I read the way out of every room I've ever been in. I've never once found one I wanted to stay in.
I'm the best escape artist alive. Give me a lock, a box, a chain, a marriage — I read the way out the instant it closes. It's kept me alive, and it's kept me alone, because a woman who trusts only exits never stays anywhere long enough to be held.
Then a job went wrong, and I fell through the ceiling of the most dangerous club in Chicago — straight into the one man I can't read.
Dmitri Morozov reads everyone. It's what he is: the host, the rigger, the brother who sees all the way into a person before they've said a word. Except me. I'm the one door his whole gift slides off of. And instead of using that — instead of making me one more thing he controls — he did the thing no one ever has.
He handed me a word that stops his whole world. He tied me in a room with the exit built in, and taught me the thing three years of running never could: that I could stay in a hard thing long enough to be held.
So I told him the worst thing I carry — that my own hands drowned my sister in a rig I tied. And he looked at the proof, and he read the one thing I never could: that it was a forgery. That Wrenna was murdered. That someone built my whole guilt three years ago to make a weapon out of me, and aimed it at his family.
Now that someone is reaching for the loose thread it never finished cutting. Which means the man who taught me to stay is about to have to throw me away — in front of everyone, in the exact language only I can read. And I'm going to have to decide, alone, in the dark, with the thing that killed my sister closing in, whether the cruelest thing he ever did to me is a door I run through — or the only love letter a man in an impossible place could write.
I read doors for a living.
I've never had to read one this well.
❧
THE KNOT is Book Three of Sanctum: The Morozov Bratva — a dark, rope-forward BDSM Bratva romance with a hero who reads everyone, a heroine no one can read, a forged-guilt mystery braided through the heat, an escape artist learning to stay, and a guaranteed happily-ever-after. Full standalone. The safeword is real — and so is the door.
I'm the best escape artist alive. Give me a lock, a box, a chain, a marriage — I read the way out the instant it closes. It's kept me alive, and it's kept me alone, because a woman who trusts only exits never stays anywhere long enough to be held.
Then a job went wrong, and I fell through the ceiling of the most dangerous club in Chicago — straight into the one man I can't read.
Dmitri Morozov reads everyone. It's what he is: the host, the rigger, the brother who sees all the way into a person before they've said a word. Except me. I'm the one door his whole gift slides off of. And instead of using that — instead of making me one more thing he controls — he did the thing no one ever has.
He handed me a word that stops his whole world. He tied me in a room with the exit built in, and taught me the thing three years of running never could: that I could stay in a hard thing long enough to be held.
So I told him the worst thing I carry — that my own hands drowned my sister in a rig I tied. And he looked at the proof, and he read the one thing I never could: that it was a forgery. That Wrenna was murdered. That someone built my whole guilt three years ago to make a weapon out of me, and aimed it at his family.
Now that someone is reaching for the loose thread it never finished cutting. Which means the man who taught me to stay is about to have to throw me away — in front of everyone, in the exact language only I can read. And I'm going to have to decide, alone, in the dark, with the thing that killed my sister closing in, whether the cruelest thing he ever did to me is a door I run through — or the only love letter a man in an impossible place could write.
I read doors for a living.
I've never had to read one this well.
❧
THE KNOT is Book Three of Sanctum: The Morozov Bratva — a dark, rope-forward BDSM Bratva romance with a hero who reads everyone, a heroine no one can read, a forged-guilt mystery braided through the heat, an escape artist learning to stay, and a guaranteed happily-ever-after. Full standalone. The safeword is real — and so is the door.
Used availability for Danielle Kent's The Knot