Rebel

When the truth hunts you, desire becomes a weapon.

Rebel
I keep women alive with numbers and threats. I bury bodies with balance sheets.
I'm Victoria Slade, Rebel to the Royal Harlots, and control is what keeps my world from descending into chaos. I don't believe in love. I don't trust men. And I ensure no one touches what belongs to me.
Carter Bishop walks into my life with a blade-sharp stare and proof that my brother's name is being used to fund a criminal war.
The truth cracks my control wide open.
He's dangerous in a quiet way. All restraint and violence barely leashed. A man who watches like he's already decided what he'd destroy for me, and that should terrify me more than it does.
The closer the threat gets, the harder it is to tell where survival ends and wanting Carter begins. If I let him in, he won't just take my body. He'll take my secrets. My vengeance. And maybe the last soft thing I've kept alive.
The Vultures are circling. Betrayal is bleeding through the ledgers, and if I don't work with the man who knows how this system really moves, everything I protect will burn.
Including me.

Carter
I was trained to kill what hides behind money. I didn't expect the target to be a woman who makes me want to kneel and burn at the same time.
Victoria Slade doesn't need saving. She needs the truth, and I'm the one man who can give it to her without flinching. Every step closer to her puts a gun to my head and a hand around my throat, and I don't care.
She's control wrapped in leather and fire. Smart, ruthless, loyal to the bone. The kind of woman who doesn't ask for protection and doesn't forgive easily, especially not men like me.
But the truth doesn't care what either of us wants. Her brother's death wasn't an accident. The money trail leads straight through her world. The deeper I dig, the more dangerous it is to stand either too far from her or too close.
She thinks she can keep her heart locked down. I think she's already at war with it.
When bullets fly and secrets surface, loyalty demands blood. If choosing her means burning every bridge I have left...
I'll strike the match myself.