Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
They call it a game. But games have rules, and mine were written in blood.
I was starving when I applied to The Feast of the Fallen—a twisted hunt where the world’s most elite billionaires pay millions to chase women like me through a gilded labyrinth until dawn.
One million dollars just to play. Two million if I'm caught.
I told myself I'd run, hide, and take the money–unharmed–so I could finally escape the poverty that's been choking me my entire life.
But I didn't count on him.
Jack Thorne, the phantom host, who built an empire from ash and blood, watched from the shadows while men hunted like monsters in a storm of his own creation. But when a reckless guest breaks his rules and goes too far, Jack steps out of the darkness, revealing himself as the most dangerous player of all–one who looks like a savior but will stop at nothing for revenge.
Jack doesn't negotiate with giants. He watches them gorge themselves on power until their true nature spills out. Then he brings the axe.
Billionaire • Hunter/Prey • Touch Her and Die • Possessive MMC • Rags to Riches • Forced Proximity
⚠️ Dark romance with explicit content. Please read responsibly
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Epigraph
A seed doesn’t wonder what it will become. That’s the first mercy.
Small enough to pocket. Small enough to smuggle in a fist. I was once a seed. Traded. Bartered. Owned.
They never predicted what I would become.
Bury a seed and it obeys—at first. Quiet. Patient. But leave it alone too long and it will overtake a kingdom.
It waits, taking only what it needs. Time is a seed’s only possession. Patience is forced as dampness turns to rot, splitting it open in what feels like death.
But a seed doesn’t die. It endures.
It climbs through pressure and darkness, rung by rung, until it breaks free, ever aiming for the sky, until, one day, it towers over all that once buried it like a dirty secret.
Cut it back and it only grows more aggressively. A seed is never just a seed. It is the metamorphosis of time and darkness from which insidious giants are made.
Prologue
A Trade for Magic Beans
London, Twenty-six Years Ago
London fog hid the sun while the wind cut like needles through Jackie’s threadbare clothes. Mum told him to wait while she spoke to the man in the car, so he huddled on the stoop, drawing his knees to his chest as the rats scurried along the cracks in the pavement to an opening in the bricks.
Sometimes the house was colder inside than outside. But not when it rained. When it rained, the air tasted of metal and ash.
Cars didn’t usually come down their street, especially not ones as black or shiny as the one parked at the curb. It must be warm in that car, Jackie thought, watching steam curl from the open window where Mum leaned.
A dog barked in the distance, raw and desperate until it turned hoarse.
Jackie shivered. “Mum—”
Her finger pointed up, signaling silence before extracting a thick envelope from the hand that reached through the car window. She stuffed the item in her pocket as the sleek glass closed.
The car pulled away, red lights shrinking until the mist swallowed them whole.
She didn’t look at him when she turned. Instead, she kept her hands in her pockets and her gaze on the ground. “Come on, Jackie. You need a bath.”
“It’s too cold—”
“No arguments.”
“Who was that?”
“No one.” She still wouldn’t meet his stare.
“What’s in the bag, Mum?”
Her hand pressed down on the bulge she’d tucked safely in her pocket. “Beans, Jackie. Just beans.”
“Magic beans?” he asked, skipping after her.
“I hope.”
When they walked into the building she didn’t touch him. She didn’t brush a hand over his hair or help him with his jacket like she normally did. At age six, he didn’t have a name for the cold weight that settled in his chest that day. His mother’s affection had always been a source of warmth. And the absence of it weighed heavier than hunger.
That was the day Mum’s tears started. Like an endless season of rain, her sadness went on so long, Jackie forgot what summer was like.
After his bath, Jackie shivered under blankets, but the chill wouldn’t leave his bones. Water trickled from the gutters as rain seeped through cracked plaster. He normally lay with Mum on colder nights, but she hadn’t stopped crying, so he left her alone.
The following day, when the church bells tolled, he awoke to his mother standing over him, her expression blank and her eyes flat.
“What’s wrong, Mum?”
She looked through him with that haunted stare. “Put on your blue jacket.”
“Where are we going?”
“Just you. It’s a surprise.” She wiped her eyes, the soft skin below her lashes red and raw. “Somewhere warm with lots of food and toys.”
“Why can’t you come with me?”
She shook her head, her dry, pale lips forming a flat line. “It’s not for mothers.”
Jackie was so hungry, he needed little more than the promise of food to get moving. “Then I’ll bring you something back.”
She blinked rapidly. “Bring yourself back. That’s all I need.”
After dressing, they waited by the door. She gripped his hand, her hold cold and tight as if she were afraid to lose him in a crowd, but no one else was there. Her breath hitched and she crouched before him, tugging his jacket shut.
“Listen to me, Jackie. Be a good boy and do exactly as you’re told, understand?”
“I’m always a good boy, Mum,” he said cheekily, throwing his arms around her neck and squeezing tightly.
“I know you are, baby. I know you are.”
He should have held onto her a little longer.
Chapter One
One Night
Present Day
* * *
Steam wafted from the industrial pressers like breath from a dying animal—hot, damp, carrying traces of whatever had soiled the sheets before Daisy fed them through the machine. Sweat pooled in the hollow of her throat, slid between her breasts, gathered in the creases of her elbows where heat had turned her skin pink and angry.
Eight hours of this. Sometimes ten. Her hands knew the rhythm without her mind’s permission. Lift, feed, press, fold, stack. The familiar song of machinery no longer bothered her ears. She was as deaf to the white noise as she was to her own breathing.