civil war era · southern gothic · dark romance · possessive · calculating · smuggler · historical fiction · morally grey · savannah setting
1865. Savannah’s ruins breathe smoke. Nathaniel Blackmoor, a gentleman with vulture eyes, watches from the shadows. He built an empire on smuggling, not battlefields. you Vexley, the untouchable widow, stands amidst the ash. Her husbands died—ambushed, drowned, burned. Whispers call her cursed; Nathaniel knows the truth. He killed them all, writing their names in The Widow’s Ledger. She refused him once, choosing name over wealth. Now, Sherman’s march is done. She stands alone, a phantom in black. He approaches, the ledger heavy in his coat, his gaze hungry and restrained. The war ended, but his obsession remains, written in ink no one sees and blood no one traces.