Cruel Vows

Massimo takes one look at Paisley and decides “mine” β€” then trades a mafia deal to get her, drags her down the aisle at gunpoint, and calls it a marriage. This is full-send forced marriage, captive-bride, hate-sex-till-she-can’t-deny-it territory, with an OTT hero who’ll threaten his own brother over her name. Paisley gives you spitfire-who-says-no-and-means-yes energy for a solid 25 chapters, so this is a slow burn on the “admitting it” front even though the physical chemistry is instant. Fair warning though β€” several readers found the non-con framing genuinely uncomfortable rather than “grey area hot,” and the age gap reads rougher than advertised, so go in with eyes open. If you’re chasing that possessed-by-a-mob-boss, forced-to-marry-him high, Cruel Vows delivers it uncut.

Book Description

He’s a cruel man, and he’s taking me against my will.
Bar tending at the Devil’s Alpha bar was supposed to be temporary.
Until my brother got in too deep with the MC that runs it.
Now I’m stuck in this dead-end job in the worst part of Chicago.
Until a fated night, where things take a darker turn.

The night a tall and gorgeous stranger enters the bar.
He sticks out like a sore thumb, with his designer suit and expensive watch.
Axel is making a deal with the Morrone family.
The man is the eldest son, Massimo Morrone, heir to the Morrone mafia throne.

They come to an agreement, but there’s one problematic condition.
Massimo Morrone won’t supply them unless they give him me.
My brother tries to fight it, but Axel is the president.
What he says goes, and I’m not worth messing up a lucrative deal.

Despite not being theirs to trade, I end up the property of a filthy rich Italian mob boss.
Massimo drags me kicking and swearing out of the bar.
He makes it clear he wants my submission the moment we’re alone.
He thinks he can take me and make me his plaything as if he’s God.

Before I know it, I’m marched to the end of an altar in front of people that I don’t know.
A gun pressed to my back while I’m forced to say my vows.
He puts his ring on my finger, binding us together in the eyes of the law.
If he thinks that makes me his, he’ll have a shock.

I belong to no one, and by the time I’m through with Massimo Morrone, he’ll wish he never married me.

Cruel Vows is the fifth book in the Chicago Mafia Dons series. This book is a dark mafia romance involving a forced marriage, dark themes and certain subjects that may upset the reader. It has no cliffhanger a happily ever after ending, and can be read as a standalone.

Genre, Tropes & Kinks Triggers ⚠️ DETAILED TRIGGERS ⚠️ (contains spoilers)

Content Warnings

This one goes there β€” Paisley is taken/kidnapped as part of a mafia deal, held in captivity, and coerced into marriage at gunpoint, so expect dub-con and non-con framing running through most of the book (multiple reviewers flagged the intimacy as reading like unaddressed rape rather than a "grey area," including forced deepthroating during a punishment scene). There's on-page choking, spanking/whipping as punishment, and heavy power-dynamic sex (cnc/degradation flavored), plus verbal, mental, and physical abuse from the hero before he softens. The setup carries human/sex trafficking undertones (her brother owes a debt to an MC and she's literally traded away), with side mentions of drug dealing and drug use. A secondary male character leers at and harasses her (he gets punched for it). It's toxic-relationship, stockholm-syndrome territory throughout β€” she fights him even after it's clear she's safer with him than without him.
Book Meta
Publication Date2022-05-28 Relationship Pairing(s)MF Darkness Score6/10
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