Miles with a Stranger

They took me because of what my brother did. He kept me because of what I started to mean.

I never asked to be anyone's leverage. But when Adrian Vale crosses Matteo De Luca, I become the price my brother is supposed to pay-dragged across state lines in the back of a stranger's car, a hostage with no idea how this ends.

Matteo isn't what I expected. He's controlled, dangerous, and terrifyingly calm about all of it. He doesn't explain himself. He doesn't apologize. But somewhere between the motels, the borrowed jacket I refuse to give back, and the nights I'm not supposed to be watching him sleep, I start to wonder if the man holding me hostage understands my brother less than he thinks he does.

The farther we drive from everything I know, the harder it becomes to remember why I'm supposed to hate him.

Because somewhere along the road, Matteo stops feeling like my captor.

And starts becoming the man I don't want to leave.

I was never supposed to want to stay.

One bed. One road. One choice neither of us saw coming.

A slow-burn, explicit mafia romance