Lethal Legacy by Paula Walshe

Love is deadly. Trust is lethal.

LUCIA

How can I love what I tried to escape?

For six years I’ve run from the Orlov bratva.

I don’t need to see the ink under Roman’s shirt,

Or touch the gun under his jacket,

To know he has bratva written all over every muscled inch of his body.

And now he wants me in his home.

Not to mention in his bed.

On paper, Roman Stevanovsky is a billionaire CEO.

But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a killer in practice.

Which is probably why I can’t take my eyes off him.

I might have left behind my real name,

And the Petrovsky fortune;

But it seems that my libido

Remains stubbornly hardwired to Russian bad boy.

I need the kind of power Roman wields.

Hellfire, to regain what was stolen from my family.

But I’m as close to possessing either power or hellfire

As I am to making my crazy fantasies about Roman himself come true.

ROMAN

Lucia is hiding something.

You can’t fake that kind of fear.

The fear of being hunted

By death itself.

I know how it feels to have no choice but run.

To guard secrets that aren’t mine to tell.

To live with a revenge

That I can never take.

I told myself I wouldn’t get involved

In whatever storm is chasing Lucia.

I only meant to give her a chance,

The means to outrun it.

But now she’s in my home.

Her body in my bed

Her heart stealing mine.

Lucia’s life belongs to me, even if her secrets are hers alone.

So if the storm decides to come for her?

Well—I protect what is mine.

And I’m no storm.

I’m the f***ing apocalypse.

*Lethal Legacy is book one in the Lethal Legacy series. Roman and Lucia’s story concludes in book two, Lethal Alliance. The duet has no cheating, enough heat to sear the bedsheets, and a guaranteed HEA.

Lethal Legacy is primarily a love story, set in the high stakes, dangerous, and luxurious international world of Russian mafia. It is less dark than some in the genre, but does have some scenes depicting violence.

TROPES:

Forced proximity, alpha male; ‘touch her and you die’ vibes, runaway heroine, family secrets, found family., saucy contract.