Twisted Pawn (2026) is a dark mafia romance by L. J. Shen, a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author. The novel is the second installment in the Society of Villains series, which follows warring crime families. The story traces the volatile relationship between Tierney Callaghan and Achilles Ferrante, former teenage sweethearts who are now bitter enemies. Their bond is violently reignited when Achilles is tasked with delivering Tierney into an arranged marriage, forcing them to confront a decade of shared trauma, hatred, and desire. Like many of Shen’s books, Twisted Pawn became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller upon its release.

This guide refers to the 2024 Bloom Books edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, sexual content, rape, sexual violence, child abuse, child sexual abuse, suicidal ideation, death by suicide, self-harm, physical abuse, emotional abuse, cursing, illness or death, and mental illness.

Plot Summary

Tierney Callaghan is a 29-year-old woman born into a prominent Irish crime family. Tierney and her twin brother, Tiernan, were born moments after their mother was killed by Igor Rasputin, the head of the Bratva (Russian mob). The twins were immediately taken to Siberia, where they spent the first 14 years of their lives enduring hellish conditions and being tortured and abused by Igor. During this time, they became close with Igor’s eldest son, Alex Rasputin. Tiernan and Tierney eventually escaped to the United States and reunited with their father, Tyrone Callaghan. They both became active in their family’s organized crime activities despite being deeply traumatized by the events of their childhood.

As a teenager, Tierney fell in love with Achilles Ferrante, whose father, Don Vello Ferrante, is the head of a prominent Sicilian-American crime family active in New York. At first, Tierney and Achilles kept their relationship a secret because they knew their families would object. Tierney was also torn between her love for Achilles and a secret: Due to the abuse she suffered while imprisoned in Siberia, she required a hysterectomy and will never be able to carry a child. Growing increasingly tormented by fears of disappointing Achilles, Tierney attempted suicide on her 18th birthday. She intentionally set a fire in her home, hoping that Achilles would believe she died in an accident and eventually move on. However, Achilles arrived shortly after the fire began and rescued her. He sustained serious injuries and was left with severe facial scarring. 

After the fire, their secret relationship was uncovered. Achilles’s elder brother, Luca, made Tierney promise to break off the relationship. Knowing Achilles would never let her go unless she devastated him, she told him that she set the fire as a way out of their relationship and that she hoped he would be injured. This lie ends their relationship and turns them into bitter enemies. However, Achilles remains preoccupied with Tierney and intensely jealous; over the next decade, he constantly monitors her, and he kills any man with whom she has sex. As part of a deal between the Callaghan and the Ferrante crime families, Achilles negotiates the right to decide who Tierney marries. The control he wields over her life makes Tierney feel stifled and trapped. 

Tierney’s brother, Tiernan, is married to Achille’s sister Lila (alongside Lila and Luca, Achilles has another brother named Enzo.) At the baptism of Tiernan and Lila’s baby, conflict erupts between the Ferrante family and a rival Neapolitan crime family led by Stefano Coppola. To de-escalate the conflict, Vello Ferrante brokers a peace deal with Coppola. As part of the deal, Coppola demands Tierney’s hand in marriage. Achilles initially refuses but Vello promises to name Achilles as his successor if he goes along with the deal. Achilles has long harbored ambitions of succeeding his father as head of the family, so he agrees. Achilles is tasked with delivering his former love to her new fiancé in Naples.



On route to Naples, Tierney (who dreads the arranged marriage to Coppola) desperately bargains for her freedom. Achilles agrees that in exchange for a weekend of complete surrender to him, he will bring Tierney back to the US rather than hand her over to Coppola. At first, the sexual encounters between Tierney and Achilles are rough and degrading, but after she expresses her dissatisfaction, they find passion and intense pleasure together. They also become more emotionally intimate with one another. Achilles doesn’t care that he is risking outright war between the Ferrante and Coppola families by breaking the deal. At the end of the weekend, he takes Tierney back to New York, ordering her to immediately pack up, assume a new identity, and flee the country. Both the Coppola and Ferrante families will be pursuing her. Trying to disguise his pain over losing her, Achilles makes a callous comment about unplanned pregnancy. Tierney is furious and reveals that she is unable to have children. 

