He’s the league’s most dangerous enforcer. She’s the specialist sent to determine whether he’s too broken to save. Neither of them is prepared for what happens when the truth hits back.

Donovan Locke has a reputation carved in blood and penalty minutes. The league’s most dangerous enforcer, he’s an angry, unapproachable loner who fights harder and refuses to let anyone in. The Portland Wildfire only took him because no one else would, and Locke seems determined to prove every rumor true. He doesn’t do teammates. He doesn’t do relationships. He barely does conversation.

Dr. Livia Cross is quiet, brilliant and controlled. Officially, she’s the Wildfire’s new high-performance consultant. Unofficially, she’s been embedded by the league to evaluate one player.

One risk.

Locke.

Her job is simple: observe him, test him, and determine whether he’s safe to stay on the ice, or too volatile to keep playing. But the man she finds beneath the scowl and silence isn’t what she expected. He’s sharp. Watching. Walled off for a reason. And when sparks ignite where there should only be professionalism, Livia’s carefully built boundaries start to crack.

Locke doesn’t trust easily yet he lets Livia closer than he ever intended, long before he learns she isn’t who he thinks she is. And when the truth comes out, it won’t just shatter their fragile connection… it might end his career.

Dark, emotional, and electric with slow-burn chemistry, LOCKE delivers a gripping workplace romance between a guarded enforcer and the woman sent to evaluate him—until desire becomes danger, and the lines between loyalty and love blur beyond recognition.