

On our seventh wedding anniversary, I was straddling my Mafia husband, Lucian, kissing him deeply. My fingers fumbled in the pocket of my expensive silk dress, searching for the pregnancy test I'd hidden there. I wanted to save the news of my unexpected pregnancy for the end of the evening. Lucian's right-hand man, Marco, asked with a suggestive smile in Italian: "Don, your new little canary, Sophia. How does she taste?" Lucian's mocking laughter vibrated through my chest, sending a chill down my spine. He replied, also in Italian: "Like an unripe peach. Fresh and tender." His hand was still caressing my waist, but his gaze was distant. "Just keep this between us. If my Donna finds out, I'm a dead man." His men chuckled knowingly, raising their glasses and swearing their silence. The warmth in my blood turned to ice, inch by inch. The one thing they didn’t know was that my grandmother was from Sicily, so I understood every word. I forced myself to remain calm, keeping the perfect smile of a Donna fixed in place, but the hand holding my champagne flute trembled. Instead of making a scene, I opened my phone, found the invitation I had received a few days ago for a private international medical research project, and tapped "Accept." In three days, I would disappear from Lucian's world completely.

"Champion ""Phantom"" Jax did five years for manslaughter. Now she's a street punching bag, with only her girlfriend Mia still by her side. When her coach is held at gunpoint, Jax is forced back into the underground circuit—a betting puppet winning fights that only tighten the noose. Then Mia takes the bullet meant for her and falls into a coma. That coma was the last straw. Jax burns her bridges and steps into the ultimate cage. Tank Voss, the underground king, thinks he's hunting a broken fighter. He's wrong. He's hunting a phantom. And phantoms don't bleed."