Southside

She refused to sell. He refused to let her burn. Bridget Dolan has spent five years keeping her father's bar alive on the South Side Slopes—alone, exhausted, and too stubborn to take the buyout money. When an arson crew starts burning her block, clearing buildings for developers who want her gone, Bridget does what Dolan women have always done: she stands her ground. Then they corner her in the alley behind her bar. He's the enforcer who takes every block personally. She's about to become everything he never knew he was fighting for. Southside grew up running these hills—watching his neighborhood disappear one building at a time while developers circled like vultures. When he walks into his favorite bar and finds his bartender flinching at headlights, he doesn't wait for permission. He starts swinging. What he finds is a woman with bartender's hands and backbone to match. A woman who refuses three buyout offers and keeps pouring. A woman worth burning down a twenty-year arson operation to protect. She's not looking for a savior. He's not asking permission. As the fires close in and Bridget's bar goes up in flames, she discovers that the hot-headed regular from stool three is also the only man who's ever fought for the same streets she'd die for. But loving Southside means accepting his world—the brotherhood, the brutality, and the claiming that makes her his. Forty-six years of her father's legacy reduced to ash. Now he's going to prove that some things can't be burned.