FBI Special Agent Gemma Winters has survived trauma, and the brutal demands of the job, but nothing unnerves her more than her new partner, Liam Murphy. Brilliant, volatile, and obsessively fixated on her, Liam walks the razor’s edge between protector and predator. And Gemma knows better than anyone: obsession can feel a lot like devotion… until it turns lethal.
When the two are assigned to investigate a string of ritualistic murders in New Orleans, the city becomes a pressure cooker of violence, secrets, and spiraling desire. Mardi Gras is rising, the crowds are swelling, and a killer known as The Shadowman is escalating; shredding victims in frenzied displays that blur the line between occult ritual and psychotic collapse.
The deeper Gemma and Liam dig, the more the case twists into something personal. The killer’s victims aren’t random. The rituals are changing. And someone inside the department may be sabotaging the investigation.
But the most dangerous threat isn’t the murderer stalking the streets.
It’s the man stalking her.
As the city descends into chaos, Gemma must confront the truth she’s tried to outrun: Liam Murphy may be the only person who can save her… or the one who destroys her.
After all, the only difference between medicine and poison is the dose.