Cognac Villain - A Mafia Romance
One wardrobe malfunction.
Two people who don't belong together.
Three awful "Be my wife."
Everyone else is at this party to marry the host.
I'm only here until I can get a ride home.
When my dress rips in the world's worst-timed wardrobe malfunction,
I go find somewhere quiet to fix it.
So I'm standing there in nothing but my heels when,
As my luck would have it, the door opens...
And the man of the hour walks in.
I wish I could say I played it cool.
But it's been a looong time since anyone has seen me in my birthday suit...
Much less the hottest man I've ever laid eyes on.
All I want to do is fix my dress, click my heels three times, and be back on my couch in fuzzy slippers.
But Ivan has other ideas.
He's decided who he's taking to the altar...
And I don't have a choice but to say "I do."
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Chapter 5
IVAN
It'd be a mistake to call her the girl in the green dress-mostly because she's not in the green dress anymore. It's puddled around her feet and she's not wearing a stitch of anything. Just high heels and nipple covers.
I close the door behind me. "No one is supposed to be in here."
"I'm hiding," she blurts, trying her best to cover herself up, not that it does much good. I'd have to be Mother fucking Teresa to keep my eyes off of her body.
Fucking hell, she's stunning.
I swallow down the rush of desire. "Stripping, hiding, I don't give a shit what you call it-but you can't do it here."
She levels me with a glare that rivals the one she gave the Greek mutt outside. "And who are you? Security?"
"You must be joking."
She doesn't know who I am? I call bullshit. Everyone here knows who I am.
She's blushing from head to toe-I can see every inch of flushed skin-but she doesn't shy away. "So, not security, then? Probably some trust fund baby who thinks you own every room you walk into."
"Big words from someone skulking through a stranger's house naked."
"Hiding!" she yelps again. "And believe me, I would give anything to be clothed right now. Preferably in sweatpants and a hoodie with a parka on top, but beggars can't be choosers. I'd accept that strappy, skin-tight monstrosity on the ground right now if it would just cooperate."
She hates this party, she doesn't know who I am, and instead of bragging to me about who designed her ruined dress, she's longing for sweats.
She can't be real.
A breeze blows through the open doors and the woman in front of me shivers. Before I can second-guess the instinct, I shrug out of my jacket.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
Good question. It might be the first time in my life I've voluntarily asked a woman to put on more clothes.
Her eyes are wide and shockingly green as she shrinks away from me. Like a dog that's been kicked so many times it's sure that the only thing the future could hold is more pain.
"Beggars can't be choosers." I dangle my jacket in the air between us. "Take it or leave it."
She watches me warily for another long breath before she lunges for the jacket and slips it on.
Her skin disappears beneath the long sleeves and broad shoulders. The jacket absolutely swallows her, but I'm not laughing. Somehow, the image of her swimming in my jacket is even more tantalizing than her taut, naked skin.
She tucks the material around her middle and crosses her arms to secure it. "Thanks. For a second, I thought you were going to parade me out of here naked as punishment."
"Don't tempt me."
"Don't threaten me," she retorts.
"Don't act like it would be all bad. You'd be the center of attention."
"Don't act like all women want the same thing."
I arch an amused eyebrow. "Don't they? You got all dolled up and marched in here to sell your soul to Ivan Pushkin. Just like the rest of them."
"Not you, too?" she murmurs. "Ivan this, Ivan that. Everyone can't get enough of the guy. Who even is he?"
I join her at the window, gazing down at the partygoers below. "Everyone is here because they want to marry him."
"I'm sure he thinks so." She wrinkles her nose and points at a paunchy man standing by the shrubs. "What about that one?"
I clock the person she's pointing at immediately. My mind whirrs and conjures up the relevant facts. Valmor Shundi. Albanian underboss. Likes his whiskey aged for seventeen years and his women for less than that.
"Him, too. The poor bastard has a nasty drug problem and is about to get caught for stealing money from his clients. He needs his daughters to secure a good match now before his name turns to shit."
"How do you know that?"
"I know everything." I point out the scrawny Italian man next to the stage. Again, my mind hums and pulls up what I need to know. Alfonso Marciano. A Rossi family underboss. Cokehead. "That one is into group sex with his boss and his wife."
"No way," she giggles. "He's wearing a pink polo with a popped collar. How is he having threesomes?"
"Foursomes, actually. He brings his own wife along." I point out the woman in the brown bedazzled dress who is scanning the lawn like a vulture. "Though I'm not sure you can criticize anyone else's appearance, all things considered."
She glances down at my suit jacket and winces shyly. "Fair enough. But I looked better before that asshole ripped my dress."
