After he touched her
AFTER HE TOUCHED HER
At thirty-three, Brayen Mallen is a man composed of shadows and jagged edges. Once a beacon of tenderness, he was hollowed out the day a tragic wreckage claimed Vallen Zickline the woman he had fought the world to marry. She died carrying his unborn legacy, leaving Brayen a prisoner to a grief so volatile it borders on madness. For three years, he hasn't lived; he has only served a shrine of trauma and unyielding rage.
When the Mallen empire demands a strategic union with the Cruze family, Brayen’s refusal is lethal. But the Cruzes are driven by fear and greed. To shield their favored daughter, Stella, from Brayen’s notorious temperament, they offer up a silent sacrifice: Chiella Cruze.
Chiella is a ghost in her own lineage a girl forged in the fires of neglect and systemic abuse. Traded like a piece of collateral to settle a business debt, she is thrust into the path of a monster who views her very existence as a desecration of his past love.
Marriage is not a sanctuary for Chiella; it is a new, more refined cage. Inside the suffocating luxury of the Mallen mansion, she becomes the vessel for Brayen’s untreated ghosts. Her reality is a relentless storm of humiliation and emotional brutality. Yet, amidst the cold, one man sees her bleeding: Lian Shao, Brayen’s closest confidant. Lian becomes the forbidden warmth in her frozen world, a protector whose kindness begins to stir a dangerous longing in Chiella’s shattered heart.
By the time Brayen realizes that Chiella has filled the void Vallen left behind, the damage is irreparable. He falls for the woman he spent months breaking, only to find a hollow space where she used to be. Chiella vanishes into the night, carrying a secret he was never meant to hold: a pregnancy born of his own cruelty.
Years of desperate searching lead Brayen to a truth that haunts his soul that he was merely the second monster in her life, continuing the cycle of torment she had endured since childhood.
When Brayen finally tracks her down, he finds a woman he no longer recognizes. She has a new name, a new life, and five-year-old twins who bear his eyes but not his name. Standing guard over her is Lian Shao—the friend who stayed when Brayen struck, the man who has nearly replaced him in every way that matters.
The ultimate revelation shatters the foundations of their world: Chiella is no common casualty. She is the lost blood of a supreme noble house, a lineage that dwarfs the Mallens.
To reclaim his family, Brayen must go to war. He must fight the nobility, his former brother-in-arms, and the hardened fortress of Chiella’s heart. He must prove that the monster has finally learned how to love before the shadows of his sins entomb them all forever.
