The Turning - A Steamy Lesbian Romance Thriller (Signed Paperback) PRE-ORDER!

Pages : 382
ISBN : 9614622000402
Weight : 365g
Dimensions : 127 x 20 x 203 mm

She’s seduced diplomats, spies, and killers. She can outplay anyone. But this time, the game might turn on her.

Former Russian operative Suzette, once the most dangerous seductress in Moscow’s arsenal, has traded the shadows for sunlight in her Provençal vineyard—with her fierce wife Amber at her side.

But peace never lasts. When Yelena Federova, Suzette’s rival and former lover, arrives with an impossible proposition, Suzette is dragged back into the deadly game she swore she’d never play again.

The mission: turn Dr. Nora Pelletier, a brilliant and beautiful tech billionaire whose AI breakthrough could shift the balance of global power.
The deadline: six weeks.
The reward: Suzette’s family’s safety—and the truth about her own past, buried deep in Moscow’s files.

To succeed, Suzette must get closer to Nora than anyone ever has, uncovering not only her secrets but also her hidden desires. But seduction is a dangerous weapon—especially when lust turns into obsession and the line between love and betrayal blurs.

🔥 The Turning is a steamy lesbian spy thriller—perfect for readers of sapphic fiction who love danger, passion, and women who play to win.

When desire becomes the game… who will win?

• Steamy/Spicy
• Morally grey heroine
• Thriller
• Ex-lover returns
• Enemies to lover vibes
• Forbidden attraction
• Secrets and Betrayal
• High Stakes Countdown

