Pilot's Presence

She was hauling a dead gator off her boat. He decided she was his.

Lacey Dunbar has spent three years earning the reputation her grandfather built over forty—running inshore charters through the backwater creeks of Ponce Inlet, putting clients on fish in channels no other guide can find. When a meth operation starts using her creeks as a distribution highway, she gets cut fuel lines, a dead alligator, and a note telling her to find new water. She's not going anywhere.

He didn't ask if she wanted protection. He doesn't ask.

Pilot lost his harbor pilot license for refusing a bribe. He found the Raiders and a new reason to be on the water. When he sees a stubborn fishing guide standing on a dock with a threat tied to a dead reptile's jaw and no intention of backing down, something clicks into place. She's his to protect. She just hasn't agreed to it yet.

They burned her grandfather's boat. He'll burn their empire to ash.

Arlo Kessler's meth operation runs fifteen men deep through the swamp country west of New Smyrna. His crew has been cooking in portable labs and distributing through the same backwater channels Lacey's family has fished for two generations—and now they've decided the guide who keeps crossing their routes needs to disappear. They picked the wrong woman. And they picked the wrong man to come after her.

As the violence escalates from threats to arson to all-out war on the water, Lacey is pulled into the world of the Daytona Raiders MC—and discovers that the most dangerous thing in the Florida backwaters isn't the men trying to drive her off the creek.

It's the one who'll kill to keep her on it.