Novels by dbranch writes

The walls still smelled of smoke when Luca opened his eyes. Ash drifted like tired snow, settling on leather boots and broken glass. His hands trembled, stained dark, but he couldn’t say whose blood it was. Outside, sirens wailed like mourning wolves. He stepped into the street, and the city looked back — neon, rain, old hunger. A bartender recognized him and flinched. “Thought you were dead.” Maybe he was. In flashes he saw a rooftop under a red moon. A woman. Rhea. Her voice like warmth through winter: Don’t forget who you are. But he had. Now, every alley whispered his name — some in awe, some in warning. The beast inside stirred, pacing, remembering what he could not. Luca walked on, jaw set, heart heavy. He would find the truth. Even if it tore him open like the moon tears the tide.

In the heart of New Verona City — a decaying metropolis built on drugs, debt, and deceit — Luca Marino, a streetwise orphan with a sharp mind and a sharper temper, dreams of escaping the slums. But when his brother is murdered by the powerful Valente crime family, Luca’s life spirals into the dark underbelly of organized crime. To survive, he enters the same world that killed his brother, starting at the bottom as a debt collector in a gang-ridden neighborhood. Ruthless yet calculating, Luca quickly learns that loyalty is an illusion and mercy is weakness. Guided by Don Emilio Valente, a charismatic but aging mafia lord, Luca becomes both a protégé and a potential threat. As he rises through the ranks — from street hustler to enforcer to mastermind — Luca forges uneasy alliances, manipulates rival families, and builds a syndicate that answers to no one. But every throne made of concrete is drenched in blood. When love, betrayal, and ambition collide, Luca must decide: is he building an empire… or digging his own grave? “Concrete Thrones” is a gritty tale of survival, deception, and the hunger for dominance — a modern mafia epic where every move could mean power, or death.

Beneath Manhattan’s glittering skyline lies the Silver District — an urban quarantine zone where the city hides its failures. Inside its shadows roam the Lycaon, humans mutated by illegal genetic conditioning. Governments insist they’re extinct. They are very wrong. Caleb Mercer — former security officer turned fugitive — survives on the fringes after escaping a classified experiment known as Program Howl. Every night, he battles a violent transformation ripping his humanity apart. Every day, federal strike teams hunt him as an “uncontrolled biological threat.” When an explosion tears through the Silver District, exposing the existence of a second generation of engineered shapeshifters, Caleb becomes the only one capable of tracking the outbreak’s source. He doesn’t want to be a hero. He just wants revenge — and answers. The truth? Something worse than werewolves is evolving in the city’s bones.

In the corrupt heart of New Avalon City, a slum rat named Lucien Kane is born into a world that despises him. Orphaned, beaten, and forgotten, he grows up scavenging scraps in the gutters, dreaming of power. When his only friend is murdered by street thugs working for a powerful crime family, Lucien vows revenge. But vengeance is only the spark. Through manipulation, alliances, and sheer will, he transforms from a street urchin into a calculating criminal mastermind. His rise cuts through bloodlines, corporations, and governments — until he controls everything: drugs, politics, law enforcement, and the hearts of men. But the higher he climbs, the more enemies he creates — and the shadows he commands begin to whisper his downfall. From the gutter to the godfather… from man to myth… this is the empire of shadows.