Genre: Erotic Contemporary Gay Romance Heat Level: 3 Word Count: 31, 000 ISBN: 978-0-3695-1467-7 Editor: Jessica Leonie Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Controlled Drift by Maia Dylan

Heat Level 3
$3.99
SKU 978-0-3695-1467-7
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Black Tide, 3

Niko Keahi has survived everything the world has ever thrown at him—cartels, mercenaries, and black-ops missions that should have killed him twice over. But nothing prepared him for waking up restrained on a jet, being sold under the wrong name, and realizing someone powerful wants him alive… for reasons he doesn’t yet understand. The man coming for him is the last one he ever expected.

Ethan Rhodes was supposed to be Niko’s past. A brilliant pilot who disappeared overnight, leaving only silence and heartbreak behind. But when Niko is taken, Ethan flies back into his life with the kind of skill that bends airspace and the kind of determination that doesn’t care who notices.

As Black Tide races to intercept a shadow syndicate tied to the Directorate, Niko and Ethan are forced to confront everything they lost—and everything they still want. Ethan is no longer just a pilot. He is Pyre—a man who has spent years dismantling his father’s criminal empire from the inside, burning routes, money, and lives that deserved to fall.

And Gregory Rhodes, the monster who made him, is not done yet. With assassins closing in, a hostage taken, and a war igniting in the shadows, Niko and Ethan must decide what they are willing to destroy to keep each other safe—and whether love can survive when the world is on fire.

Be Warned: m/m sex

 

Excerpt: 

The aircraft settled into a sedate cruise, still flying dark, still invisible to anything that mattered.

Ethan kept them just off the expected corridors, riding airspace gaps the way he always did when he didn’t want to be logged, tracked, or remembered. No filed flight plan. No chatter. No questions asked on the way out—because there hadn’t been time to ask them, and no one left on the ground who mattered was inclined to start now.

They were four hours clear of Jakarta when his shoulders finally eased.

Not much. Just enough to breathe.

The engines hummed with a quieter note now, restrained and patient, the kind of sound that told him the jet was content to do exactly what he asked of it. He monitored systems out of habit more than concern, fingers brushing switches, eyes flicking over numbers he already knew by heart.

Behind him, the cabin was low and hushed.

The lights had been dimmed to a soft amber, throwing long shadows across bulkheads and gear racks. Bandages were stripped from sterile packets with quiet efficiency, the sound sharp in the stillness. Ethan could picture it without turning—Victor kneeling, methodical and precise, Tane hovering close enough to take over without being asked. No panic. No wasted movement. Just damage control.

He stayed facing forward because if he turned, if he watched, the tight knot in his chest would pull too hard, too fast.

Black Tide spoke softly when they spoke at all. Murmured updates. A clipped laugh. The rustle of fabric and gear being stowed. He caught fragments without turning—medical supplies unpacked, Victor’s voice steady and controlled, Tane’s sharper edge softened by focus.

“His leg wound is healing nicely,” Victor murmured. “If he stops getting captured and threatened, it should heal up all good.”

“Yeah,” Tane replied. “Niko, you just need to stop getting injured, bruh.”

Ethan swallowed. He had never been injury-prone before

He heard the pissed-off response from Niko, tightly controlled, but couldn’t make out the words.

Time stretched.

Then, quietly, footsteps approached.

Ethan didn’t look up when the copilot seat shifted. He didn’t need to in order to know who had joined him.

Niko settled in beside him with a tired exhale, movements measured, one hand braced briefly against the console before he eased his left leg into a more comfortable position.

They sat in silence.

Ethan became acutely aware of everything the cockpit held—the faint vibration through the yoke, the way the horizon line refused to stay perfectly still, the smell of recycled air layered with fuel and antiseptic drifting forward from the cabin. This was the place he understood best. A narrow, contained world governed by numbers and physics, not memory or consequence.

Niko’s presence disrupted that balance anyway.

Ethan could feel him beside him without looking. The careful way he breathed. The way he held himself as if pain were something to be negotiated with rather than endured.

The kind that pressed instead of comforted.

Ethan kept his eyes on the horizon, jaw tight, pulse suddenly loud in his ears. He had imagined this moment a hundred times in the years he’d spent not imagining it at all. None of those versions included the weight of Niko’s presence beside him—real, solid, breathing.

“You okay?” Ethan asked eventually, voice rougher than he meant it to be.

Niko nodded once. “Yeah.” A beat. “I will be.”

Ethan’s hands tightened briefly on the controls.

“Thank you,” Niko added, quieter. “For coming.”

