They’re not star-crossed—they’re impossible. Emma Donati wasn’t given a choice in the end, and the one she was forced to make saved more lives than just hers. If only knowing that was enough to get her through the hell she’s currently living. Instead, she’s paying the price for the lies they’ve told, and the cost is unbearably high. Some days, it feels like she imagined it all. Like everything with Calisto was a dream. But they were real once. Even if now, he doesn't remember any of it. And if protecting the only thing she has left of him means lying to the one man who might be able to save her—so be it. Except the truth still has consequences, and when Calisto finds out what she’s done … not even God will stop him. Note: TW for miscarriage, child loss, and DV. Donati Bloodlines, 3

Pretty things always tell lies … Cory Rossi isn’t what you would expect the youngest son of the Chicago mob’s underboss to be. Despite what everyone thinks, he can actually do what he’s told. He just does it his own way. The problem with that is every tattooed- and leather-covered inch of him screams one thing to Della Costello—total heartbreak. It’s all men like him do, right? One hook-up, when he didn’t even know her name, was all she could afford. Their one-time encounter should have stopped there. But an ex that causes problems for her business—and the mob’s—and Cory becomes her new shadow until the bullets quiet in the streets. It gets harder and harder to stay out of his bed. They’ll walk a fine line. And there is no mercy in this tragedy. For love and lost blood, once more, Chicago will rage.

“Don’t fall in love with me. I ruin beautiful things.” Love made him this way, but life makes him stay. Life doesn’t give a redo. There’s no rewind or pause button to take you back or stop time. Once something happens, it happened. The most tragic of those times in his life, the ones he wouldn’t get back and the moments he could never fix, reminded Demyan Avdonin of a bullet meeting glass. The impact of the bullet doesn’t break the glass into pieces, but instead, leaves behind a single hole surrounded by a spider web of cracks. Fragile cracks that, when handled with the utmost care, would splinter into shards of what used to be. Demyan thought he had been broken beyond repair once, four long years ago. He was wrong. She touched the glass, unknowing of the cracks holding him together. These are the broken pieces of a shattered man and the woman who made him live. Life made him this way, but love makes him stay. The Russian Guns, 5