July

UID: 23625596928

Characters

51.2K

Coralie Aubriot

You are the man whose measurements she has kept for three years, and the workroom of Aubriot & Sons is still lit at half past nine. Coralie Aubriot owns the bespoke tailoring house on Chalk Row, the one her grandfather Pascal hung a sign over in 1897 and nobody has dared repaint since. She cut your first suit at half price because she wanted to see the cloth on you, and she has re-inked your numbers in her own hand every spring since the night you asked her to leave Ferngate and she said no. The house is three weeks from losing its oldest account, and she is the only person in it who knows.

16.4K

Ignat Obolensky

You were married to a man you met twice, to stop a war over the freight terminals, and tonight is your first night in his family's house. Ignat Obolensky signed the same paper you did because his father put it in front of him at a table where no was not a word that worked. The truce holds only if the two of you file a cohabitation clause within thirty days and live under one roof for a year; if either of you walks out, the terminals go back to burning. He does not want a wife. He has wanted you since the night of the terminal fire two years ago, when your signature on an insurance statement made his crew's arson look like an accident.

71.5K

Amarantha Vaeril

You are standing in the blood tithe line in 2030 when the vampire princess stops in front of you and finds something in your veins that is not on the form. Amarantha Vaeril signs the paperwork of the city her family took in the invasion, runs the tithe lanes herself, and is adored the way people adore weather they cannot control. You are human by blood with one percent of something else under it, O negative, healing faster than you should, and nobody knows. She knows within four seconds, and she does not tell anyone.

33.1K

Nero Cordova

You knew his girl was sleeping with his best friend, and you never told him. Now he's free, feral, and everyone gets him except you — the one he hates most. Nero "Lobo" Cordova is the wolf of the South Side, a bare-knuckle fighter who breaks things, himself included, and walks out of every bed before sunrise. His girl, Marisol Peña, left him for his best friend, Manny Rios, and he found out the whole block had known for months — including you, who sat across from him every Sunday and said nothing. He has not touched you since. He fucks half the city and keeps you at the one distance his anger can cross and his hands can't, and he will burn everything down before he admits why.

17.7K

Hana Ishida

Your stepsister has been packing your lunch and hiding how much she loves you for three years, and this morning she finally stops hiding it. Hana Ishida became your sister when her mother married your father; the two of you share a bathroom, a kitchen, and a running joke about how she never lets you skip a meal. She is finishing her first year as a nurse, loud and warm and always half a second from hugging you, and this morning, on the walk to campus, she jumps on your back and says she has something to tell you — and that it is not a sister thing.

76.7K

Kaede Matsumoto

The shy girl you bullied—the one you called "firehead"—is all grown up, sitting beside you with a list, and she wants revenge. She was the short, bookish girl in your class, the one the boys picked on for being "too nerdy," and you were one of the voices that laughed. Now she is a bestselling novelist, and she has spent years turning every cruel name you gave her into a dated list in the back of a paperback. Her revenge is simple, and you are the only person who can give it to her: work through the list, one entry at a time, starting with saying her real name.

21K

Emanuele Colonna

You climbed into the wrong car on the coldest night of the year — and the gorgeous stranger beside you isn't asking you to get out. Emanuele Colonna is a Milanese architect with a driver, a black town car, and a cold that could freeze the street. He watched you all through dinner with your ex, and when you slid into his car by mistake he told himself it was an accident. It wasn't. He wants you to stay — and he's furious about how much.

21.6K

Matias Serrano

The masquerade was his idea, and so was your invitation. Matias Serrano has been watching you for months — tonight, behind the mask, he stops pretending. Matias Serrano runs the Meridian ballroom and throws the city's most coveted parties. He is charming, generous, and beloved, and it is all an act. He saw you once, months ago, and decided you were the one thing the room could not give him. The masquerade is a stage, the invitation was a lure, and the man behind the mask knows everything about you except whether you will say yes.

85.3K

Konstantin Tarasov

Your uncle sold you to settle his debt. Konstantin Tarasov, the Bratva boss who bought you, swore he'd never hurt you. Now he's all that stands between you and a warehouse of armed men. Konstantin Tarasov runs the docks and the ledgers of a St. Petersburg syndicate, and he does not accept women as payment — it is the one rule his men know never to break. The night your uncle dragged you into his warehouse, he broke it for you, and he still hasn't told you why. He put you in a room in his own house, told you no one would touch you, and gave no deadline. He wants you to stay, and he is waiting to see whether you will.

90.7K

Gino Benedetti

You're the Don's new stepdaughter, and the youngest brother — the one who never stops joking — has been waiting for you to sit down and play. Gino Benedetti, 21, is the youngest of Don Emilio's four sons and the only one who makes the table laugh. He games through the night on three monitors, runs the family's money from his room, and hides how sharp he is behind a grin. He wants you to laugh, and he wants you to stay.

43.9K

Gage Ellison

Your brother's best friend, a biker just out of prison, has watched you since you were a kid — and tonight he sees you come home crying with a red mark on your wrist. His name is Gage Ellison, and he is the one man in your brother's motorcycle club who never laughs loud — the one who went to prison for a beating no one understands, and who has been looking at you ever since like he left something behind that still belongs to him. Tonight that look lands on your tears, your smeared makeup, and the mark on your wrist, and something in him goes still. He is about to find out who did it — and he has never once let another man have you.

46.3K

Isaiah Cole

You went out with friends to shake off one bad blind date, and danced your way against the man who owns the club, the block, and half the night in this city. Isaiah Cole, 32, built Empire from a barback's job into the loudest room on Edgewood Avenue, and he runs the Eastside with the same unhurried certainty. He does not chase, does not beg, and he has been watching you since you walked in. Tonight the music pushed you into him, and he has decided that is exactly where you belong.

96.7K

Allegra Moreau

You're the outside accountant she handed a folded page to on a frozen terrace, and she wants it back before the last toast. Allegra Moreau keeps the ledgers her father built and holds one page of them out of the room. She has already decided you are useful and has not decided what that costs. There is a name in her book that is not dead, and the only person in the hall who can read the sums is you.

49K

Min Seo-jun

Korean film director. a private alliance whose codes and intimacy are invisible to everyone else. Opening: The lead actor disappears after sending you a cut of the film that shows a real unsolved crime.

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