Mongrel

She watched the river. He came out of the darkness. Colleen Murphy has spent three years keeping her father's bait shop alive—hauling boats, fixing motors, surviving on a stretch of the Mon that most people forgot existed. When she notices cargo boats running dark past her dock at midnight, she does what river people do: she watches. Then they decide to make her stop. Permanently. He's been running his whole life. She's about to become the reason he stays. Mongrel is the Reapers' river man—six years on the barges before the club, four years mapping every channel and current in their territory. He rides the water like other brothers ride roads. When he finds a woman in a bait shop who's been tracking a cargo operation for three months, he discovers something worth more than intel. A woman who grabbed a gaff hook and drew blood. A woman who knows the Mon like her own heartbeat. A woman worth drowning men for. She's done being silent. He's done being in motion. As the violence escalates and her father's legacy burns to ash, Colleen discovers that the restless man who came off the river to save her is also the only one who understands why she can't stop watching the water. But loving Mongrel means accepting his world—the brotherhood, the brutality, and the claiming that makes her his. Two people who couldn't sit still. Two currents that finally found the same direction. Some rivers are worth dying for. She's worth staying for.