A dark mafia-academia romance of secret societies, forced marriage, enemies-to-lovers tension, and dangerous obsession.
Welcome to Blackthorne Abbey, a secluded Gothic university carved into the mountains of Northern Italy—and the hidden stronghold of the Vesper Society. Here, the heirs of twelve founding families study beneath ancient stone arches, trade in secrets, and prepare to inherit an empire built on blood, influence, and silence.
Emilia Bellandi arrives expecting another week of ritual, political maneuvering, and carefully performed obedience.
Instead, her brother is murdered.
Then she is forced into a marriage with Maksim Morozov—the Society’s feared Council Enforcer, a ruthless antihero with ice in his veins, violence in his past, and a possessive interest in Emilia that he refuses to call desire.
She hates him.
She doesn’t trust him.
And she cannot stop responding to him.
Bound by a marriage neither of them chose, Emilia and Maksim are trapped together inside a world where every conversation is a test and every alliance conceals a knife. While Emilia investigates the truth behind her brother’s death, Maksim is ordered to find the killer—forcing them into an unstable partnership as the Society turns its attention toward them.
The deeper they descend into Blackthorne’s forbidden archives, the more dangerous the truth becomes. Someone is willing to murder, manipulate, and destroy to protect a secret buried beneath five centuries of tradition. And if Emilia and Maksim expose it, they may bring the entire Vesper order down around them.
But the greatest threat may not be the conspiracy hunting them.
It may be the hunger growing between them.
In the Vesper Society, every vow is binding. Every secret has a body count. And love may be the most dangerous betrayal of all.
