Captured

She read the fine print. She stayed anyway.

Daphne Iliou is twenty-four, eighteen months from a nursing degree she had to leave, and one bad fiancé from running. The placement agency in Athens is a front; she does not know that yet. The car collects her at four. The man rinsing blood from his arms in the courtyard at six tells her his name is Nikos — Nikos Drakos, head of family security, widower of seven years, father of nine-year-old twin boys who call her korítsi mou by morning.

The estate is fortified for a reason. The Kallis war has come to the gate three times this year, and Nikos has known about Daphne's ex-fiancé for weeks before her car arrived. He owns the agency. He owns the contract. He owns the rifle on the wall. By Chapter 7 the gate is breached, the boys are under a desk, and Nikos puts his hand on Daphne's throat to keep her still while he aims — and by Chapter 10 she signs the page in front of him in red ink because she has read it now, all of it, and the only word she will not let him write for her is the one above her own name.

Captured is forced-proximity dark romance at its most claustrophobic and its most tender — a widowed security chief who has not let another woman within ten meters of his sons since their mother was killed in front of them, and the contract-bound nanny who reads the fine print and stays anyway. Twin boys. A wedding in the chapel her predecessor never reached. Eímaste dikoí sou. We are yours.