Everyone fears them. Except for me. The kings who rule Grove Academy don't scare me, not with their gentle touches, sweet words, and smiles reserved only for me. But maybe... Maybe I should be scared.

I've always been on the outside looking in. A female tech genius meeting every conceivable human need for others, yet struggling with a basic fundamental necessity—connection. My days are filled with code and algorithms, but my nights are haunted by isolation and loneliness. When I'm asked to beta test a new advanced AI system created by three brilliant and painfully good-looking colleagues, what I thought was a straightforward task quickly turns into something far more complex. They started watching me. Tracking my every move.

I've always been a tough North Shore girl. Fighting is in my blood, survival in my DNA. But two years ago, Caden King broke me, and he has proof of it. Now he wants to blackmail me into doing a job for him. The kind that puts my chance of escaping the North Shore at risk. The kind that means betraying my own crew.

My family is gone. My parents. My twin sister. All of them murdered by the man who has stalked me for years. He nearly killed me, too. But I got away and he’s still out there, searching for me. He won’t find me. At least, I hope not. Thanks to WITSEC, I’ve been given a new life with a new identity. I know my future will be hard and lonely. I must stay strong and focus on the good. I’m getting a second chance at life. I am safe. My new home is beautiful. The four brothers who live next door are even more so.

Finding out you’re the daughter of a millionaire true crime novelist isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. When I was two, I was kidnapped. Kidnapped by a loving family, sure, but still kidnapped. Now, my biological mom wants me to live with her on the opposite side of the country. Her…and my new stepdad and his jerk of a son: Parrish.