Two books. One empire built on blood. A florist who became collateral—and the pakhan who’d burn it all to keep her.
Chicago’s Russian underworld runs on loyalty, violence, and debts that never expire. When Bratva pakhan Konstantin Volkov collects florist Ivy Parish as collateral for her brother’s gambling losses, he expects compliance. He gets a woman who throws vases at his head, names flowers in Latin when she’s terrified, and sees through every wall he’s built. This duet traces their journey from captor and captive to partners who’d dismantle an empire—or build a new one—to protect what grows between them.
For readers who want their dark romance earned in petals and gunpowder, sealed in a penthouse that became a home, and paid for in every scar between page one and the final vow.
Book 1 — His to Keep
“He took her as collateral. She threw a vase at his head. Neither of them planned what happened next.”
Ivy Parish runs a flower shop on Chicago’s south side. It isn’t much, but it’s hers. Then her brother Theo’s gambling debt catches up to both of them, and a man named Konstantin Volkov walks through her locked door with a photograph of her face and a demand that isn’t a question. She’s coming with him. Not as a guest. As collateral.
Installed in his penthouse under armed guard, Ivy should hate the man who stole her life. She does. She also can’t stop noticing that his hands shake when he touches her, or that rival pakhan Viktor Petrov has started circling.
Caught between a brother who sold her out and a killer who’d dismantle everything he’s built to protect her, Ivy must decide what she’s willing to burn for the life she actually wants.
Alternating First Person (Ivy & Konstantin) • Guaranteed HEA
Book 2 — His to Ruin
“He made her queen. Now she’ll burn the world to save him.”
Ivy arranges peonies in a penthouse guarded by men with guns. She sleeps beside the Bratva pakhan who took her as collateral and somewhere along the way made her his equal. But Konstantin still flinches when she asks where he goes at night, still returns smelling of gunpowder. And now there’s a new variable neither of them planned: a pregnancy that makes Ivy the most protected woman in Chicago and the most vulnerable person in his empire.
When Dimitri—Konstantin’s own lieutenant—launches a coup from inside the Bratva, the gilded cage cracks open. Konstantin is captured, tortured, and held as leverage—and the woman he spent two books protecting becomes the one who has to save him.
From a hospital bed, hours after emergency surgery, Ivy coordinates a mercenary extraction that no one believed a florist from the south side could command.
Alternating First Person (Ivy & Konstantin) • Guaranteed HEA
Throughout Both Books
Duet Details
Content Warnings
Heat Level
What You Get
$243 (R4,000)
1 in stock
Copyright u00a9 2026 Plot Prose, All rights reserved.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information.