Cruel Bloodlines - The Hawthorne Heirs, #1

His father married her mother. Now they share a last name, a dinner table, and a house full of secrets.

Blair Covington spent twenty years being sculpted into the perfect daughter — silent, compliant, invisible. Her narcissistic mother controlled everything: what she wore, what she studied, who she became. Moving into the Hawthorne estate was supposed to be a fresh start. It wasn't. It was a bigger cage with higher ceilings.

Silas Hawthorne is the heir to a fortune he despises. Volatile, reckless, and dangerously intelligent, he survives his sociopathic father by playing the role of the family disappointment. He's been quietly building a weapon to destroy his father's empire — one encrypted file at a time.

They were supposed to hate each other.

Instead, they recognized each other. Two people drowning in the same house, breathing the same poisoned air, broken by the same kind of parents. What started as hostility turned into fascination. What turned into fascination became something far more dangerous — and far more forbidden.

Their parents' marriage made them family. Their bodies made them something else.

Now they share midnight pools and locked doors. Bruises hidden beneath designer dresses. A secret so explosive it could destroy everything — or set them free.

Because the Hawthorne estate doesn't just house a family. It houses a war. And Blair and Silas are done being casualties.

They're ready to become the weapons.

Cruel Bloodlines is a full-length taboo dark romance featuring a possessive stepbrother, a heroine who stops being a victim, narcissistic parent villains, hate-fueled tension, and an unapologetic ending. This book contains mature themes including explicit content, emotional abuse by parental figures, trauma bonding, and morally gray characters. Reader discretion is advised.