Frank

GRACE

My father lost me in a card game.

A week later I was standing on a stage in a red dress while a room full of masked men bid on me. I spat in the auctioneer's face. Someone paid ten million euros for me anyway.

Then he gave me away. As a present. To the most dangerous man in Hamburg.

Frank Brandt has ice in his voice, ink on his knuckles, and no idea what to do with a woman who bites.

He needs a fiancée fast, or he loses everything his father built. I need a way home. So we make a deal: ninety days wearing his ring, and then I walk away free.

It's only pretend. The kisses are for show. The way he looks at me when nobody's watching is not part of the deal.

Nobody warned me I'd stop wanting to leave.

FRANK

I don't beg. I don't chase. I take.

My brother brought a woman home from an auction and dropped her at my feet like a gift. She got up off my carpet barefoot, jabbed a finger into my chest, and told a room full of my men that I can't even do my own shopping.

I should have sent her back. Instead I put my grandmother's ring on her finger and told the whole city she's mine.

She thinks I bought her. She thinks every locked door is a cage.

She has no idea what I'd burn to keep her safe.

Someone sold her in my city, right under my nose. And now they want her back.

They should have asked who I am first.

This is the first book in The Dark Syndicate Series. Reading order:

Frank.

Dante.

Damon.

House of Diamonds.

Gates of Hell.