My father sold me for three million dollars.
He called it an alliance. The Castellano family called it payment. I call it a funeral.
I’m Celine Varela, and tonight I marry Dante Castellano — the man whose family put two bullets in my brother. He’s thirty two. Underboss. _Il Re di Spine_. The King of Thorns. Everything he touches bleeds.
He doesn’t want a wife. He wants Miami’s ports and my father’s silence. I’m just collateral.
At the altar, he gives me one choice: _“You can say no.”_
No one says no to a Castellano and lives. So I say yes.
Now I’m his. His house. His name. His war.
But Dante Castellano doesn’t kiss his bride. He locks her in a bedroom and posts guards at her door. He says, _“No one touches you. Not unless I say so.”_
He should have said _not even me_.
Because when his enemies come for me, he puts a body on the floor. When my father tries to use me, Dante breaks his fingers.
He thinks he’s protecting a possession.
He doesn’t know I’m planning to burn his empire down.
And he definitely doesn’t know I’m starting to want the King of Thorns to bleed for _me_.
_Arranged marriage. Enemies-to-lovers. He falls first. Touch her and die._
