Samantha Barrett

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned… I have had impure thoughts about my priest. I've done unspeakable things with my stepbrother. I enjoy watching my stepbrother and his best friend. I want them to watch me, too. Forgive me, Father, for I want to sin…

My love life is a total disaster. No one ever measures up to my three best friends—Storm, Zayne, and Julius. They're perfect in every way...except for the tiny detail that they don't see me as anything more than a friend.

Say his name loud enough, and he might hear it. No one dares speak his name, for fear he'll come for them. My brother ruined his life, and now he plans to return the favor. For months, I've been living in a cage, dreading the moment he finds me. When he does, it's like a ghost materializing.

Mine was burnt to a crisp, all because I allowed myself to fall for my brother's best friends. They turned against me and chose their friendship over me…again.

Where they rest for eternal life is where a favor is asked. The stone with the head is where you will be led. Be certain of the favor you ask; no second is offered. The debt will be collected when the favor is complete. A favor asked is a debt owed.

This should have been a story about the youngest sibling being rescued and returned to his family grateful, happy—overcome with gratitude to be safe and home again. That isn’t how my story goes, I’m not grateful, and I sure as hell am not thankful.

Gage crashed into my life like a storm. He awoke something inside me I hadn’t dared to feel for many years: hope. He’s here to take down my family, and I’m ready to help him do whatever it takes to end the Volkov Bratva.

I’m the secret my family kept from the world. The Queen that was to be used to gain them an alliance. I escaped, finally free to live my own life out in the open. A chance encounter with a beautiful stranger derailed my plans. My hope of freedom was torn from me—he took it from me.

Pain. Darkness. That’s what my life is. Always has been. Koby is the opposite. Light and redemption. She can see through to my tortured soul, see into the depths, the parts that want to torture her, remove the light from her eyes.

She’s committed a crime against the family, against me—one that no one would ever get away with. How is it possible, then, that I want to strangle the life out of her, and at the same time breathe life back into her lungs?

She was broken by the hands of my own father. I can’t hide in the shadows anymore, watching her from a safe distance. It’s time to show her all my plays. Kiara Coleman has the answers I need, and if I have to drag her back into my dark world to get them, I will.