Il Bestione by Susan Fanetti

When Paolo Romano was fifteen, his father fled Sicily, leaving his mother and younger sister under his protection. He tried to be the man his family needed and shield them from the horrors of the world. When he couldn’t do that at home, he took them to America in the hopes that they’d find their father and make a better life in the new world.

But America is not the shining beacon of hope the stories promised, and his family was torn apart before they understood where they’d landed.

Paolo was alone, broken and full of rage and loathing for the world. He learned bitter lessons: that love is an illusion, that pain is a constant, and only the hardest, most ruthless soul can survive on the tarnished streets of New York.

So that is the man he became.

Now they call him Il Bestione: The Beast. For years, he’s thrived under that name, his heart growing harder as his power expands.

Mirabella Montanari is new to America, arriving in New York with her father, under the sponsorship of her uncle. But her uncle is on the wrong side of Il Bestione.

When she witnesses the Beast’s brutality firsthand, Mirabella decides to take revenge.

Paolo’s ruthlessness and Mirabella’s revenge force them together in a way neither could have imagined. What happens then depends on whether there is still a good man inside the hardened shell of the Beast.

If so, true love might heal them both.