What He Craves by Kat Steele

The most dangerous stray you’ll ever take in won’t have four legs. He’ll have a Russian accent, a little girl’s hand in his, and the Bratva at his back.

I run a shelter in Savannah. I care for the broken, the abandoned, the ones everybody else gave up on. So when a man calls about a dog for his daughter, I figure it’s a normal Tuesday.

I could not have been more wrong.

Alexei Agapov sweeps the room before his eyes ever land on me. Ice-blue stare. Tattoos curling out of his collar. Every warning my mama ever gave me, wrapped up in one sinful package.

So naturally, I reach into my pocket to show him my kennel notes – and hand him a dog treat.

(In my defense. He’s very distracting.)

It’s his daughter who undoes me. Ivy. Six years old. A laugh that fills the room. And a father who looks at her like she’s the only soft thing left in his world.

She comes back. Week after week. For a while, it’s easy to pretend Alexei is just a mysterious rich guy with a quiet daughter.

But then they come for Ivy.

They don’t get her, but she’s too shattered to let anyone near. Anyone but me.

So I follow her behind his gates – into the one place her father can keep her safe. I can resist a dangerous man. But a broken heart that needs a second chance? Never.

I keep telling myself it’s temporary. That I can care about Ivy and still walk away.

I’m lying. About every part of it.

Because in Alexei’s world, love is leverage.

And no one can know I’m carrying his child.

What He Craves is Book One of the Silent Sins: Agapov Bratva duet – a full-length single-dad mafia romance with a cliffhanger ending and a guaranteed HEA at the end of Book Two. A touch-her-and-die hero, a sunshine heroine who runs toward the fire, and a six-year-old who steals every scene. For readers who love icy Bratva alphas, slow-burn obsession, and the kind of tension that wrecks your sleep schedule.