The Secret Keeper

I am incredibly excited—and maybe a little nervous—to introduce my next story.

The Secret Keeper is a very dark MM mafia romance dealing with human trafficking, family secrets, power, survival, and two young men who find something unexpectedly gentle in a world that is anything but.

This story gets dark. Very dark.

It contains explicit sexual content and graphic scenes, domestic violence, physical and psychological abuse, coercion and sexual exploitation, human trafficking, grooming, manipulation, controlling behaviour, threats, violence, trauma, and references to childhood abuse. Some scenes are deliberately confronting and may be difficult or upsetting to read.

As we begin the first chapters, please be aware that I have deliberately chosen not to mark individual chapters as explicit, abusive, or disturbing. These warnings apply to the story as a whole.

If something becomes too much, skip it. If it is still too much, skip further. And if this story simply isn’t for you, leave it behind. That is okay. Please never force yourself through something that affects you more deeply than you are comfortable with. A book is never more important than your own well-being.

I know that with The Secret Keeper, I am once again writing about subjects people often find difficult to confront. I have become known for stories that can be uncomfortable and sometimes controversial, and this one will be no exception. But the things at the heart of this book happen.

Luca, Nic, and every other character in these pages are fictional. The Morettis are fictional. Their world is fictional. But a sad truth remains: for far too many people, exploitation, abuse, and trafficking are not fiction.

Life does not always offer a happy ending.

My characters suffer along their way through these pages, and I know from previous stories that some readers will stop reading. There will be comments asking how I could let certain things happen to characters they have grown to love. There may be negative reviews because I chose not to look away when the story became uncomfortable.

I don’t regret writing it.

The Secret Keeper is supposed to hurt as much as it is supposed to heal. It is not darkness for darkness’s sake. For all the cruelty within these pages, there is just as much kindness. There is tenderness, love, friendship, protection, ridiculous little moments of happiness, and hope. Sometimes those things mean even more because of the darkness surrounding them.

At its heart, this is a story about what happens when someone who has learned to survive finally begins to understand that surviving and living are not the same thing. Beneath it all is a story set in Italy, involving human trafficking, secrets, deception, unexpected alliances, and developments I hope you won’t see coming.

And unlike so many people whose real stories are part of the reason I care so deeply about this subject, I can give Luca and Nic something reality does not promise everyone.

I can give them their happy ending.

I have spent a long time working against human trafficking and the troubled teen industry, and this subject is deeply important to me.

The world surrounding Luca and Nic may be fictional, but the places are not. The cities, the locations they visit, the yacht, the islands, and even the scooter tour are drawn from my own travels and experiences. I have been there, walked those streets, seen those places, and explored them for myself.

One last thing before we begin.

I usually never suggest music for my books. I tend to stay away from giving readers too many images, too, because everyone sees a story differently. Luca will look different in your imagination than he does in mine. The villa will feel different. The rooms, the lake, the darkness—all of it belongs partly to you once you begin reading.

But this time, there is one exception.

While I was writing The Secret Keeper, the soundtrack of Il Gattopardo (Colonna sonora della serie Netflix) carried me through this story. Somehow, its sound became inseparable from the world I was creating.

And if The Secret Keeper were a movie, Si Fussi Aceddu by Paolo Buonvino and Simona Di Gregorio would be its theme.

If you want to hear this story the way I heard it while writing, start there.

This book does not belong to the darkness it portrays.

It is dedicated to those who survived it.

Please be gentle in your comments and reviews. There are real people going through these experiences every day, and I ask that we treat the subjects this story explores, and the people who live through them, with dignity.