Controlled Drift by Maia Dylan

Niko Keahi has survived everything the world has ever thrown at him—cartels, mercenaries, and black-ops missions that should have killed him twice over. But nothing prepared him for waking up restrained on a jet, being sold under the wrong name, and realizing someone powerful wants him alive… for reasons he doesn’t yet understand. The man coming for him is the last one he ever expected.

Ethan Rhodes was supposed to be Niko’s past. A brilliant pilot who disappeared overnight, leaving only silence and heartbreak behind. But when Niko is taken, Ethan flies back into his life with the kind of skill that bends airspace and the kind of determination that doesn’t care who notices.

As Black Tide races to intercept a shadow syndicate tied to the Directorate, Niko and Ethan are forced to confront everything they lost—and everything they still want. Ethan is no longer just a pilot. He is Pyre—a man who has spent years dismantling his father’s criminal empire from the inside, burning routes, money, and lives that deserved to fall.

And Gregory Rhodes, the monster who made him, is not done yet. With assassins closing in, a hostage taken, and a war igniting in the shadows, Niko and Ethan must decide what they are willing to destroy to keep each other safe—and whether love can survive when the world is on fire.