Kept Close

“She built walls around her heart to feel safe, and he built a wall inside them.”

Investigative journalist Nahla Avery only wanted the truth. A small-town corruption story turned into a nightmare the moment Lyle’s sheriff put a target on her back. Forced into hiding and stripped of her safety, her career, and her peace, Nahla doesn't back down—she digs deeper. That’s what she’s always done. What she’s never done? Depend on anyone … until Cannon Porter.

Cannon lives quiet, stays low, and keeps his past buried under lock and key. But when he’s hired to protect Nahla, their worlds collide with the kind of intensity neither of them is prepared for. She’s brilliant, stubborn, fearless. He’s disciplined, dangerous, and done letting life take anything else from him. Protecting her should’ve been simple.

But it isn’t.

Together, they uncover a conspiracy that has already cost too many people too much. Every new truth pulls them closer until hiding their connection becomes impossible. But when Cannon’s buried past crashes into Nahla’s present, love becomes the riskiest thing either of them has ever attempted. The question they have to answer is: Is it worth it?