Carmine Wilde

ENEMIES TO LOVERS + FAKE DATING + NEIGHBORS + HOCKEY CAPTAIN + CHEER CAPTAIN

Nicolas Herrera is used to winning. As the captain of UC San Diego’s hockey team, with a dangerously charming smile and an ego to match, he knows exactly the effect he has on people on and off the ice.

Bárbara Hendler is no different. As UCLA’s cheer captain, she’s always been in control, effortlessly perfect in everyone’s eyes… until her equally perfect boyfriend, hockey player Declan Hawkins, shatters her heart.

Now, with her pride bruised and her image on the line, Bárbara refuses to let anyone see her fall apart especially not in the university she’s always ruled.

But when an unexpected fire turns her life upside down and forces her to share the same building and hallway with Nicolas Herrera, everything she carefully built starts to unravel.

They can’t stand each other. That much is clear.

Which doesn’t stop them from realizing they might be exactly what the other needs.

A fake relationship seems like the perfect solution: Nicolas needs the spotlight to secure a crucial student election, while Bárbara just wants to prove—to everyone, and especially to herself that she’s over her ex.

Simple. Strategic. No feelings involved.

Or at least, that was the plan.

Between sharp banter, high-stakes games, and a dangerously close living arrangement, pretending starts to feel all too real and the line between performance and truth begins to blur.

Because maybe the biggest mistake of all… is faking a love that no longer feels like a lie.

Three months behind on rent.

A life on the verge of collapse.

And a past that never stopped haunting her.

Emília Gray is about to lose everything, her home, her future in Medicine, and the last shred of sanity she has left. Drowning in debt, hunger, and pride, she refuses to depend on anyone.

Especially him.

Years ago, Dante Faulkner didn’t just break her heart.

He destroyed her.

What once was first love turned into an open wound, into hatred, into a silent craving for revenge she has never been able to satisfy.

Now, as the city sinks into fear under the shadow of the mysterious “Faceless Ones,” dark figures tied to brutal disappearances, Emilia is barely surviving.

Until the night everything changes.

Until the moment she’s cornered and recognizes the voice she swore she would never hear again.

Dante is back.

Colder. More dangerous. More unrecognizable than ever.

This time, he did not return to finish what he started.

He came to collect.

Trapped in a game where past and present collide, where secrets rise and the truth may be more cruel than betrayal itself, Emilia is forced to face what she fears the most.

The man who still has the power to destroy her.

Or consume her completely.

Because some loves do not die.

They return, darker.

In Chicago, the Belinni name is not spoken—it is feared.

Dan Belinni was raised inside violence, trained in the blood-soaked discipline of the Outfit until he became its sharpest weapon. At nineteen, he is already known for illegal fights, brutal enforcement, and a temperament that turns any challenge into punishment. He doesn’t believe in mercy. He doesn’t believe in love. He believes in control.

Milena Lima has spent her life surviving, not living. An undocumented immigrant in Chicago, she works herself to exhaustion just to stay afloat and protect the only stability she has left—her friend María. But when she loses her job and her visa expires, Milena becomes invisible to the law and vulnerable in ways she never imagined.

Desperate, she steps into a Belinni-owned nightclub, hoping to earn enough to survive another week. One stage. One performance. One decision.

That is all it takes for her to cross paths with Dan Belinni.

He is not a man who lets go.
And she is not a woman who submits.

But beneath survival and violence lies a truth neither of them is ready for—Milena is tied to a mafia legacy she never chose, one that makes her both a target and a claim in a world where women are never just women.

When their worlds collide, obsession replaces restraint, and a single night changes everything.

Because in Dan’s world, love is not given.

It is taken.