GO AHEAD. RUN.

Elena

My brother owed Callan Russo money.
When he couldn’t pay, Callan took me instead.

I expected threats, locked doors, maybe a few days spent waiting for someone to decide what I was worth. What I didn’t expect was Callan himself, watching me with the calm certainty of a man who has never had to ask permission for anything in his life.

He gives me an ultimatum: spend the night with him, and at sunrise I can run.
If I get away, I’m free.
If he catches me, he keeps me.

It should be an easy choice. I have every reason to hate him, every reason to spend those hours planning exactly how far I can get before he realizes I’m gone. But somewhere during that one impossible night, the rules between us begin to feel less certain. Callan sees too much, touches something in me I wasn’t prepared to give him, and by the time morning comes, leaving no longer feels as simple as freedom. That terrifies me more than he does.

So while I think he’s still asleep, I slip out wearing nothing but his T-shirt and start running through a freezing Chicago February without stopping long enough to question why part of me wants him to wake up.

What I don’t know is that Callan Russo rarely leaves anything to chance.
He knew I would run.

Callan

Her brother owed me a debt, and taking her was supposed to be the easiest way to collect it.
Then I spent one night with her and changed the terms.

I’ve never believed in love, and I’ve never needed a woman badly enough to rearrange my life around her. By sunrise, though, I already know one thing with absolute certainty: I’m keeping her.
She doesn’t know that yet. I told her she could run when morning came. If she got away from me, she would be free. If I caught her, she would stay. She believed I meant it.

So when she slips out of my bed wearing only my T-shirt because I destroyed everything else she had the night before, I let her go. I want to know how far she’ll get, how determined she is to leave, and whether some part of her will hesitate before choosing the road away from me.

What she doesn’t know is that I already planned for this. There are clothes waiting where she can find them because Chicago in February isn’t kind to a woman running half-dressed. Her phone is tracked, my men know exactly where she is, and my bodyguard is watching every move she makes while I follow her progress from a distance.

She thinks she escaped while I was sleeping.
I’m watching her run and I’m laughing, because the woman I took as payment has somehow become the only thing I have no intention of giving back.

She can keep running if she wants. I’ll make sure she’s warm while she does it.

“You can run from fate, but not from me.”
— Callan Russo

A fast, steamy mafia romance with a possessive man, dangerous obsession, and a cliffhanger leading directly into the next Russo Control book.