CHAPTER ONE

Moscow State Secondary School No. 47, November 15, 1993

The staff room at School Forty-Seven smells of sweat and decades of state-issued despair. Snow pounds the windows, stacking up against the glass like it’s trying to block us out from the rest of the world. The creaking radiators barely manage any heat, but Anya’s skin feels like fire beneath my hands.
Her lips taste like the strawberry balm she smuggled back from her cousin in Berlin. Her fingers tangle in my hair as I press her against the bookshelf. Pushkin and Dostoevsky watch our little rebellion from their faded spines.
“Aleksandra,” she breathes against my mouth. “What if someone comes?”
“School ended an hour ago.” I place rough kisses against the soft skin of her throat, making her whimper. Her scent, a mix of stale soap and teenage hormones, makes my heart beat faster. “This place is dead now. There’s no one here. You think teachers hang around here any longer than they have to?”
She arches against me as my fingers slip beneath her uniform skirt. This is what I want. This intensity. This wildness. It fills my head and has nothing to do with politics, proper behavior, or the boys who orbit me with their pathetic devotion.
This.
Anya gasps as my fingers push below her underwear, past the smoothness of her skin, the soft hair, and between her lips. She’s already swollen despite her protests. I’ve touched her enough now to know how much she wants this, and she moans in my ear as I fumble with her clit, the key to opening her legs. The moment they do, I push in further to touch her properly, slide inside. Her eyes flutter shut, and I gasp too as her wet warmth grips me tight. I push my fingers in further and then back out, repeating the movement, over and over, reveling in how hot and sticky I make her. My clit throbs with excitement so hard it’s as though I’m touching myself. Last time she came over my fingers and I made her lick it, then didn’t wash my hand all day.
Her weight under my wrist gets heavier and I know her knees are weakening. I know because she tells me that’s how it feels. Anya never touches me. Only I bring pleasure to her, then she watches as I bring pleasure to myself.
But today I can’t wait. I reach under my skirt, past damp underwear and groan when my fingers feel how huge my clit has grown. I will come hard as I watch her face, my fingers working their magic.
We’ll come together.
The door creaks open behind us.
I almost ignore it—nothing should stop us now, not when we’re this close. But Anya’s eyes snap wide with terror, and I recognize that look. That primal fear, like the deer I hunt with my grandfather. That moment when they realize the hunter has found them. I slip my hands out from under our skirts and turn slowly, keeping my body between her and whoever just walked in on us.
Literature teacher Arkady Petrov stands in the doorway like death in a regulation cheap suit. His thin face wears a smile that makes every instinct I have scream danger. His eyes catalog what he’s seeing, taking his time, knowing he has the upper hand.
“Well, well.” His voice is soft, almost oily. “What fascinating after-school activities we have here.”
Anya scrambles to fix her skirt, her entire body shaking. I’m already working all the angles to get us out of this. One door. One window, three stories up. No other exits.
“Mr. Petrov.” I keep my tone respectful. “We were just leaving.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” He closes the door behind him, the coffin lid sliding into place. “Sit down, both of you. We need to have a serious discussion about appropriate behavior.”
Anya drops into a desk chair like her legs gave out. Her face has gone whiter than the snow outside. I remain standing because sitting feels like surrender, and I don’t surrender.
“Aleksandra.” His voice sharpens. “Sit down. Now.”
“I will continue to stand.”
His smile gets wider, hungrier. “Of course you will. Always been difficult, haven’t you? Always thinking you’re better than the rest of us.”
He moves closer, and I track every step. He favors his left leg—old injury, probably from the war. Weakness I can use if this goes where I think it’s going.
“You know, I’ve been watching you two for weeks.” He backs me up against the edge of the desk, and I glance over my shoulder, looking for anything I can use to potentially fend him off. “The way you look at each other. The touching. The notes you pass. It’s disgusting.”
“There’s nothing disgusting about⁠—”
“Quiet!” His voice cracks like a whip. Anya flinches so hard she nearly falls out of her chair. “I’m talking. You’re listening. That’s how this works.”
He hovers over me, a predator sizing up prey, giving occasional glances towards Anya. “Now, I could report this to your parents. To the school administration. Can you imagine what they’d think about their precious daughters engaging in such... unnatural activities?”
The fire in my system turns to ice. Father would kill me. Not metaphorically. He’d actually put a bullet in my head before he’d let me embarrass him.
“But,” Petrov continues, and his voice drops to something that makes my skin crawl, “we could reach a different understanding. A private arrangement between the three of us.”
He’s close enough now that I can smell him: coffee, cigarettes, and the stench of sad desperation. Yet, he reaches toward my face with the confidence of a man who thinks he’s already won.
“You’re a beautiful girl, Aleksandra. Beautiful girls have opportunities that others don’t.”
His fingers brush my cheek. I let him touch me, keeping my face blank while my mind calculates the exact amount of force needed to make this stop.
“I could teach you things,” he whispers, his breath hot against my ear. “Important things. How to please a man properly. How to show gratitude for protection and discretion.”
His hand slides down to my shoulder, then grabs my breast roughly. I freeze as he reaches for his belt with his other hand.
“Let’s see what that pretty mouth can do.” His fingers fumble with his trousers. “Those full lips...” Anticipation forms in beads of sweat on his forehead, and when he frees himself, I feel the gentle nudge of him press against me. “How to behave like a proper young woman should.”
I move faster than thought.
The letter opener I glanced at earlier screams at me—silver, sharp, probably a teacher’s inheritance from a long-dead relative. My hand closes around it in one fluid motion. No hesitation. No moral debate. Just action.
The blade goes between his ribs in one clean thrust. He makes a sound, half gasp, half wheeze. His eyes go wide with shock, then confusion, like he can’t quite believe what just happened.
“You—” he begins, then it chokes in his throat.
I twist the blade and step back. He staggers, looks down at the handle protruding from his chest. His hands reach toward it. Red spills across his once-white shirt. Then he collapses like a marionette with cut strings.
The silence that follows is complete. No sounds from outside. No heating system groaning. No breathing from Anya, who’s frozen in her chair like a statue.
I look down at Mr. Petrov. His eyes stare at nothing. Blood spreads slowly beneath him, dark against the scuffed wooden floor.
I feel nothing but calm.
That should terrify me. Instead, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
“Aleksandra?” Anya’s voice is barely a whisper. “What did you do?”
I turn to look at her. She’s pressed back in her chair, hands covering her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks like she’s watching the world end.
“I protected us.”
“You killed him!”
“Yes.”
My answer is simple. True. Unchangeable. Yet it gives my actions form, a new reality, as though I had written them in chalk.
I walk to his desk and pick up the telephone. My hands are perfectly steady as I dial the number I’ve memorized but hoped I’d never need—the emergency line that connects directly to my father’s private office.
“Major Sokolov speaking,” the voice answers.
“This is Aleksandra Volkonsky,” I say. “I need to speak to Colonel-General Volkonsky immediately. Tell him his bastard daughter has a situation that requires his help.”
“One moment, Miss Volkonsky,” he replies with crisp military control. If he is surprised, he doesn’t let it leak into his voice. “If you can give me the details, I can ensure you receive assistance.”
I explain my situation and am almost surprised to realize he seems primed to take such a call. Perhaps my father has warned his staff about me.
I hang up and look at Anya, who’s staring at me like I’ve turned into someone or something she doesn’t recognize. Maybe I have.
“They’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” I tell her calmly. “You need to go and act like you were never here. You went straight home after school. If anyone asks, you were with your grandmother helping her with her sewing. Do you understand?”
She nods frantically, tears still streaming.
“Go. Use the back stairs. Don’t let anyone see you.”
She stumbles toward the door, then stops and looks back. “Aleksandra, I⁠—”
“Go,” I say firmly, but my tone isn’t unkind. “And Anya? This afternoon didn’t happen, not us, or what you saw, or even this conversation. None of it.”
She runs like the building’s on fire.
I sit down in the largest leather chair and wait. Blood continues spreading across the floor in interesting patterns, following the natural slope of the room. Soon it will reach my shoes. I should probably move, but I don’t. There’s something about the way it flows around the desk legs that mesmerizes me.
Fourteen minutes later, two men I don’t recognize arrive. They wear dark suits and carry bags they begin to unpack, barely glancing in my direction. A plastic body bag is unfurled, opened, and laid out. Between them, they lift Petrov, rough and fast, without checking his pulse, then my mother arrives.
She surveys the scene with the detached interest of a scientist examining a specimen. Her eyes linger on the letter opener, still jutting from Petrov’s chest. Then she looks at me.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” she asks as Petrov’s ashen face disappears beneath the rising zipper.
I tell her everything: every word he said, every move he made, every decision I took in response. Mother listens without interruption, her jaw tensing—the only tell of her concern.
“I can’t help you with this, Aleksandra,” she says, her voice measured. “You’ve gone too far this time. It will be your father who decides what happens now.”
“And what will he do with me?”
“I don’t know.” Her honesty is more frightening than any lie. “I honestly don’t know.”
“I’m not sorry,” I tell her, as I tilt my chin up and meet her disappointed gaze. She lets out a huff of air and averts her eyes.
I mean what I say. Colonel-General Volkonsky may worry my mother and even his legitimate family, but not me.
The men mop the last of the blood from the floor, gathering cloths and gloves in a large trash bag, taping it tightly closed, and throwing it on top of the body bag now waiting by the door.
All that remains of Arkady Petrov is a patch of worn wood, paradoxically burnished to a shine by his own blood.
“You are too much like your father.” She drops a bag on the floor in front of me. “You are to undress. Leave everything here. There are clean clothes in there.” She nods to the bag between us. “Your father will meet us at home.”