BROKERED

Ilaria Sarno writes the contracts that keep Chicago’s four criminal houses from war. She is the sitting broker, the keeper of the Ledger, and the one woman every house is forbidden to claim. Until an old rule puts her own name on the page.

Maksim Sorokin arrives at the Table to settle a blood price and invokes living surety: ninety days of binding betrothal, residence under his protection, and a public claim Ilaria cannot refuse without risking her family’s neutrality and reopening generations of dangerous agreements. He is also the widower whose first marriage she designed, a man who learned exactly how she thinks from every protection she once wrote against him.

Maksim does not need locked doors. He controls the cars, the guards, the property, and the practical cost of every exit. Ilaria still has one weapon he cannot own for her: the language of the contract.

As she searches for a lawful way out, she discovers how long his attention has been fixed on her, how useful his power can feel when she chooses to use it, and how quickly a boundary can become a bargain. The closer she gets to the truth behind his claim, the harder it becomes to separate coercion from the choices she is making herself.

BROKERED is Book One of THE BRIDE PRICE, an interconnected dark mafia romance series. Each book follows a different couple and delivers a complete romantic ending.