IT’S RELEASE DAY!
Until Death by Nicole Blanchard will be available on Kindle Unlimited, Amazon and the author’s website TODAY!
Read for FREE in KindleUnlimited
Tropes;
- Jealous / Possessive & OTT Hero
- Morally Black Antihero
- Morally Grey Heroine
- Forced Marriage
- Irish Mafia
- “My Wife”
- Touch Him/Her & Die
Peaky Blinders meets God of Malice in this new dark forced marriage mafia romance from New York Times & USA Today bestselling author Nicole Blanchard.
I never planned to be a mafia bride.
But when my sister is forced to marry Aiden O’Connor—the Irish mafia’s most lethal enforcer—to settle our father’s debt, I do the unthinkable.
I make him marry me instead.
Becoming his wife confirms all my worst fears.
He’s ruthless, possessive, and unhinged.
And now I’m his. To control, to punish, to keep.
Until death do us part.
When he takes his revenge in the dark, pinning me down, whispering filthy threats against my lips, making me beg when I swore I never would, one thing becomes terrifyingly clear:
I may survive this marriage, but I won’t survive him.
Until Death is a fast-paced dark mafia romance with a morally gray characters. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the TWs at the beginning of the book.
Read an Excerpt!
Time slows and speeds up simultaneously as every worst-case scenario plays on repeat in my head. The choices I’m about to make… they could have far-reaching consequences. But I can’t seem to make myself stop. While I trail her, the blood all over her sears itself into my brain. Needing her, wanting her, seems as inevitable as my next breath.
It had only taken nearly losing her for me to admit it to myself.
Catriona stops in the kitchen with the island between us like a shield. “I’m not telling you anything.” Her voice is resolute and stern. I wonder if she knows how beautiful she looks right now. Fierce. Determined. With fire warming her eyes and blood painting her skin. Hundreds of years ago, she would have been considered a queen.
I school my face. “If you’re going to keep secrets, then I want some concessions in our contract.” Electricity tingles under my skin as though lightning is about to strike. My body tenses, sensing danger.
She scoffs. “You’re renegotiating on me? Why does that not surprise me?” Her nails click on the granite countertops. Click, click, click.
“Considering new evidence that’s come to light, I think I have new bargaining power.”
“What evidence?” She crosses her arms over her chest when she notices me watching her nervous tic.
“You’re hiding something from me. I want to know what it is.” A bead of sweat rolls down my back, but I keep myself loose and indifferent. I hold up a hand when she starts to object. “Consider how far I’ll go to find out your secrets. These concessions could be nothing in comparison.”
“To you,” she mutters under her breath before straightening her spine. Fuck, but that shouldn’t do anything for me. Her stubbornness. Her courage in the face of a man like me. “Fine. What do you want? Bear in mind that if you think fucking is on the table, I’ll walk out of here.”
A taunting smile twists my lips to the side. “Is that where your mind goes, pet? Good to know. However, the only thing I want is for you to move into our room.”
“Move,” her voice starts at a higher pitch, before she catches herself. “Move into your room?”
“Ours.”
She barks out a laugh. “You know I’m hiding something from you, but you’re willing to let it go if I move into your room?”
“Our room.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll use every weapon in my considerable arsenal to torture the information out of you.”
She shuffles back a step. “T-torture it out of me? You’re insane.”
“I’ve been tested. I’m legally mentally competent.”
“Right.”
“If I remember correctly,” I say, voice lowering several octaves. “You liked my particular brand of torture. But I have some new tricks that might interest you.”
Lips parted, she struggles for words before her tongue darts out to moisten the pink flesh. “You’re a sadistic bastard.”
“I never claimed otherwise. But if I’m a sadistic bastard, then you’re a filthy little liar.”
“That’s the definition of a power couple,” she taunts.
Silence falls again as we standoff over the kitchen island. Her glaring, me patient and watchful. Because I never play a hand when I can’t anticipate the outcome.
Huffing out a breath, she says, “Fine. I’ll stay in your room.”
“And move all your things in there.”
“Yes,” is bitten out between her teeth. “But I’m going to keep my room in case you piss me off, which I expect will be often. And because I need a place to study without you hovering over me.”
“I don’t hover.”
“You’re always hovering.”
“You’re not here enough to draw conclusions like that.”
She leans on her elbows, fluttering her eyelashes. “Aww, that sounds like you’re missing me, husband.”
For the first time since she moved in, I let my gaze rake over her body. From her pouty lips to her wicked curves. Propped up on the counter as she is, she’s practically on display for me. Realizing it a little too late, she straightens with a scowl.
“Don’t take this as an invitation,” she snaps.
“I wouldn’t dare. But why don’t you go upstairs and… clean up. You’ve still got blood on you.”
She looks down at the stained shirt and crimson specks all over her arms and chest like she’s seeing them for the first time. Her body goes unnaturally rigid, triggering every instinct inside me. I start toward her, then stop, unsure.
“Catriona?”
No answer. Her shoulders jerk with ragged inhales.
“Catriona?” I round the island, but she doesn’t seem to realize I’m there. It reminds me of the night we had dinner with her father and sister to organize the wedding. When we’d gone to the study after and she’d turned white in her seat—seemingly for no reason—and it was like she was somewhere else in her mind.
Carefully, I turn her to face me, but even though she’s looking at me, I don’t think she sees me at all. “C’mon, bhean chéile. Come back to me.”
Nothing.
I bite out rapid curses under my breath as I scoop her up into my arms and take the stairs two at a time. Bursting into our room, I cross blindly to the bathroom, where the shower takes too fucking long to heat. When it’s warm enough, I step us both under the spray. She clings to me—and that’s how I know something is terribly wrong. She’d never let me hold her like this if she were in her right mind.
Her body quakes, and she’s curled into a ball against my chest. I sit heavily on the bench inside the shower, holding her as close as possible. The water helps, I think, but what do I fucking know? I’m used to breaking bodies, not healing them.
The sight of the blood was what seemed to put her in this state, so I grit my teeth and maneuver her shirt up and off her shoulders. She’d probably skewer me if I tried to take off her bra, so I don’t. It’s not stained anyway. Then I pump a few squirts of soap into my hands and lather it over her skin.
By the time I have all the evidence of this afternoon erased from her, she’s breathing a little more easily. My hand keeps going back to her throat to feel the throb of life beneath her skin for reassurance. Her heart beats steadily under my palm. We’re both soaked through, but I barely notice. Seeing her react this way is like a knife between the ribs, snaking past the defense of bone to land a direct hit to my soft organs.
She gives a full-body shudder, and then she blinks rapidly, before tilting her head back. Her cheeks flood with color, and I let out a breath. Thank fuck, she’s coming back to me.
“There you are,” I murmur, resisting the urge to run my hands over her body to make sure she doesn’t have any injuries they missed.
“You really will do anything to get me out of my clothes,” she says in a voice so low, I can barely hear it over the shower spray.
“One thing about me is, I’ll always be an opportunist.”
Have you read the prequel?
Little Death is now available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers and in paperback!
ginreads 