"Agree to disagree," I murmur.
I didn't actually intend to speak out loud, but that slipped out before I could stop it. Her blush is bright enough to see in the gloom.
"What about that one?" she asks, obviously changing the subject.
I follow her finger to see her singling out the emaciated blond hair of the one man I would have most preferred not to think about. The laughter disappears from my voice. "Konstantin Sokolov," I say quietly.
"You don't have any dirt on him?" she teases. "He's not, like, a terrible poker player or secretly into dressing up like a furry in his free time?"
No, I think to myself. He's the father of the woman I was supposed to marry.
"He's no one," I said out loud instead. "No one at all."
"Hm. Okay." She turns her head to the side, dark hair spilling over her shoulder. "Final question: what's your name?"
I have to admire her tenacity. She is really claiming she doesn't know who I am. I'm still not sure I believe her, but it is nice to be anonymous. If just for a few minutes.
"Tell me yours first."
"Or what?" she challenges.
"Or I'll kick you out for trespassing."
She narrows her eyes. "Are you sure you aren't head of security? You're on a real power trip."
My gaze doesn't waver from hers. The world shrinks around us. "I'll answer when you tell me who you are."
She hesitates for only a second. "Francia Delacour."
I flip through my mental rolodex of names and contacts and allies and enemies, but there is no Delacour as far as I can remember.
Frowning, I turn to the bar cart and grab two glasses. "Care for a drink, Ms. Delacour?"
"God, yes. But you don't get off that easily. You're supposed to tell me if you're the head of security or not."
I hold up my glass and take a sip. "If I was head of security, would I be drinking on the job?"
"If you were bad at your job, you might."
I pass the second glass to her. "I'm not bad at anything."
"I hate that I actually believe you." She tastes the drink and winces. "I also hate cognac."
"That's a three-hundred-dollar bottle."
"Ah. Well, in that case, it's the best thing I've ever tasted." She pastes on a big, fake smile. "Better?"
I'm sure I'll never see her again after tonight, so what the hell? Marriage is looming, and after everything that happened with Konstantin and Katerina Sokolov, I'm positive it will be an absolute fucking hellscape. Might as well enjoy myself while I still have the chance.
I clink my glass against the edge of hers in a toast to wherever this night is going to take us. "Much better."
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9.1
Waking up with a cold, scaly hand wrapped around my throat wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was realizing I'd transmigrated into the body of Terra Mason—the most despised woman in the entire Enclave. She drugged high-level beast-men and forced them into life-binding bio-contracts. She locked an aquatic warrior in a dry basement until his organs failed. She treated the most lethal males in the city like broken toys.
Zev, the Level 6 serpent who's currently choking me, would rather blow up his own heart than spend another day as my slave. His affection metric? Negative ninety. His trust? Zero.
Then my system activates: the Kore AI. It gives me exactly 500 credits, a medical nano-gel, and a recipe for neutralizing the radioactive poison in mutant meat. Real food. In this world, that's worth more than gold.
I save Rhys, the dying aquatic male everyone left for dead. I season a slab of purple mutant steak until Sam, a battle-scarred grizzly shifter, groans at the taste—and his trust points finally tick above zero. When my backstabbing ex-best friend tries to steal my males and destroy me, I don't scream or throw a tantrum like the old Terra. I dismantle her with the truth.
But earning their trust means more than grilling meat. A scorpion swarm ambushes us at midnight. Sam throws himself between me and a stinger the size of my arm. As he stands over the corpse, fur receding from his claws, he stares at me and whispers, "You were testing me."
Yes. I was. Because in this world, the weak don't survive. And I refuse to be weak again.
Four beast-men. Four contracts. One system. And a whole lot of steak. Let this dystopian wasteland know—I'm not the monster they remember. I'm worse. I'm the one who's going to feed them until they'd kill for me.
7.8
Helen was finally brought back to the luxurious Gallagher estate as their long-lost blood relative.
But her new family didn't welcome her; they looked at her with undisguised disgust.
The matriarch mocked her stench of poverty, while her step-sister Candice treated her like a feral animal. The patriarch, Fredy—who had built his empire by betraying Helen's mother—tried to break her spirit. He blackmailed Helen into attending a high-society gala by threatening to cut off her grandmother's medical funds.
At the gala, Candice squeezed into a diamond-encrusted gown, desperate to seduce the guest of honor, Damian Montgomery. Damian was the most powerful man in New York, and he was currently tearing the city apart looking for a mysterious woman named Jane.
Overhearing this, a sick, greedy smile spread across Candice's face. She planned to impersonate Jane to claim Damian's wealth and completely crush Helen under her heel.
