gage, and Holden are my team, my closest friends. Then Leo waltzes into my life, turning it upside down, along with everyone in it. One lie. One secret. That's all it took to bring it all burning down around me. Jealousy and hidden desires from the four guys I thought only saw me as their friend and boss stoke the flames even higher.