Shallow River by H.D. Carlton

Shallow Hill is where souls suffer slow and miserable deaths.

When River McAllister escaped from Shallow Hill, she left her innocence behind—and some of her sanity, too. Now she's rebuilding her life with her dream man and life couldn't be better.

Ryan Fitzgerald is everything you'd want in a man. Attractive, rich, an aspiring lawyer, and would do anything to keep River. But that's not the only thing that attracts her. It's his attentiveness, his possessiveness... maybe not so much his temper.

When her relationship takes a dark turn, Ryan's estranged brother, Mako, is the only one who sees it. He knows exactly what Ryan is capable of, and it's not the first time he had to be a knight in shining armor.