ANNA

Anna Rafferty left New York two years ago to find herself.
Not because she was running.
Not because she was afraid.
But because somewhere between the violence, the secrets, and the trauma that changed her life, she'd lost herself.

For two years, she built a life on her own terms. She traveled. She healed. She learned to preserve things most people considered beyond repair, restoring rare books and forgotten stories while trying not to think about her own.

Because some trauma isn't dealt with.
It's buried.

Returning to New York was supposed to be simple.
Be closer to her family. Purchase the rare bookstore she'd fallen in love with years ago. Continue building the future she'd fought so hard for.

The only complication... Julian Mercer.
The powerful, devastatingly handsome and infuriating Don of New York, a man she should stay far away from.
A man her sister can't stand.
A man she hasn't seen since the night she left the city.

Unfortunately for her, Julian Mercer has never forgotten a debt or Anna.

What starts as a favor quickly becomes stolen moments, lingering glances, and a connection neither of them seem capable of walking away from.

The problem?

Julian is a man built from secrets and Anna has spent the last two years burying her own.

When a string of brutal murders rocks the city-random, violent, and seemingly unconnected-every road somehow leads back to one person.

Anna.

As detectives begin circling, asking questions she can't answer and digging for secrets she can't share, Anna finds herself caught between the life she's carefully built and a past determined to drag her back.

And the closer the danger gets, the harder it becomes to ignore the man she's spent two years trying to forget.
Because Julian Mercer has always been dangerous.
The difference is that now Anna has something to lose.

Not her safety.
Not her freedom.
But her heart.