Axe by Rachelle Ayala

Leanna encounters danger and love when she searches for a daughter she gave away in Mexico.

Leanna Rivera never told her friends where she went junior year in high school. Her family sent her back to Mexico to give birth and keep it a secret. They told her to forget about Carmelita, her brown-eyed baby girl, who died shortly after her adoption was final, leaving her with a box of ashes.

Fourteen years later, Leanna receives a frantic phone call. Her daughter is alive and has run away to cross the US-Mexico border. With little to go on, Leanna hires a bodyguard to help her search for Carmelita.

Axe Salvadori hides his secrets well. He also hides his attraction to Leanna, preferring to watch over and protect her from afar. He pushes his way to Leanna’s side, but what he finds blows away everything he’s ever known about his family and their ties to the mob.

Leanna and Axe fight their mutual attraction and distrust while danger comes at them from all sides. There’s the cartel, Leanna’s ex, Axe’s past, the human traffickers, and Carmelita herself. No one is as they seem, and no one is safe—least of all Leanna’s heart.

What will she trade for her daughter? Who can she believe, and who’s trying to kill her? When the stakes are nothing less than the life of her daughter, can Leanna count on Axe, a man with demons of his own?