Twisted Pawn is the second installment in L. J. Shen’s Society of Villains series, following Bad Bishop (2025) and preceding Fallen Rook (set to release in September 2026). Like many romance series, the novels in the Society of Villains series feature a cast of recurring characters while spotlighting a different central couple in each installment. Bad Bishop established the conflict between the Ferrante family and the Callaghan Irish mob through the love story between Tiernan Callaghan and Lila Ferrante; Twisted Pawn shifts focus to Tiernan’s sister Tierney and Lila’s brother, Achilles Ferrante, whose history of obsession and betrayal drives the plot. Tiernan and Lila reappear in supporting roles, their marriage now a backdrop rather than the central drama. Fallen Rook will follow FBI agent Tom Rothwell and Enzo Ferrante. Each novel functions as a standalone while advancing overarching plotlines, including the conflict over who will succeed Vello as head of the Ferrante family. 

Bad Bishop introduces readers to Tiernan and Tierney’s traumatic childhoods, and the intertwined feuding between Russian, Irish, and Sicilian crime families. More than 30 years before the plot of Twisted Pawn begins, Tyrone Callaghan (head of the Irish mob) killed Igor Rasputin’s beloved wife (Alex Rasputin’s mother); in retaliation, Igor killed Tyrone’s pregnant wife, forcibly removed the twins from her womb, and took them to the Siberian prison camp where they spent the first 14 years of their lives. As Tyrone reveals in Twisted Pawn, he was unmotivated to rescue his younger children and focused on his elder son, Fintan. Tiernan and Tierney developed a complex and ambiguous friendship with Alex Rasputin while at the prison camp, which resurfaces in their adult lives. They eventually escaped and made their way to the US (the sections of Twisted Pawn depicting the early relationship between Achilles and Tierney begin shortly after she arrives in the US). 

As an adult, Tiernan kills Igor Rasputin, at which time Alex becomes head of the Bratva. Around the same time, Fintan (Tiernan and Tierney’s brother) rapes Lila Ferrante at Luca and Sofia’s wedding. Lila becomes pregnant, and since no one knows the identity of her attacker, Tiernan agrees to marry her to give the baby legitimacy and establish a political alliance between the families. Over the course of the pregnancy, Lila and Tiernan fall in love (reflecting the tender dynamic that appears in Twisted Pawn). When Lila gives birth to a baby that closely resembles him, Tiernan realizes that his brother is Lila’s rapist and immediately kills him in revenge. 

Fintan’s death is referenced in Twisted Pawn and sets the stage for the growing estrangement between the twins and their father. This context from the first novel is also an important aspect of the unwavering love Tiernan shows to Lila: He protects her secret and raises her child as his own. In Bad Bishop, readers also learn that Chiara (Vello’s wife) endured years of abuse and infidelity in her unhappy marriage; she conceived Lila via an affair, and Lila is not Vello’s biological daughter. This context sets the stage for the revelations about Tristan Hale in Twisted Pawn. Finally, by the conclusion of Bad Bishop, Tiernan and Alex Rasputin have brokered a deal and developed a collegial relationship, which is reflected in the next novel in the series (where the Irish, the Bratva, and the Ferrantes work within a web of cautious alliances).