"e;Sometimes the only way to break free is to set everything on fire."e;Ren Ashford is one bad decision away from homelessness when he answers an ad for a driver position that pays three times what he's worth. The interview happens in the rain outside Corvus Tower. The man who hires him—Ares Corvus, thirty-two, billionaire, devastatingly controlled—counts Ren's pulse like he's measuring his capacity for fear.Then offers him a contract.Not for driving. For ownership.The terms are simple: live in the penthouse, be available always, belong to Ares completely. The money is survival. The man is dangerous. And Ren, desperate enough to sign anything, becomes property the moment ink touches paper.But Ares Corvus is a carefully constructed performance. Behind the glass walls and corporate power lies a man destroyed by conversion therapy at fifteen. A man haunted by his first love's suicide. A man whose father has spent decades weaponizing shame to maintain control. And Ren—broke, hungry, willing to sell himself for security—is the first person who sees through the performance to the wreckage underneath.What begins as a transaction becomes something neither of them planned for: real. Dangerous. Worth destroying themselves to protect.When Ares's father orchestrates a media scandal designed to ruin them both, Ren must choose between safety and truth. Between accepting the cage or breaking into his enemy's home to steal evidence that could free them—or send him to prison for a decade.Between hiding who he loves or standing in front of cameras and the world and claiming it. Loudly. Irrevocably. At any cost.Because love is not always gentle. Sometimes it's a war fought in courtrooms and penthouse bedrooms and the space between who you're supposed to be and who you actually are. Sometimes it requires breaking laws to enforce higher ones. Sometimes the only way two people survive is by refusing to survive separately.Driven By You is a dark MM romance about power, trauma, and what it costs to choose honesty over safety. It's about conversion therapy's multigenerational destruction. About a dead boy whose name becomes a foundation. About mirrors and glass cages and all the ways we perform acceptability until someone gives us permission to stop.It's about Ren Ashford, who went to prison for exposing the truth.And Ares Corvus, who learned that loving someone means letting them see you at your worst and trusting they'll stay anyway.And the difference between ownership and partnership when you've been taught that love is something to be controlled rather than chosen.Content includes: explicit sexual content, conversion therapy (detailed psychological abuse), suicide (off-page but discussed), imprisonment, class-based discrimination, family trauma, internalized homophobia, and characters making morally complex choices in impossible situations.Perfect for readers who loved: Red, White & Royal Blue meets The Song of Achilles meets Gone Girl. For fans of dark romance, psychological thrillers, and stories where love is not the solution but the reason to fight.What readers are saying:"e;Destroyed me in the best way. Could not put it down."e;"e;Finally, a romance that doesn't flinch from the darkness. This book SEES queer trauma and makes it matter."e;"e;The courtroom scenes had me holding my breath. The bedroom scenes had me... also holding my breath. Different reasons."e;"e;Not a light read. Not a comfort read. But an IMPORTANT read. And somehow still hopeful."e;"e;I finished this book at 3am sobbing and immediately wanted to start a revolution."e;
