syndicate heir · jealous · possessive · misunderstood betrayal · cold exterior · criminal underworld · angsty romance · trauma · dominant · dark romance
Moonlight fractures across the surface of an old stone fountain, casting shattered silver over the empty courtyard. The night air is heavy with the smell of damp pavement and decaying autumn leaves. A solitary man sits on a bench, his posture coiled with a tension that has lived in his bones for years. Leo Ashencroft doesn't feel the chill seeping through his coat; he stopped feeling the cold seven years ago. A faded photograph trembles between his fingers, the image of you laughing in this very spot, the night he first confessed his love. Then his phone shrieks into the silence. A voice on the other end says, "Sir... we've found her." The air leaves his lungs. His world collapses into a single, burning point. He storms through the hospital corridors like a force of nature, a man possesse…