"Hide in the corner tonight. Don't you dare try to speak to anyone important!"
They all thought Helen was just a helpless, uncultured country girl they could easily manipulate and step on to secure their stolen legacy.
What they didn't know was that Helen was the real Jane. She was the lethal shadow who had saved Damian in the woods, shattered his grip, and robbed his highly guarded vault just the night before.
Helen calmly adjusted her simple black dress and stepped into the ballroom, ready to tear their stolen world apart.
9.4
Michael Carter is an undercover FBI agent on a mission to take down ruthless mafia king Fernando Ramírez-the man he believes killed his sister. But getting close to Fernando means playing a dangerous game, one where seduction and power blur the lines between enemy and lover.
When Michael uncovers a shocking truth, his thirst for revenge turns into a fight for something far more dangerous-his own heart. Now, torn between duty and desire, he must decide: destroy the man he swore to take down or surrender to the one thing he never saw coming.
Love has never been more lethal.
9.7
Blurb: She signed the divorce papers. He never signed away his obsession.
Veronica Stanford was the perfect wife-devoted, patient, and hopelessly in love. But when her billionaire husband, Jason Harper, trades her in for her treacherous best friend, Rhea, Veronica's world shatters. Broken and betrayed, she drowns her sorrows in a bar, only to be saved by a dangerously alluring stranger with emerald-green eyes and a lethal reputation: Monte "Four" Zagcanni, the ruthless heir to a mafia empire.
Four is everything Jason isn't-dark, dangerous, and devastatingly protective. When Veronica discovers she's pregnant with Jason's child, she strikes a deal with Four: a fake marriage to shield her from scandal. But what starts as a cold arrangement ignites into a passion neither can resist.
Jason, realizing his mistake too late, wants Veronica back-along with the son he never knew existed. But Four isn't a man who surrenders what's his. And Veronica? She's done being the meek wife.
Betrayal runs deep. Revenge burns hotter.
As secrets unravel-her father's bloody past, Rhea's twisted obsession, and Jason's deadly lies-Veronica must decide: trust the man who destroyed her once, or surrender to the devil who might destroy her forever.
One wants her back. The other wants her forever.
8.6
The Maybach glided through rain, Dante's cold cedar cologne a familiar comfort. Seven years, my life revolved around him, my fingers on his suit cuff, a silent promise. But tonight, our normal shattered with a single phone call.
He answered, speaking rapid Italian – a language he thought I didn't understand. Every word: a death knell. Confirming his engagement to Sofia Moretti, dismissing me as a 'consolation prize.'
Seven years of loyalty vanished. His loving mask back, he left for his fiancée. I stumbled into freezing rain, recalling my foster past. My numb fingers dialed his mother, Isabella, demanding fifty million for my silence. Her insults didn't sting.
The true gut punch: Sofia's Instagram, a prenup on Dante's desk, proudly showing *my* watch, captioned: 'Fourteen days left.' This wasn't their celebration; it was my death sentence.
I wouldn't stay another day in this gilded cage. My old duffel bag, packed, waited. The Australia brochure, a childhood dream, in my pocket. This time, I would live for myself, and they would all pay.
7.4
I was only fifteen when my venomous family orchestrated my doom by forcing me into an arranged marriage with mafia heir Javier Velasquez.
On our wedding night, Javier paraded strippers into our suite to show his absolute contempt, turning me into the ultimate joke of the underworld overnight.
But being a joke was a luxury compared to what came next.
Three years later, Javier needed to be a widower to marry into a heavily armed family and secure their backing for a coup.
He didn't grant me the mercy of a bullet.
Instead, he dragged me to an abandoned underground safehouse, locked me in the damp, rotting dark, and told the world I had been assassinated.
For six months, I starved in that dungeon, surviving only on the desperate hope that my family was safe.
Then, on the day of his lavish new wedding, a cruel maid kicked a plate of spoiled food onto my floor and delivered the final, fatal blow.
"Annabel is dead. Pined away and died of a broken heart two weeks ago."
My gentle mother was dead, all because she actually believed his lie about my tragic murder.
Driven by pure agony and an all-consuming hatred, I shattered crates of smuggled chemical solvents and struck a match, letting the roaring inferno turn their bloody wedding into my funeral pyre.
I thought the fire was the end.
But when I opened my eyes, the suffocating smoke vanished, replaced by the biting chill of a Long Island winter.
I was standing in the snow, back on the exact day my descent into hell began.
This time, the terrified girl was dead, and I would use their own ruthless rules to tear their empire apart.