Vows Beneath Black Water

When her father loses more than money to the most feared family on the eastern seaboard, Seraphina Vale is forced into an arranged marriage with Lucien Thorne—a reclusive shipping magnate whispered to be as ruthless as the sea he rules. The marriage contract is simple: wear his ring, obey his rules, and never ask what lies behind the locked west wing of his cliffside estate. But on their wedding night, Seraphina realizes Lucien did not choose her for peace between dynasties. He chose her because she carries a name tied to the woman who betrayed him, and he intends to use their marriage as both shield and revenge.

Lucien is cold, watchful, and devastatingly controlled, yet his cruelty cracks whenever Seraphina gets too close to the truth. As bodies begin surfacing along the harbor and someone inside Blackwater House seems determined to frame her for old crimes, Seraphina is dragged into a war built on smuggling, blood oaths, and buried identities. The more she resists her husband, the more dangerous their obsession becomes. To survive, she must decide whether to expose the monster everyone fears—or trust the man who may have married her to destroy her, even as he becomes the only one willing to burn the world to keep her.