Page 172 of Merciless Desires

“Daddy!” Sophie calls out from downstairs, alarm in her voice. Perhaps she figured out our turkey was walking around on a farm a couple of months ago.

“Yeah, Soph?” Darragh spins around to leave the nursery as movement out on the street catches my eye.

“Daddy, look out the window!”

I move to the sill and push the curtain away. My heart stops, seeing several black Escalades idling on the street. “Darragh!”

He joins me at the window. “Oh, shit.”

“Please tell me that’s your family surprising us.” My sister knows I’m alive and where I am, but I haven’t been able to speak to her.

In sync, car doors facing the house open up, and men with assault rifles get out.

“No. That’s not my family,” Darragh grits out.

“Oh my God.” I shudder, recognizing, not bratoks, the men who report to my father’s enforcer, Maksim, and who are brothers I might reason with.

No, these are Papa’s mercenaries from Russia…

The End

Thank you for reading Ring of Truth written exclusively for the Merciless Desires Anthology. You can read the extended version of Ring of Truth with the gripping conclusion as a standalone in the Astoria Royals Mafia Romance Series in February 2024.

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Volume Four

SCORCHED ROSE BY JANUARY JAMES

Scorched Rose

A dark re-telling of Beauty and the Beast

I wanted someone to take me out of my body. Ever since the fire, I’d hidden it beneath copious layers of clothing. I’d hidden my curves, my scars, my virginity. But I wasn’t stupid. I knew it would be valuable to somebody. One woman’s trash is another man’s treasure, right?

So, I sold it all.

He paid ten times more than I asked for. My white knight is a monster. Dark, deadly and deformed. But he is the only one to see the darkness in me. Two souls, damaged and damned. Two hearts lost in the daylight, found in the dark. I was paid to be taken out of my body, if only for one night. What I didn’t expect was to be taken out of my life, forever.

Chapter One

Rose

I gripped the paper so tightly my fingertips drained of blood. A perfect row of A’s stared up from it, filling me with dread.

A presence shifted to my shoulder and a sharp intake of breath told me Remi was taking them in too.

“That. Is. Badass.”

I carefully folded the paper.

“I always knew you’d rack ‘em up, Rose. You’re the brightest person I know.”

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