In my husband's family, a traitor dies. His grandfather sings a song about it at every wedding, including ours.

On his wedding night Matvei Lazarev got an envelope with six photographs: his new wife in an FBI agent's car, all August long. The last one was taken the day after the hurricane, two days after he told her things he has never told anyone. He didn't touch me. He locked me in the house on the Intracoastal and stopped talking, because the man who sent the envelope wanted him to kill me, and Matvei doesn't give enemies what they want.

Then the old code flew in from Brighton. Shota Kutaissky, the last of the old thieves, has brought Matvei an offer: the crown, and the protection of the old men against the Moscow money circling the family. The price is no wife and no Sunday table. And a clean house.

I could run. Instead I told him everything: my brother, my handler, what I gave and what I held back. Then I did the one thing I had never done in my life. I chose a side, and I got back into the FBI agent's car to prove it.

Nobody tells you that choosing a side is the easy part. The hard part is getting the man you chose to believe you, before the people who bought your handler come for your brother.

Traitor bride · enemies to lovers, harder · locked in together · a double agent with a wedding ring in her husband's pocket · he chooses her over the crown · the man who kneels to no one, on his knees.

Stars on His Knees is Book Two of Matvei and Zoya's duet in The Lazarev Bratva and ends in their happily ever after. Read Bread and Salt first (also available on NetGalley now).