Nora Ostrander

Tomiya survives the ash-choked ruins of her clan's territory by reading the history of broken things. When a blood-feud between her people and the rival Mokude clan threatens to wipe both out, the elders force a ceasefire through a volatile marriage. Tomiya is offered as the bride to Sashiro, the Mokude's ruthless heir. Confined within the failing walls of the Kashiro compound—a neutral fortress meant to keep them safe, but which instead locks them in with armed retainers from both sides—Tomiya must navigate a deadly new life. She isn't there for peace. She's there to keep a promise to the brother who died in the feud: to find the hidden cache of Mokude arms stashed within the compound and bleed them dry. But Sashiro is watching her every move, and survival means drawing dangerously close to the enemy.

Oona Keltasen makes her living moving stolen goods beneath the frozen canals of Veistola, strictly refusing to transport weapons or human cargo. When she sabotages a run that violates her one rule, she accidentally intercepts an asset meant for the city’s collapsing syndicate. Instead of finding a buyer, she is brought before its new head, Taisto Härminen. Taisto has just received an inheritance nobody wanted: a crumbling criminal empire under siege from rival families and a legitimate shipping front that desperately needs a spouse to secure its vulnerable voting board. Instead of killing Oona, Taisto corners her into a marriage of survival, locking her inside his heavily fortified estate. Now Oona is trapped in a house surrounded by enemies, bound to a man whose obsession with her is as dangerous as the assassins at his gates. To survive the siege, she must use all her smuggling instincts to repel the threats outside, all while negotiating a deadly attraction to the captor who refuses to let her go.