She was never meant to be his wife. At twenty, Raven Elara Moretti had already learned how to survive without her family. The first daughter of a powerful Italian mafia family, Raven had spent most of her life keeping her distance from the people who were supposed to be her home. She lived on her own terms, earned her own money as a singer in a dark, underground club, wrote her own songs, fixed her own car, and asked no one for anything. Not even her husband. Her music was dark. Her style was gothic. Her personality was stubborn, distant, and fiercely independent. Raven didn't need saving, and she certainly didn't need a man to tell her how to live. Unfortunately, her father had other plans. When her family's position is threatened, Raven is forced into a contractual marriage with a man eighteen years older than her. Lucian Vittorio De Luca. Thirty-eight years old. Powerful. Wealthy. Meticulous. And dangerous enough that people knew better than to cross him. Lucian was a man who believed everything had its place. His business. His empire. His home. His people. His life. Everything was supposed to be controlled. Then Raven became his wife. The marriage benefits them both. Raven's family needs Lucian's power and protection, while Lucian needs the family's influence within the government. It is nothing more than an arrangement. At least, that's what it was supposed to be. Lucian has never seen Raven perform at the club where she sings. He has never heard the voice behind the dark songs she writes, and he has never understood why his supposedly obedient new wife disappears into the night, returns smelling of smoke and perfume, and refuses to ask him for a single thing. But the more Raven ignores him, the more he finds himself thinking about her. Her stubbornness. Her independence. The way she looks at him as if his power means absolutely nothing to her. Lucian has blood on his hands and no hesitation when it comes to killing. Raven knows exactly what kind of man she married. Yet he has never laid a hand on her. Not after the first time he tried to get close and she made it painfully clear that she wanted nothing from him. So Lucian stopped trying. For now. Their marriage is built on a contract, mutual necessity, and a carefully maintained distance. But Lucian is beginning to wonder what happens when the woman who refuses to need him becomes the only person he can't stop thinking about. And Raven? She has no intention of falling in love with the man her father forced her to marry. Because she knows better than anyone that men like Lucian De Luca don't love. They possess. And Raven Moretti has never belonged to anyone.