What happens when the only man who can save you is the one you should fear most?

DELPHINE

I watched him kill my fiancé.

One bullet. One body. One look from those ice-cold eyes that told me I should be next.

But he let me go.

I ran for five years. New name. New city. New life. I told myself I was safe. I told myself he'd forgotten me.

I was wrong.

My mother's death drags me back to New Orleans, back to the world I escaped, back to him. And when bodies start dropping—witnesses from that night, one by one—I realize the truth.

Someone wants me dead. And the Russian monster I've been running from? He's the only one who can keep me alive.

I should hate him. I should fear him.

So why do I burn every time he touches me?

ALEXEI

I've killed more men than I can count.

I am the Pakhan. The Wolf. The thing mothers warn their children about. I don't feel. I don't want. I don't need.

Until her.

She looked at me across that warehouse floor, and something cracked open inside my chest. I let her run. I told myself it was mercy.

It wasn't.

I've watched her for five years. Every apartment. Every job. Every man stupid enough to think he could have her. She belongs to me. She just doesn't know it yet.

Now she's back. Now she needs my protection.

And I will burn this entire city to ash before I let anyone take her from me again.

She thinks I'm her enemy.

She's about to find out I'm so much worse—I'm the man who's been obsessed with her since the moment I let her live.

A dark mafia romance with an obsessed hero who falls first and falls hard. Enemies to lovers. Forced proximity. Touch her and die. BWWM interracial romance.

Book 2 in The Augustine Empire series. Complete standalone. No cliffhanger. Happily Ever After guaranteed.