THE CODE WE KEEP: A Bourbon River Novel (The Bourbon River Series)

The smell hits first.Iron. Bourbon. Blood baked into warm hardwood.Bourbon River was built on a code.Not rules. Not laws.A code.Never throw the first punch.Always try and walk away.And if you can’t… make sure you’re the one who does.For Tim Townsend, that code has always been enough. It kept the peace. Kept the doors open. Kept the people he loves safe.Until the wrong man comes back.Pete doesn’t want control. He doesn’t want respect.He wants something worse.He wants to break it.What starts as a quiet return turns into something calculated. Something patient. Watching. Waiting. Pushing at the edges of a world that doesn’t bend easily. Not until it has to.Then it does.When a single moment turns violent—and the wrong person takes the hit—everything changes.The line between restraint and retaliation begins to blur.And once it does… there’s no putting it back.Now Tim is forced to make a choice:Hold the code… and risk losing everything.Or break it… and become the very thing he’s spent his life keeping out.Because in Bourbon River, loyalty isn’t given. It’s earned.Family isn’t optional. It’s everything.And when someone makes them the target—you don’t walk away. Read more