He's the most feared Don in New York.
I'm the daughter he was married off to.
I plan to bury him.
My father lost a war I didn't know he was fighting, and the peace cost him me.
Renzo Battaglia. Thirty-four. Six feet of cruelty in a custom suit. They call him Il Boia — the Executioner. He's killed more men than I can count and he didn't even ask my name before he signed the contract.
I went to the negotiation in a black dress and a red mouth, and I called him by his first name in front of his men just to watch him flinch.
He didn't flinch.
He bought me a watch instead. Engraved it. Married me three weeks later in front of three hundred people, kissed me at the altar like he meant it, and put me to bed alone on the wedding night.
Like a child.
He doesn't touch me. He doesn't even look at me. He goes out three nights a week in a dark suit and comes home at one in the morning smelling like a fight, and I am going to use every single one of those nights to get my brother through the back gate with a gun.
That was the plan.
It was a good plan.
Right up until he caught me on Fifth Avenue, sent me home in a black dress he'd had made before I'd even given him a reason, put me across his desk, and counted to ten in Italian while I learned exactly what kind of woman I had married into a house with.
I'm in so much trouble.
I want him dead.
I want him to ruin me.
I don't know which one I'll get first.
THE EXECUTIONER'S BRIDE is Book 1 in the new Battaglia Crown series — five interconnected dark mafia romances set in modern-day New York. Standalone HEA, no cliffhanger. Five Families. One throne. The wife who took it.
Tropes:
I'm the daughter he was married off to.
I plan to bury him.
My father lost a war I didn't know he was fighting, and the peace cost him me.
Renzo Battaglia. Thirty-four. Six feet of cruelty in a custom suit. They call him Il Boia — the Executioner. He's killed more men than I can count and he didn't even ask my name before he signed the contract.
I went to the negotiation in a black dress and a red mouth, and I called him by his first name in front of his men just to watch him flinch.
He didn't flinch.
He bought me a watch instead. Engraved it. Married me three weeks later in front of three hundred people, kissed me at the altar like he meant it, and put me to bed alone on the wedding night.
Like a child.
He doesn't touch me. He doesn't even look at me. He goes out three nights a week in a dark suit and comes home at one in the morning smelling like a fight, and I am going to use every single one of those nights to get my brother through the back gate with a gun.
That was the plan.
It was a good plan.
Right up until he caught me on Fifth Avenue, sent me home in a black dress he'd had made before I'd even given him a reason, put me across his desk, and counted to ten in Italian while I learned exactly what kind of woman I had married into a house with.
I'm in so much trouble.
I want him dead.
I want him to ruin me.
I don't know which one I'll get first.
THE EXECUTIONER'S BRIDE is Book 1 in the new Battaglia Crown series — five interconnected dark mafia romances set in modern-day New York. Standalone HEA, no cliffhanger. Five Families. One throne. The wife who took it.
Tropes:
- Arranged / forced marriage
Enemies to lovers
Mafia princess heroine, possessive Don hero
Touch-her-and-die / he'd burn the world for her
Brat-taming, D/s dynamic, praise & degradation kink
Marriage of convenience to obsession
Only-one-bed (kind of)
"I hate you" said with feeling
Italian-American mafia, modern NYC
Slow-burn first time / explicit when it lands
HEA guaranteed
Content notes:
This is a dark mafia romance for adult readers. Contains explicit sex, on-page violence, kink with negotiated consent including impact play and dirty talk that swings between praise and degradation, references to off-page criminal activity, family betrayal, and a marriage of convenience that begins under coercive circumstances. HEA. A note at the start of the book lists specific content.
Used availability for Cora J Riley's The Executioner's Bride