Broken Whispers

The Italian and Russian crime families agree to join forces, and the deal is sealed with a wedding. Mikhail, the Bratva's most feared enforcer, is to marry Bianca, a woman widely called the most beautiful in the Italian mafia. He has watched her from a distance for years, never expecting to have her.

Bianca accepts the match to protect her sister. She goes in expecting a cold, vicious brute, and meets a man she has no wish to leave. Mikhail, scarred and fiercely possessive, waits for the day she looks past his face and sees only the reputation behind it. Bianca does not speak, and the book builds much of its tension on that silence against his intensity.

This is a dark mafia romance told from both of their points of view. It is a beauty-and-the-beast arranged marriage with an age gap and forced proximity. The conflict sits less between the families than inside Mikhail. Bianca slowly wears down the walls he has kept up for a lifetime.

The heat is high, with open-door scenes. Neither character cheats, and a happy ending is guaranteed. It is the second book in the Perfectly Imperfect series, a set of interconnected romances that each stand alone, so it can be read without the first.