Enraged by Achilles’s cruelty, Tierney contacts FBI Agent Tom Rothwell, a man determined to bring down the Ferrantes, and agrees to become an informant. Before she can provide Rothwell with incriminating evidence, she tells Tiernan about what she intends to do. Unbeknownst to Tiernan and Tierney, their father is secretly spying on them and leaking information to Vello Ferrante. When Vello learns of Tierney’s planned betrayal, he is determined to destroy her. Achilles and Tiernan try to negotiate with Vello, asking him to pardon her, but Tierney’s defiance causes further altercations. Achilles draws his weapon on his own family to protect Tierney, ordering her to run and never be seen again. This act of defiance costs him his position within the family, and Vello orders him to find and assassinate Tierney.

Achilles pursues Tierney, who has fled to Europe. After a violent confrontation turns into a heated sexual encounter, they accept that neither of them can kill the other. Achilles concocts a new plan: He will lie and convince his father that he killed Tierney while she hides in Europe under an assumed identity. Tierney leaves to begin a new life in Prague, but Achilles secretly follows her, fearing that she is still not safe. His suspicions are correct: In Prague, he watches as the notorious assassin Tristan Hale shoots her in the head. Achilles rushes to help Tierney, and Hale flees. 

Achilles works with Tiernan to transport Tierney back to the US for medical treatment. Once she is hospitalized, Tiernan and Achilles attack Vello (who hired Hale to kill Tierney after deducing Achilles would be unable to carry out the task). Enzo and Luca intervene and prevent the two men from killing Vello; since Vello is badly injured and cognitively impaired, they agree to jointly assume power. Achilles will no longer hold a position of power within the family or be considered as a potential successor. Achilles also captures Tyrone, imprisoning and torturing him as punishment for betraying Tierney to Vello. 

Tierney awakens from a coma with all her repressed traumatic childhood memories resurfacing. She struggles to cope and Achilles takes her to a secluded cabin where he patiently nurses her back to mental and physical health. Tierney remains wary but after they return to New York, she opens up to him. She reveals that Luca forced her to cut off the relationship and that she never wanted him to get hurt in the fire. She admits that she feared she would disappoint him by being unable to have children. Achilles vows his love for her, expressing his desire to get married immediately. Tierney is more cautious, explaining that she wants to be sure she can maintain a sense of autonomy and freedom within their relationship. 

Tierney and Achilles gradually become closer: She moves in with him, and he hunts down the men who raped her in Siberia, presenting her with their dead bodies as a mark of his devotion and commitment to protecting her. He arranges for her to witness the slow and painful death of her father, which gives her a sense of closure. After Tierney insists that she wants the freedom to have sex with someone else, Achilles arranges a threesome with Alex Rasputin (Tierney’s childhood friend and now the head of the Russian Bratva). This experience brings them closer together, proving to Tierney that Achilles can respect her autonomy. Meanwhile, Achilles tracks down Tristan Hale, determined to know why the latter purposefully missed when he shot Tierney (wounding without killing her). Tristan reveals that he is Vello’s secret illegitimate son and thus half-brother to Achilles, Enzo, Luca, and Lila. He tries to claim a role as Vello’s successor, but Luca refuses. After explaining that he let Tierney live so that Achilles would remain preoccupied and divided in his loyalties (making him less of a competitor), Tristan is begrudgingly integrated into the Ferrante family.

Achilles fully renounces his lifelong ambition to become head of the family, choosing Tierney above all else. He takes her to Naples, where he proposes marriage and shares a vision of a quiet life together. Tierney accepts, and they marry in a small ceremony. For two weeks, they live in blissful seclusion. The idyll is broken when Enzo informs them that Vello is dead. Luca is being crowned the new head of the family and they must return to New York for the funeral. As they prepare to depart, Achilles alludes to a violent succession struggle looming on the horizon.