Ruthless Protector: A Forced Proximity Mafia Romance (The Empire of Vows #4)

I was sent to watch her. Now I’m sleeping down the hall… and daring anyone to touch what’s mine.

Dmitri Kozlov doesn’t give assignments. He gives verdicts.

Mine is move into Daria Kozlov’s apartment, track her movements, and prove she’s the leak before the feds freeze our accounts.

If she’s guilty, she disappears. Even if she’s family.

I expect designer clothes and a practiced smile.
I find a piano teacher in a threadbare cardigan, a fridge that’s almost empty, and a five-year-old who drags me into a tea party like I’m not built for violence.

That first night, I clear the apartment.

A hidden camera is wedged in her daughter’s bedroom.

At that point, I stop watching Daria—and start hunting the man who put it there. Her ex-husband.

Daria flinches at blocked numbers. She lies like it keeps her alive. And when I catch the bruises she hides under sleeves, something in me goes cold and final.

I came here to catch a traitor.
Instead I’m standing between a mother, her little girl… and the man who’s been terrorizing them for years.

If he comes for either of them, there won’t be negotiations.
There will be a body.


This is Book Three in a series of interconnected characters within the same mafia world. Each novel can be read as a STANDALONE and ends with an HEA. Each one ends on a soft cliffhanger, setting up the next book.