Ruthless Captive

She's spent three years hiding the one thing her father left her: a ledger that could bury the Aldanov syndicate. She's spent three years telling herself she's safe. Then a stranger breaks into her apartment at 2 a.m., zip-ties her wrists, and tells her the men coming for her next won't bother with rope.

Nikolai Rurik isn't there to save her. He's there to use her — leverage against the man who murdered his brother and calls it business. But the moment he has her, everything about the plan gets complicated. She's not the soft, breakable liability he expected. She's furious, sharp-tongued, and entirely unwilling to be anyone's chess piece — including his.

He tells himself the safehouse is temporary. That she's a means to an end. That the way he watches her sleep is vigilance, not want. But three days in one bed, one room, one impossible truce, and Nikolai knows exactly what he is: a man who no longer wants to hand her over — to anyone, for any reason. Even the men hunting them both.

The syndicate wants the ledger destroyed. Its enemies want Ivy dead so it can never surface. And Nikolai wants something he has no right to keep. When the walls close in, he'll have to choose between the revenge he's spent five years planning and the woman currently unraveling everything he thought he wanted.

She was never supposed to survive being his captive.

She was never supposed to become the only thing he'd burn the world down for.

Ruthless Captive is a high-heat, standalone dark mafia romantic suspense with a possessive anti-hero, forced proximity, and an HEA guaranteed. Intended for readers 18+.

Tropes: Dark Romance • Captive/Forced Proximity • Enemies-to-Lovers • Mafia/Organized Crime • Morally Grey Hero • Revenge Plot