Mother Tongue

He took the enemy's son to buy back his brother. He's never giving him back.

Bohdan Kovalenko hasn't spoken a word of Russian since the morning the tanks crossed the border. On Brighton Beach Avenue, nobody asks why. They pay what they owe, they keep their windows whole, and they never cross him twice.

His little brother is rotting in a Russian prison camp. So when the son of a Moscow crime boss lands at JFK, Bohdan takes him. One prisoner for another. Simple.

Lev Sorokin knows better. His father has never paid for anything of his, and he isn't about to start with a ransom. Chained in the cold steam room of a dead man's bathhouse, Lev has a single thing left to bargain with: the smuggling route he built for men who would happily see him dead.

What he didn't plan for was the way his captor looks at him. Or how badly he'd want to kneel.

In the dark, the rules are Bohdan's. Lev asks for everything in Ukrainian, or he gets nothing at all. But Moscow is watching, the avenue is talking, and the only way to bring one brother home may be to hand the other man over to die.

Bohdan has killed for less. He'll burn Brooklyn to the ground before he lets anyone take what's his.

Mother Tongue is a standalone dark MM mafia romance with a possessive, morally gray hero, a captive who chooses his chains, and a guaranteed HEA. Please read the content note before you begin.