Ava Sokoloff has already survived the monster who once shattered her. Now Robert Gaggi has taken her again, dragging her from the safety of her husband’s bed and burying her inside a cold, hidden prison. He expects the same terrified woman he broke before. A woman who will beg, submit, and wait helplessly to be rescued. But Ava is no longer prey. She has learned cruelty from the most dangerous man in New York. She knows how to hide fear behind a beautiful smile, how to turn pain into patience, and how to make a man believe he is in control while she quietly chooses where to bury the blade. Robert wants to possess her one last time. Instead, he has locked himself inside a tomb with a queen who has finally learned how to kill. Alessio Sokoloff rules the Bratva with blood, discipline, and absolute power. But beneath the tailored suits and cold brutality lives one fatal weakness: his wife. When Ava is stolen from their penthouse, the man disappears and the monster takes his place. Alessio seals the city, unleashes his soldiers, and tears through the Italian underworld in search of the woman who owns the darkest parts of him. He has no interest in justice. He wants Robert’s empire destroyed, his name erased, and his death slow enough to repay every bruise left on Ava’s skin. Yet the deeper Alessio descends into violence, the more dangerous his obsession becomes. Ava is not merely the woman he loves. She is the only person capable of calming the beast inside him—and without her, there may be nothing left to stop him from burning everything they built. She is trapped with the man who once broke her. He is hunting the man who dared to take her. And when the Bird and the Viper finally reunite, their rescue will not end in mercy. It will end in fire, blood, and a hunger neither of them intends to deny. This is the third book in the A Bird and Her Viper Series. Reading order: The Viper’s Cager, The Songbird’s Veil, The Phoenix’s Ashes.