The Shadow by K. Alex Walker

Mike Huang was the son of one of the most powerful men in China until the empire his family built for centuries suddenly crumbles. The betrayal of a family friend sends him into hiding at the age of ten, and the only life he’s ever known has been on the run. There’s no normalcy for a man like him. No settling down. Everything he’s ever had has come by way of fighting for it or fighting against it. So when Xara Merritt enters his life, he tries to fight feelings he’s never experienced. He fights to remember why he can’t have her, no matter how much he wants her. And he fights until he loses because, from the very beginning, he knew he would have her. Claim her. Consume her. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t know who he really is, or that she’s fallen for the son of a killer.

When Xara first meets the mysterious newcomer in her hometown in Henry, KY, it’s while he’s wrapped up in the middle of a fight that, at first, she assumes he’s losing. As she races to help him, she realizes he doesn’t need her help and he’s nothing like anyone she’s ever met—he’s silent, he’s lethal, and he’s hiding a lot more than he’s willing to admit. Still, she can’t help but be drawn to him, no matter how many walls he puts up, and it’s only a matter of time before she strips him bare, exposing the secrets of the man she gives her heart to . . . a heart she prays isn’t broken by what he finally chooses to reveal.