It's simple. A vengeful wildfire of a woman. A tyrant who begs to be burned.  

When Aria crashes into Kael’s empire, hellbent on making him pay for taking her job away, she’s met not with defiance—but a dare. “You want revenge?” he taunts, voice dripping with dark invitation. 

“Then ruin me. Take your pound of flesh exactly where it hurts.” His proposition is a trap laced with sin: As expected he calls the shots in his bed, her contempt is his twisted aphrodisiac. 

“Hate me until your hands shake,” he growls. “But do it on top of me, where I can watch you savor every cut.”  

Their arrangement is a collision of dominance and delirium. Aria wields her fury like a blade, determined to break him. Kael? He thrives under her wrath, goading her darker, deeper, hungrier. 

But vengeance turns slippery when every insult she hisses ignites his obsession, and every cold glare melts into bruising kisses. Soon, the bed becomes a battleground—her nails carving victory into his skin, his whispers a serpent’s promise: “Chain me with your rage, darling. I’ll still come back for more."  

The rules are simple: No mercy. No surrender. But as their games spiral into something ravenous, who’s destroying whom? And when hatred burns this hot, what’s left when the ashes cool?

I had come back to gloat. To poke at the cracks, to see how much more I could widen them.


But this? This was better. Because standing in front of me—frozen, caught, furious—was Aria. And she was wearing the lingerie I bought for her.


Black lace. Delicate but sinful. It clung to her like a second skin, a contradiction of soft and lethal.


Should have made her look vulnerable. Should have.


But the way she held herself? Shoulders tight, chin lifted, fists clenched. There was nothing soft about her. She was razor wire wrapped in silk. And fuck, she was seething.


I saw it in the flare of her nostrils, the press of her lips, the way her gaze pinned me like she wanted to flay me open.


So I did. My gaze dragged over her slowly, deliberately, soaking in every inch. Her jaw tensed.


Chapter 24 - "Cat got your tongue?"