Scarred Bratva Daddy: An Age Gap Beauty and the Beast Romance

He has one rule. It has kept him breathing for six years. Never let anyone close enough to see what the fire left behind. Nikolai Stepanov survived the warehouse blaze that killed his brother and rebuilt himself into the most trusted protector the Bratva has ever produced, specifically so nothing that uncontrolled could ever touch anyone he cared about again. He keeps his sleeves buttoned to the wrist. He counts every exit before he counts anything else in a room. He has not let a stranger look him full in the face, scars and all, in six years, and he has no intention of starting tonight, guarding a hospital bed that is not even his. Then a nurse in rumpled scrubs corners him in a hallway at two in the morning with a fire extinguisher aimed at his chest, refuses to apologize for nearly taking his head off, and looks straight at the ruined side of his face without so much as a flinch. Isla Chen is not looking for anything complicated. She has a full shift, a patient marked for death by whoever set him on fire in the first place, and no patience left over for the silent, watchful stranger the hospital dropped outside his door without so much as a memo. She is not supposed to notice how steady his hands are, or how much safer the hallway feels with him standing in it. She is definitely not supposed to fall for the man hired to guard someone else. >He built a life around never being fully seen. He never planned on the one woman who would look, and stay anyway.