The Rust-Hound's Bind

The legitimate front of the Zerrouki family business—a sprawling, deeply insulated salvage yard and restoration garage at the edge of a sprawling metropolis—requires a husband to sign the municipal permits. For the matriarch, a marriage of convenience to an outsider is a tactical maneuver. For Tariq El-Fekhar, a dismissed soldier who fled for a reason he refuses to explain, it is the only place left to hide. Tariq wants nothing more than to keep his head down, fix the engines, and stay off the grid. But his new wife, Safiya, is the heir to a quiet, brutal syndicate that moves more than just scrap metal, and she expects him to play his part as the obedient, silent partner. As the local rivals begin circling the Zerrouki territory, and the secrets of Tariq's past bleed into the present, he realizes the family's insular code is a cage. When he begins to dismantle the threats his own way, using the lethal competence he promised to bury, the dynamic flips. He was supposed to be a paper husband. Now, he is a danger she cannot control, and an obsession they both refuse to survive without.