CROWN OF SHADOWS: THE BLOOD PRINCE'S ASCENSION
Marco "The Reaper" Santini ruled New York's underworld with brutal efficiency until a rival family's bullets ended his reign in a warehouse bloodbath. He expected hellfire. Instead, he woke up as Prince Adrian Valcrest—the kingdom's greatest disappointment.
Adrian is seventeen, sickly, and mocked as "the scholarly weakling" compared to his charismatic warrior brothers. The Royal Court whispers he'll never survive the Succession Trials, where heirs prove their worth through combat, strategy, and leadership. His own father, King Aldric, looks at him with thinly veiled disgust. His stepmother, Queen Seraphine, plots his convenient "accident." His brothers circle like wolves scenting weakness.
But Marco's consciousness burns inside this frail body, and he knows exactly what this is: a hostile takeover waiting to happen. The kingdoms' noble houses are just crime families with crowns. The succession battle? A gang war with prettier weapons. Adrian's survival depends on building his own empire—one loyal soldier, one strategic alliance, one calculated move at a time.
Enter Lady Cassandra Nyx, the "Poisoned Rose" of House Nyx—a minor noble family crushed under debt and scandal after her father's execution for treason. Brilliant, beautiful, and burning with rage, she's fighting to save her House from extinction. When Adrian offers her a devil's bargain—marry him, help him win the throne, and he'll restore her family's honor—she accepts, expecting a useless prince she can manipulate.
She gets a reincarnated mafia boss who plays politics like chess and war like poker.
As Adrian transforms from laughingstock to lethal contender, building an underground network of spies, reformed criminals, and outcast warriors, the kingdom watches in shock. But Cassandra sees the darkness in his calculating eyes—the ruthlessness that doesn't belong to a sheltered prince. She's falling for a man wearing her husband's face, and the secrets he's hiding could destroy them both.
Can a dead mafia boss save a dying kingdom? Or will his criminal methods corrupt the very throne he's fighting to claim?