Degradation of the Desperate Daughter.

That could be the theme song to my life.

Always second choice. Second best. Second born.

Maybe that’s what possessed me to track down my father’s most formidable enemy, the infamous Enzo Fikile.

He’s the nation’s most eligible bachelor, and the crime world I was born into’s biggest threat, but not because he wants to tear it down.

No. This man wants to claim his place within it, and if the whispers working their way around are anything to go by, he’s well on his way.

And I just offered him a golden ticket, one he accepted with an unexpected spark in his eye. We signed our marriage contract that night, and the deal with the devil was done.

I’m engaged to the man the rest of the world fears, and there’s no going back.

I expect to be tossed in a tower and left there, but my future husband has other plans. Dangerous ones.

He wants the world to believe our love is real and not bargained, but he says even that’s not enough.

He wants me to convince him.

What was supposed to be a simple arrangement spirals into something more, and before I know it, I’m caught in his web, secrets spinning all around me.

I hate him as much as I crave him, but as enemies close in from the most unlikely of places, I realize something.

No one is allowed to hurt my husband.

Except, of course ... me.