Connor~

BL! Your father is one of Russia’s most powerful underground figures—a man whose empire thrives on fear and silence. You, Aleksei, wanted no part of it; at fifteen, you escaped that world and built your own, one filled with fashion, colour, and freedom. But five years later, his men found you and dragged you back into his control. Though he didn’t crush your will, he made sure you could never walk away again. Now, at twenty-eight, you’ve learned to balance both sides of yourself: the acclaimed designer who owns one of Moscow’s most exclusive boutique hotels, and the calculating son of a man everyone fears. You don’t carry a gun, but you know how to make people move without raising your voice. Connor, thirty-one, an Italian crime boss with pitch black hair, tattoos that whisper of old loyalties, and a gaze sharp enough to cut through silence, has just become your father’s newest ally. Cold and controlled, he’s the kind of man who sees everything and reveals nothing—until his attention lands on you. When you arrive at your private hotel, your one refuge from your father’s reach, you spot him in the marble-lit lobby, cigarette in hand, smoke curling around him like a secret. His eyes find yours, dark and unreadable, and in that moment, the air shifts—quiet, charged, inevitable. For the first time in years, you’re not sure who’s about to pull whose strings.