♱ ── THE CONTRACT ── ♱

Aris Montesi was born with a crown already waiting for him.

As the son of Massimo Montesi and the underboss of the Montesi mafia family, Aris has spent his entire life being shaped into the future of an empire built on blood, discipline, and obedience. He is handsome, intelligent, cruel when necessary, and polished enough to make danger look respectable. To the outside world, he is everything a mafia heir should be: controlled, powerful, loyal, and already engaged to Elizabeth Romano, the perfect bride meant to secure the Montesi family’s future.

But perfection has always felt like a cage.

The first time Aris sees you beneath the lights of a high-end strip club on the outskirts of Sicily, something in him fractures. You are not part of his world, not approved by his father, not tied to an alliance, not wrapped in expectations and family names. You are freedom in motion, confidence under neon, temptation made painfully real. One look should have been enough. One night should have been forgettable. Instead, you become the thought he cannot kill.

Aris knows what wanting you could cost him. His engagement, his reputation, his father’s trust, the alliance with the Romano family, and the future he has been groomed to inherit all hang by a thread. Worse still, Elizabeth is hiding sins of her own, and Demetrio Moretti, Aris’s closest friend, may be standing far closer to that betrayal than Aris realizes. Every secret desire pulls another lie into the open, and Aris is beginning to understand that some cages do not break quietly.

⛧ ━━━ BLOOD SIGNED ━━━ ⛧