My name is Rowan Hale. For six years, the contract boards called me Nocturne. I ranked first often enough that men twice my age stopped using my name and started using prayers. Then I retired. Not from guilt. Guilt requires free time, and professional murder has terrible hours. I retired after finding a better job.

"You think a cage can hold me, Kilian?" "Let's find out, krasotka. Let's see how long your defiance lasts when you're screaming my name." Vera Volkov doesn't miss. As the underworld's most lethal ghost, she thought she was prepared for anything—until she walked straight into the penthouse of Kilian De Luca. The ruthless, untouchable mafia don was supposed to be her target. Instead, he becomes her warden. Trapped in a world of high-stakes danger and suffocating proximity, their hatred instantly morphs into a volatile, skin-burning obsession. He is a monster carved from power and ice; she is the only storm he can't control. Until an unexpected, forbidden pregnancy shatters every rule they've ever lived by. Now, the walls are closing in, rivals are hunting them, and the most dangerous thing in the room isn't the war outside—it's the terrifying realization that they would burn the entire world to ash just to keep each other. Enemies to lovers. Forced proximity. High-heat dark romance. He falls first, but they both burn.