For some, home means warmth. For him - it's a territory of control. Cole Mercer is not a man you want to anger. A former soldier, callsign Predator 0-1, and founder of the private military company Specter Corps. Dangerous. Charismatic. Powerful. He's used to commanding not only people, but fear itself. After the war - and the betrayal of his family - there's nothing left inside him but emptiness. And pain. A pain he calls love. When General Arden invites him to a family dinner, Cole expects nothing more than another tedious evening. Until he sees her. Kate Arden - the general's twenty-year-old daughter - is far too gentle for his world. She hides behind politeness, wears a smile that never reaches her eyes, and breathes carefully in her own home. Cole sees in her something he lost long ago - purity. And he decides she will be his home. His version of family. But Cole's home is not a place of love. It's a place of breaking. Where walls remember screams, and tenderness always has a price. He will give her everything - attention, protection, desire. In exchange for the only thing that matters - her freedom. And when the door finally closes behind her, she'll realize: sometimes, "home" is the most terrifying place you can enter.