Dubious

Charmaine Pauls

Book 1 of The Loan Shark Duet

A South African loan shark named Gabriel is sent to collect a deadly debt from the Haynes family, but instead of killing Valentina as ordered, he forces her into years of servitude to spare her life. Trapped in his dangerous world, Valentina must navigate his mafia family, his volatile mother, and her own unwilling attraction to the scarred, brutal man who now controls her fate. It's a dark, morally complicated slow-burn built on power imbalance and obsession rather than mutual choice. The story is unresolved at the end of this volume, setting up the conclusion in the next book.