It was an innocent mistake; she knocked on the wrong door. It was mine. If I were a better man, I would've just let her go. But I'm not. I'm a cruel bastard. I ruthlessly claimed her virtue for my own. It should've been enough but it wasn't. I needed more...I craved it. She became my obsession. Her sweetness and purity taunted my dark soul. The need to possess her nearly drove me mad. A Russian arms dealer had no business pursuing a naive librarian student. She didn't belong in my world. I would bring her only pain. But it was too late...she was mine and I was keeping her.

I can still remember the moment I first heard Cyrus Holt's deep, commanding voice. I didn't know who he was or about the life he'd left behind. I was just a trembling orphan on the run from a monster, and he was the man offering me shelter and not giving me a choice about it. This boss of bosses didn't assign someone else to watch over me. He slept on the floor next to my bed when I woke up scared, then spanked me like a naughty little girl when I lied to him.

Had she crashed into any other man's car, she could have walked away—but she hit mine. Upon seeing the bruises on her wrist, I struggled to contain my rage. Despite her objections, I refused to allow her to leave. Whoever hurt this innocent beauty would pay dearly. As a Russian Mafia crime boss who owns Chicago's most elite gambling club, I have very creative and painful methods of exacting revenge.

When I knocked on Kirill Sabatin's door, I didn't know he was the Kozlov Bratva's most feared enforcer. I didn't expect him to be the most terrifyingly sexy man I've ever laid eyes on either.. I told him off for making so much noise in the middle of the night, but if the crack of his palm against my bare bottom didn't wake everyone in the building my screams of climax certainly did. I shouldn't have let him spank me, let alone seduce me. He's a dangerous man, and I could easily end up in way over my head.

Being attracted to her isn't wrong…but acting on it would be. As the patriarch of the powerful and wealthy Cavalieri family, my choices come with consequences for everyone around me. The roots of my ancestral, billionaire-dollar winery stretch deep into the rich Italian soil, as does our legacy of ruthlessness and scandal. It isn't the fact she is half my age that makes her off-limits. Nothing is off-limits for me. A wounded bird caught in a trap not of her own making, she poses no risk to me. My obsessive desire to possess her is the real problem—for both of us.