Not all monsters hide under the bed. Some guard your heart while plotting your ruin.

Welcome to your final dream.

Don't worry. I'll keep you safe.

I promise. Just close your eyes.

Sleep.

Grief has five stages, they say. But in the mafia, there's only one: survival.

The day I buried my boyfriend, the Families replaced him with the man who rejected me four years ago—Ace "Matchstick" De Lange. Cold. Calculated. Deadly. He has the bedside manner of a serial killer and the looks of a fallen angel. And now, he's my shadow, ensuring I don't end up in the grave beside the man who died for me.

I despise that I'm the one left behind. I loathe how Ace provokes me, pulling me from the abyss of my sorrow. But most of all, I hate that the only piece I have left of my dead boyfriend is something others would kill to possess.

When Ace uncovers my secret, there's only one solution: marriage to the devil himself to protect the legacy of the one who had no choice.

I vow never to love him. He promises he'll never love me.

He's a means to an end—the only one who can stand against my father and live to tell the tale.

He claims his life is mine, but I don't want it.

I tell him I'll never be his.

Ace's response? A chilling, "We'll see."

But what happens when everything you believed was a lie? When the only one who can free you from your nightmare threatens to drag you deeper into the darkness?

Some families are tested and break under the weight of the mafia. The De Langes broke... then gathered the pieces and rose.

From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken comes a gripping standalone mafia romance set in the electrifying world of the Eagle Elite series.