I’ve never met him. Never even seen him. But I’ve heard the whispers. The rumors. The stories about him being as cruel as his father. Maybe even worse. They say his presence wraps around your throat whenever he enters a room. And that’s exactly what I feel the moment he walks into the diner where I work, and I hear people breathe out his name. Alexius Del Rossa. They call him the crown prince of the Dark Sovereign—a society of men who own everything but the weather in this town. Men say he has ice in his veins, and women talk about the corrupted heart in his chest. He’s the kind of man you pray never to cross paths with. The kind of man a girl like me has no chance of surviving. But while his eyes trap mine, and his magnetism touches my skin, I’m unable to move when he forces me into a corner and hands me an envelope. It’s an offer. One I can’t refuse. See, I have nothing. No family. No friends. No home. I can disappear and no one will know. And that is exactly why he chose me.