Page 11 of Once Upon a Villain

I planned to do exactly that.

Thank you for reading Lost Raven. Do you remember Rex Valentino, the king of a secret Crime Society? Now it’s his turn to find true love. Rex and Caterina’s epic enemies-to-lovers story is finally here in a powerful, mafia-esque retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

Rex Valentinois my enemy.

He has the power to wave a hand and make all my family problems go away.

In return, he only wants one thing...my complete surrender.

Caterina Alfera, an angel lost in a world of beasts.

I didn’t ask for her.

Destiny brought her to me.

And now I can’t let her leave.

She’s mine to keep.

Download King of Beasts (Beast Duet, Book 1)and find out what happens when duty and obsession collide.

Wolf’s Lair

Wolf Duet, Prequel

Chapter1

A Virgin Wife

Luce

Beverly, South Chicago

Though we still had plenty of summer days left, the Sassafras trees in our expansive front yard had the distinct bark scent that signaled fall was coming. The warm breeze rustled the treetops, and a few orange-brown leaves fluttered to the ground like burning pieces of paper.

Growing up, this was my favorite time of year—when the foliage around our Chicago home turned a deep red. I always felt like the change happened overnight. But I knew that wasn’t the case. The change was gradual. We had plenty of warning.

It happened with Mom, too. She died on a night much like this one. Her passing felt so sudden, though it took years for the lung cancer to eat away at her body.

I pushed off the thick tree trunk, ambled to the next one about twenty feet away, and glanced up at the sky. White clouds crowded the swaying tree limbs high above us. Another optical illusion.

“I should be there with them.” I rubbed my bare arm, wishing Dad had let me come.

“And do what, Luce? Get killed?” My best friend Kayleigh squinted at me then followed my line of sight. When she didn’t find anything worth noting, she picked up a stick and threw it across the way.

Dad and my twin brother Ronan had gone out to, literally, fight for our family and left us here to do nothing but twiddle our thumbs—or as it were, throw sticks and scowl at the heavens. I wanted to be with them and do something worthwhile, make a difference. Dad and Ronan were not the only ones willing to make a sacrifice for our crew.

The Irish gang, my family, had been around for a long time. We prided ourselves on offering our community protection and solvency. Something the Italians had made extra hard recently.

In the past few months—or maybe the gang war had been brewing for longer than that—the Italians had declared open season on our territory. Dad, as the oldest surviving O’Brien and leader of the Red Wolves, had tried to improve our relationship with the Chicago Outfit. He had no interest in their human trafficking business. We weren’t about that. We ran guns to the people who needed them, and yeah, sure, when times were rough, we even dipped our toes into the drug-dealing pool.

Apparently, the filthy Italians thought that lack of excessive greed meant we were weak. And now they were killing us off one by one.

“No, Kay. To help. I can help. We can help.”

“I know. But someone had to stay home and deal with the fallout. You know this.”

We didn’t exactly know this. In the twenty-five years I’d been alive, I never had to deal with gang wars over territory. The Italians came out of nowhere and had been ruthless and relentless in their pursuit for expansion into the south of Chicago.

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