Nikolai Varga has spent decades as one of The Axiom Syndicate's most efficient assassins. At fifty-four, he is controlled, methodical, and perfectly content with a life built around distance, precision, and uncomplicated relationships. He has never wanted permanence, and after watching his closest friend Dante fall unexpectedly in love, Niko is certain the same fate has no chance of finding him.Then he opens a locked door and finds Clara Duarte.Clara, a thirty-eight-year-old American choreographer vacationing in Europe, has been kidnapped after crossing paths with a man who violated even the Syndicate's rules. When Niko finds her frightened and injured, something in him changes with startling speed. Protecting her stops being an obligation almost immediately. Staying close becomes instinct, and the man who has spent a lifetime needing no one suddenly cannot imagine leaving her alone.As Clara begins to recover, she discovers that the quiet, intimidating man hovering at her side is far more complicated than she first believed. Niko's world is dangerous, secretive, and unlike anything she has ever known, but beneath his carefully controlled exterior is a man capable of extraordinary tenderness and fierce devotion.Their connection grows quickly, even as the danger surrounding them refuses to disappear. Niko must confront the consequences of the life he has always accepted without question, while Clara must decide whether she can build a future with a man whose past is written in violence.For the first time in his life, Niko discovers something he wants more than the work that has defined him.Not another assignment. Not another target.Someone to come home to.
