From International bestselling author Maggie Cole comes her highly anticipated secret society, deliciously dark, next-generation Mafia series about two lifelong friends. Sean O'Malley Jr. and Zara Marino have a similar obsession with their fathers' secrets, but discovering the truth requires them to surrender to each other and the unknown of their Underworld vows. If secrets and lies, desires and denials, bonds and betrayal didn't exist, Sean O'Malley would stay my friend forever. That's not the case. There are two things we've always wanted but were off the table. First: The truth about our fathers. Second: Each other. So when a mysterious man shows up with a branded skull on his hand, speaking in riddles about an Underworld he claims we're meant to reign in, it's too tempting not to get sucked into the forbidden. Even if it means sinking deeper into the darkness, testing all our boundaries, and clinging to the friends we used to be and the vows we're now bound to for eternity. Bride by Initiation is a standalone with interconnected characters, and book one of The Underworld series. This dark, secret society, Mafia, friends to lovers, forbidden, first real love, marriage pact romance is not meant for the faint of heart. Expect violence, taboo, and graphic scenes.