Strip

She built her bakery from nothing. He'll burn down anyone who tries to take it.

Rachel Doyle has spent five years proving herself in Pittsburgh's Strip District—3 AM starts, eighteen-hour days, and bread good enough to make restaurants fight over her accounts. When a smuggling operation decides her delivery routes are perfect for moving contraband, Rachel does what she's always done: she says no.

Then they destroy her ovens. Cut off her suppliers. And threaten her grandmother.

He's the enforcer who never misses. She's about to become everything he didn't know he was waiting for.

Strip has been the Reapers' most reliable man for six years—showing up wherever he's needed without expecting anyone to stay for steady. When he discovers the baker who makes the compound's coffee cake is being dismantled by a smuggler who thinks he owns the Strip District, he walks into her kitchen at exactly the right moment.

What he finds is a woman with flour on her arms and fury in her eyes. A woman who memorized an entire criminal operation from her delivery van. A woman worth being there for.

She's not looking for rescue. He's not offering temporary.

As the violence escalates and her bakery burns to ash, Rachel discovers that the quietest man in the Steel City Reapers is also the most relentless. Loving Strip means accepting that steady isn't boring—it's the most dangerous thing she's ever wanted.

Five years of 3 AM mornings taught her to stand alone.

Now he's going to show her what it means to rise together.