Savage Hearts

Malek Antonov is a Bratva assassin so feared that people whisper he is a myth, a ghost, a legend. After his brother is murdered, he goes after Declan O'Donnell, who runs the Boston Irish mob. In the attempt he takes a young woman he believes is someone else.

She is Riley Keller, a quiet freelance editor and the sister of Sloane, Declan's fiancée. She has no part in the feud, yet the Irish mob and the Russian Bratva are at war, and she is now a pawn and a prisoner in it.

Malek decides to keep Riley as payment for what he has lost. To survive, she has to win over the man holding her. He wants more from her than a truce, and as danger closes in on them both, the line between captor and captive begins to blur.

This is the third book in the Queens & Monsters dark mafia romance series, after Ruthless Creatures and Carnal Urges. The story is told in alternating first-person voices. Expect explicit sex scenes and a good deal of violence. The question it turns on is whether a hostage can survive a man like Malek without being claimed by him.