The CRUEL WORLD series

School has never been so cruel…

I'm not a girl who expects to be saved. I gave up on fairytales a long time ago. So when my knight in shining Armani stalks into town and delivers me from my tragic fate, I'm grateful.

Darius Prince shouldn't be in the seedy strip club where I'm paying off my mother's debts, one piece of my soul at a time. And he definitely shouldn't be the one who claims me in exchange for a suitcase full of trust fund cash and a deal inked in blood.

His dark eyes shine with a hatred so deadly, I wonder why he wants me at all. Especially when I find out he thinks I'm somehow connected to his twin sister's disappearance.

Darius doesn't rescue me. Instead, he drags me into his web of tragic secrets and forbidden desire. He binds me so tight, I can't find my way out of his grasp. Not that it would make a difference. Escaping my fate isn't an option.

They say every ending is a new beginning. I just didn't expect my beginning to be so cruel.

BOOK 1 BUY LINKS

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The boat lists to the side, as precarious as the small glow of hope I still have left in my heart.

“You look like a child when you’re scared,” the man standing before me remarks, sliding the blood-red tie from his neck. I feel so small, sitting here on the edge of his palatial bed, an offering for an underworld king.

“I am a child. I’m barely sixteen,” I whisper.

It’s a lie. I’m eighteen. About to graduate high school. My whole life is ahead of me.

Until this. 

I’m clinging to the hope that my lie will help me somehow. Surely he’ll take pity on me if he thinks I’m only sixteen?

Or… have I just made things worse for myself?

I swallow painfully as nausea grips me. Doesn’t he get seasick living on this floating mansion in the middle of the sea? Doesn’t he worry that he might drown in all this water so far from any shore?

Javier cocks his head to the side, smiling. The gesture is meant to be casual. Disarming. I can tell my fear amuses him. It’s written on his angular face, in his cat-like black eyes, clear as day. 

Javier Marin is a panther. This boat, his jungle. And me? I am nothing but food to him. Another meal to snatch up in his jaws and consume.

“Sweet sixteen and never had a cock inside you,” Javier replies, draping the tie ever-so-casually around my neck. I don’t dare breathe as he pulls one end, only stopping when the knot rests firmly at the hollow where my collarbones meet. “You’re not a child, sweet girl. You’re a missed opportunity.” 

His expression shifts from predatory to something softer, but that doesn’t make me feel better. He reaches his hand out to me, the large red ruby ring he wears around his middle finger glinting in the moonlight. It’s the exact color of the figure-hugging satin dress he has chosen for me. The same color of his tie, the same tie that winds tight around my throat, an unspoken promise of violence.

Everything in this world is the color of blood. 

“Birdie.” Javier snaps his fingers, signaling his impatience. “Come.”

I accept his grasp, letting him pull me to my feet. The luxury super yacht cuts through choppy water, and I look like a baby giraffe learning to walk in patent stilettos. 

“You look lovely.” Javier pushes me toward a full-length mirror beside the bed. “See?”

I do see, even though I’d rather not. I see a man, poised and lethal, immaculately dressed, with casual violence in his eyes. Then I see myself—a girl, barely a woman, trying to look older with makeup and fancy clothes that don’t fool anyone. Grief has hollowed my stomach and paled my cheeks. The dark circles under my eyes won’t go away. My gaze trails down to the thin metal band clasped tight around my wrist, and the sight of it—locked and immovable—forces my attention away from the mirror. I scratch my wrist furiously as I try to get my fingernails to the flesh the band is pressed tightly against.

“You’ll get used to it,” Javier says, watching me. “Mommy did.”

I think of my mother, lying lifeless on the ground. The silver band around her wrist was the only thing that marred her pale skin. I marvel at how cruel Javier Marin is and how he cuffed the same bracelet on me in the wake of her demise. 

“I came to you for help,” I protest feebly, unable to take my eyes off the silver that ensures he knows my every move. It’s fused from a special alloy and locked with a key only he possesses.

Javier chuckles. “Yes, you did,” he agrees. “What a silly girl you are.”

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