Crime Family Marriage

Christopher and Hannah are a happily married surgeon and nurse with picture-perfect lives. All that’s missing is a child. When Janie, an abandoned six-year-old, turns up at their hospital, Christopher forms an instant connection with her, and he convinces Hannah they should take her home as their own.

Dark raven hair and piercing green eyes, sweet and naive Eleanor Romero would make a beautiful bride. Ten million dollars and a forced signature later and she was mine. Like a thief I came in the dead of night and stole her away from her protected castle and placed her in a gilded cage made of gold. The deal had been made. She would become my wife. She would bear my children. She would bend to my will. But most importantly, she would help me destroy the man she loved most, the man who took everything from me: her father.

They call me a monster. Murderous and hateful. Beautiful but broken. Nothing can calm the ever raging storm inside of me. As the ruthless leader of the Doubeck family, there is a certain standard of brutality, I have to uphold. Then I meet her. Beautiful, innocent, and so very afraid. Valentina is a rival family's daughter, and the little temptress has purposely tangled herself in my dark web. She seeks me out, needing my help, but the price for what she wants will be steep.

They call me a playboy. Society’s pretty pet. What they don’t know is I’m so much more. My only directive was to keep her hidden, and safe. After everything she’s been through I’m the last person to offer comfort and care. I have little experience with either. Both of us have been broken by our pasts. But mine is catching up to me, and I would deal with it as I usually do: with total decimation. But that puts her in the crosshairs, and that’s unacceptable.

Wieder ein Buch von Astrid Wagner, das die Leser durch packende Schilderung, Authentizität und Empathie mitreißt. Die in diesem Buch versammelten wahren Verbrechen zeigen die Abgründe der menschlichen Seele. Es sind unfassbare Geschichten von Liebe, die in Hass umschlägt, und Leidenschaft, die zu Mordlust wird.

I knew running from Adrian wouldn't be easy. That there was a risk I would be caught, but I never anticipated he would go to such great lengths to find me. Now that he knows what I've done, I wonder if there will ever be love between us again, or if we were always meant to be enemies? 

Wozu sind Menschen fähig, die ihrem Partner verfallen sind? Die bekannte Strafverteidigerin Astrid Wagner gewährt in diesem Buch Einblick in etliche ihrer spektakulärsten Fälle. Sie handeln von enttäuschter Liebe, aus der abgrundtiefer Hass wird, von dunklen Familiengeheimnissen, von kranker Sexualität, von Gier und von Rache. Menschlichen Emotionen, die in unfassbaren Verbrechen münden.

On May 23, 2009, Amanda Stott-Smith drove to the middle of the Sellwood Bridge in Portland, Oregon, and dropped her two children into the Willamette River. Forty minutes later, rescuers found the body of four-year-old Eldon. Miraculously, his seven-year-old sister, Trinity, was saved. As the public cried out for blood, Amanda was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. 

Esme and Benedict Werner have an idyllic life in a tight-knit community until an accident in their cul-de-sac ends in the tragic sudden death of one of their dearest neighbors. After vindicating eyewitness accounts morph into contradictory memories, suspicion, and unaccountable accusations, Benedict is arrested. Esme’s life, too, is changed forever.

For twenty years, Ken and Kristine Fitzhugh and their two sons had lived lives of comfortable middle-class normality. Then came the shocking news that Kristine Fitzhugh was dead, the victim of a terrible accident.... By the time the Palo Alto Police Department looked closer at the death of Kristine Fitzhugh, there could be only one conclusion. Someone had murdered Kristine in her own home, inflicting a series of horrific blows to the back of her head, and then cleaned up the mess to make it look like an accident.