Tiffanie L. Campbell

I sat across from the man who slaughtered my family, holding four aces in my hand, and I decided to lose.

The room smelled of whiskey and old money. Matteo Genovese looked at me with eyes that were used to taking inventory and calling the rest property. He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know I was the girl who rose from the graves he dug ten years ago. He only knew I was the beautiful stranger across the poker table who had just run out of chips.

“You can finish the hand,” he said, his voice velvet-smooth but lethal. “But if you lose, you belong to me. Fully. Irrevocably.”

I knew he had the straight flush. I knew I would lose. That was the plan.

I folded my hand. I let him win. Because the only way to kill a king is to get into his bed first.

Now, I am his property. His fiancée. He thinks he owns me. He thinks I’m just a trophy to secure his inheritance. But every time he touches me, every time he looks at me with that dark hunger, he’s pulling the trigger of the gun pointed at his own heart.

Welcome to hell, Matteo. You just married your worst nightmare.