Roman Hale doesn't do warm. He does wins, walls, and silence. The NHL's most brutal defenseman has built his life around three things: the ice, his six-year-old daughter, and making sure nobody gets close enough to cause trouble. His reputation handles most of that for him. The rest, his fists have handled before. He needs a nanny. Competent, professional, unremarkable. That's the job description. Elena Voss is none of those things - not to him. She recognizes him the second she walks through his front door, the polished floors cold under her feet, the air in that house already too still. Years ago, Roman was given one order where she was concerned. He didn't follow it. Now she's living under his roof, caring for the small girl who is the only soft thing left in his life, and pretending she's not terrified of what he might remember. He remembers everything. What neither of them planned for is this: the closer she gets to his daughter, the closer he pulls her to him. Protective instincts shift into something harder to name. The mansion starts feeling less like her workplace and more like somewhere she can't leave - because he won't let her go, and some part of her has stopped fighting that. Old enemies are circling. The secrets between them are older than the job. And Roman's patience for distance has run completely out. He was sent to destroy her once. Will she let him be the one who keeps her alive this time? *** On the ice, they are lethal; off the ice, they are lost to a hunger they can't control. No apologies. No limits. No one tells them how to play. The Puck Brutes are the most dangerous men in the NHL - not just on the ice, but everywhere the game spills into real life. Battle-worn single dads protecting their kids and their careers. Cold, calculating enforcers who wrote their own rulebook and never looked back. These men hit hard, skate fast, and walk into every room like they already own it. Then the wrong woman shows up. A baby nobody planned for. A fake relationship that stops feeling fake somewhere around week three. A nanny who crosses every line her contract says she shouldn't. None of it was supposed to go this way. These aren't men who lose control - until suddenly, they are. Off the ice, the locker-room swagger fades. Each one of them hits a moment - quiet, unexpected, the kind that lands like a body check in an empty rink - where the woman in front of him becomes the only thing that actually matters. They'll push. She'll push back. Someone's going to crack. New stories keep coming. The Puck Brutes aren't done yet.