Until Death

On the happiest morning of her life, Claire Bennett believed every hard chapter of her past was finally behind her. She was marrying Daniel - kind, golden, everything she'd spent a lifetime hoping to find. She was finally going to belong to a family.

Then the groom's estranged brother pulled her aside before the ceremony and whispered four words that would shatter everything: If anything feels wrong... leave.

She didn't listen. And by the time the cathedral doors closed behind her new husband, he was dead - shot at the altar in front of two hundred guests, his blood soaking into the silk of her wedding dress.

The evidence points to one man: Adrian, the brother who tried to warn her. Grieving and desperate for answers, Claire testifies against him without hesitation.

But when a sniper's bullet nearly ends her own life - and the only person who throws himself in the line of fire is the man she just called a murderer - Claire is forced to face a terrifying truth: someone framed Adrian from the very beginning, and they're not finished yet.

With a killer inside the police department, a conspiracy fifteen years in the making, and nowhere safe left to run, Claire and Adrian are forced into an uneasy alliance across the Scottish Highlands - chasing a truth someone will kill to keep buried.

As the danger closes in, so does something neither of them expected: a quiet, aching connection built not on romance, but on survival. Adrian has spent years loving her from a distance he never let himself cross. Claire has spent her whole life terrified of losing anyone she lets herself need.

Now, with everything unraveling around them, they'll have to decide what's more dangerous - the man hunting them, or finally letting themselves be loved.

Until Death is a slow-burn romantic suspense novel of grief, betrayal, and hard-won trust - for readers who love emotionally immersive stories where love has to survive the truth before it can survive anything else.

Author: Hope Smith