Kids of The District

The city's golden girl falls heart-first into a dark underworld. I want two things in life: to be the leading ballerina in my academy—And Max Butcher… A massive, tattooed boxer, and renowned thug. And my very first crush... I may be a silly little girl to him, but he's intent on protecting, possessing, and claiming me in every way—his little piece of purity. But there is more to Max Butcher than the cold, cruel facade he wears like armor. I know; I saw the broken boy inside him one day when we were only children.

"I love you, Max Butcher." Those words are dangerous. Just about as dangerous as the world I was born into. As dangerous as the ruthless bastards that I call family. They hurt her. My little ballerina. My piece of purity. I wanted to keep the world beautiful for her. I failed. So I should let her go. For her own safety and my sanity. But she crawled into my bed...and settled in my head.

Bronson Butcher. My high school obsession. We were desperately in love until I made a mistake that severed our shared heart. So when he wakes up in the hospital and hears my voice, he stalks me down the corridor. He pins me to the wall and inhales me as though starving... But he's not that wild boy anymore. No. He's a ruthless man who takes what he wants, and what he wants is to punish me for running from him, remind me how my body hums beneath his—What he wants is to take me back to his city with or without my consent.

A little deer walks into the wolf’s den. I want answers. I know nothing of love, family, or stability, having been raised in the foster system and spat out at eighteen, pregnant, and with no memory of how that came to be. I try to find my estranged father, a man rumoured to be in the Mafia, hopeful he will use his influence to discover what really happened the night someone took my innocence. But I don’t find my father. I walk straight into the den of his associate, the Don of the Cosa Nostra.

Months ago, I was homeless and broken, and in search of a dangerous man. I found the devil’s prototype in a flawless navy suit. Clay Butcher. A man twice my age who kills brutally, takes territorially, and hides his emotions deep within layers of smooth control. He is my father’s enemy and the don of the Cosa Nostra. Evil. Beautiful. Ruthless. But he’s not the villain of my story.

My peers think I'm a tramp. The District believes I'm the flawless youngest daughter of a tycoon. Neither is true. And I'm about to have my world, my house, my rose-coloured glasses, and all, stripped from beneath my Jimmy Choo heels. With one flickering light at the end of the tunnel. Xander Butcher.