Her father gambled away their home. The man who won it wants something the deed doesn't cover.Sadie Calloway has spent her entire life cleaning up her father's messes. The pawned jewelry. The maxed-out credit cards. The double shifts at a dead-end Texas bar just to keep the lights on. But when her father loses their family home in a backroom poker game to Holt Lawson - the most feared man in Pecos County - Sadie discovers that some debts can't be paid in dollars.Holt's offer is simple. Six months living under his roof, following his rules, obeying his commands. In exchange, he'll return the deed and erase every debt her father ever accrued. No negotiation. No alternatives. Sign or lose everything.Sadie signs with hatred in her eyes and a vow on her lips: he'll never own anything beyond her obedience.But Holt Lawson doesn't want her obedience.He wants the woman underneath it - the pride, the fire, the fierce loyalty she's been wasting on a man who gambled her away like pocket change. And he's willing to wait. Patiently. Methodically. Until the woman who swore she'd never break realizes that surrender isn't weakness.It's the first honest thing she's ever done.The Devil's Wager is a standalone dark romance featuring a morally black hero, a debt-inheritance trope, forced proximity, extreme power dynamics, and explicit content. This book contains themes some readers may find triggering. Reader discretion is advised. Vesper Cole writes dark romance for women who like their heroes morally bankrupt and their love stories laced with gasoline. Her books live in the dirt and heat of small-town America, where loyalty is currency, power is foreplay, and every debt comes due - one way or another. She believes the best love stories are the ones that make you uncomfortable. The Devil's Wager is the first book in the Collateral Sins series.
