The Girl Who Gave the Devil a Flower

Adrian Vale is the man powerful people refuse to look in the eye. At a glittering lakeside wedding, every chair near him remains empty—until four-year-old Lucy Ellis walks straight across the ballroom, tells him he looks lonely, and places a bruised white flower in his hand. Then Adrian notices the wooden swallow around her neck. It bears the unmistakable mark of Samuel Reed, the mechanic who once rescued a homeless teenage boy and gave him a place to land. Samuel is gone now. The exhausted banquet worker searching for Lucy is his daughter, Mara—and she wants nothing from the dangerous man her father once saved. But someone else has noticed Adrian's new weakness. To protect Mara and Lucy, he may have to surrender the empire that made everyone fear him. And Mara must decide whether a man built by violence can truly choose a different life—or whether accepting his protection will cost her the independence she fought so hard to keep.