Every four years, the criminal underworld engages in a game. The Game. The challenges range from the impossible to the deadly to the truly insane. Things that only a crazy person would tackle. I’ve won the game five times. This time will be no different. I’m at the top of my field now, the best of the world’s thieves. There’s nothing I can’t steal, and this time, the game is all about theft, subterfuge, and sleight of hand. Starting with a legendary painting of poppy flowers.

Five years ago, I masterminded the infamous massacre of the Tri-state Timberwolves. The streets outside the Wolves HQ ran red with the blood of the old guard, and not one of those members loyal to my father were spared mercy. Not a single one. I let the media twist and distort the story. My new recruits eagerly proved themselves in spreading false news, in covering our tracks. To the general public, the Tri-State Timberwolves were extinct. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Vault is a Madison Kate Novella but is intended to be listened to after the Hades series, as several events overlap and this story does contain multiple spoilers for the Hades series.

You want my advice? Never look a gift horse in the mouth. You don’t want to see the rotten teeth. In this case, the gift is a scholarship to attend the prestigious Neveah University. The rotten teeth? Well, they came in the form of my brand new stepbrother and his little cohort of entitled, arrogant best friends. Four dangerously handsome and stupidly wealthy men who made up their minds about me long before we met. Men who are used to getting everything they want no matter what the price.

I always thought I’d start the apocalypse. Instead I’ve been asked to help end it. How does one stop the end of the world, you might ask? You gotta knock up Lucifer’s vessel before he does. I know, I know. I was surprised too. But let me tell you, if ever there was an incubus made for the job, it’s me. With a name like Sin, you’d think this should have been the easiest task I’d ever been assigned. And you’d be correct. Except said vessel is a beautiful and dangerously powerful succubus in her own right. Oh, and she’s not interested.

The vampire prince has never claimed a human. Until now. My whole life I’ve been nothing but a means to an end; livestock kept caged for the production of blood. I’ve stared through fences at the promise of freedom countless times, but the only way anyone escapes this hell is in the hands of a bloodsucker.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when arriving in Salem. Forced to marry a man I’ve never met, attend a private university I’d never heard of, and the whispers of a rumored secret society filling the halls. This life would be near unbearable with my insufferable fiancé if it wasn’t for his uncle, his best friend, and his enemy. When none of them are willing to let me go, it sends us down a path I’m not sure any of us will survive. The life I was promised is distorted behind smoke and mirrors. The truth cloaked by Deceit.

The other women watch me with envy, but they know nothing of the beatings and punishments I endure. He hides them with a veil. One I must wear until I give him a son. But when I fail, he threatens the only good things in my life. My sister, Alice, and the daughter he ripped from my arms for another family to raise. I thought running back to Saint View would save us. I thought wrong. Now my sister is dead, left strangled in an alleyway, and my ex-husband isn’t the only suspect.

“Madison Kate Danvers was murdered tonight.” Those words changed my life, and not for the better. They were wrong, of course. I wasn’t dead. But I was set up. After being charged with a string of offences - and made an example of by my political-minded father - I’m eventually released back into Shadow Grove with one thing on my mind. Hate. Someone is going to pay for derailing my carefully laid-out future. How very convenient that someone just moved into the bedroom down the hall from me.

They all ended up in the small town of Redemption Hills to put the dangers of their previous lives behind. But they had no idea they would all find the women who show them their pasts don't dictate their future.