Ethan let the words land.

“Any time,” he said.

Niko’s gaze shifted to the cockpit, taking in the layout with professional interest. “This is a hell of a plane.”

Ethan exhaled slowly. “Fastest commercial aircraft in the world. Modified to suit my style and needs. It’s a private registry and hard to find. She likes to stretch her legs.”

Niko huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “I thought so.”

Silence crept back in.

“I knew it was you,” Niko said finally.

Ethan stilled.

“When I saw that climb,” Niko continued. “No one flies like that unless they trust the air more than the rules.” He glanced sideways. “I knew it was you coming for me.”

Ethan didn’t answer.

He couldn’t trust his voice.

Because the truth was simpler and more dangerous than anything he could say out loud. He had never stopped listening for Niko in the sky. Never stopped measuring routes and weather and risk against the possibility—however remote—that one day he might need to fly like that again.

For him.

Because if he spoke, the truth would spill out in ways he didn’t trust himself to control.

They flew on.

After a moment, Niko asked, “How’s your wife?”

The question was careful. Neutral. A bridge extended without pressure.

Ethan swallowed. “She passed away. Eight months ago.”

Niko’s breath caught.

“It’s just me now,” Ethan added. “And Poppy.”

Niko turned fully toward him. “Poppy?”

“My daughter.”

The silence that followed was different.

Niko went very still.

Ethan felt it—the shift in the air, the recalibration happening behind Niko’s eyes. Shock. Calculation. Something like grief layered beneath it.

“I didn’t know,” Niko said finally.

“You weren’t meant to,” Ethan replied.

They sat with it.

Ethan let the silence stretch, knowing from long experience that it would do more work than explanation. He wondered how much Niko was mapping in his head now—how quickly he was connecting gaps, replaying old conversations, fitting new information into an old shape.

He wondered if Niko was angry yet.

Or if that would come later, once shock gave way to understanding.

Ethan wondered what Niko was thinking. About timelines. About choices. About a life Ethan had lived without him while refusing, stubbornly, to forget about him.

He wondered if Niko saw the same fault lines Ethan did—the places where one decision had fractured into a thousand consequences, each one taken alone, each one justified at the time.

Ethan had built his life small on purpose. Fewer points of leverage. Fewer people to threaten. Fewer reasons for his father to reach out and remind him who still held power.

Poppy had changed that.

And now Niko was sitting beside him, alive, furious, and asking questions Ethan wasn’t sure he deserved to answer. About timelines. About choices. About a life Ethan had lived without him while refusing, stubbornly, to forget about him.

Series:
/series-black-tide/

Product Reviews

Score: 5 out of 5 (based on 2 ratings)
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5/5
Controlled Drift Brings Action, Danger, Heat, Suspense, Loyalty, and Heart
Written by A.K. Shaw on 23rd Jun 2026

Controlled Drift is the third book in the Black Tide series. It picks up right where book two left off. From the very beginning, this installment pulls readers straight back into the danger, loyalty, suspense, and emotional intensity that make this series so compelling. The characters in this series continue to be one of its greatest strengths. The men of Black Tide are skilled, dangerous, fiercely loyal, and unapologetically protective of the people they love. Niko and Ethan are no exception. Like the rest of the Black Tide men, they have the specialized skills needed for the dangerous world they live in, and they are every bit as alpha, intense, and deadly when someone threatens what belongs to them. In this book, both Niko and Ethan are both targets, alebit Niko accidentally, which raises the stakes and keeps the action moving. The storyline is packed with suspense, danger, drama, and nonstop tension from the very first page. There is a constant sense that something is coming, and that energy keeps the book moving at a fast, addictive pace. The romance between Niko and Ethan is just as compelling as the action. Their story carries the weight of time, distance, and unresolved emotion, which makes their reconnection feel even more satisfying. The chemistry between them is steamy, but what makes their relationship work is the sense that their love has endured even through separation. Their connection is intense, passionate, and worth both the fight and the wait. What I enjoy most about Controlled Drift is how well the romance and suspense balance each other. The action never overwhelms the emotional core of the story, and the romance never slows down the danger surrounding them. Niko and Ethan’s relationship gives the book heart, while the threats against them keep the pages turning. The ending sets up the next book perfectly, with hints that the fourth installment may focus on Keanu along with two new characters, Rangi and Alexios. There definitely seems to be a past there, or at the very least the ghost of one, and I am already curious to see how that story unfolds. Overall, Controlled Drift is an action-packed, suspenseful, steamy, and highly entertaining addition to the Black Tide series. Niko and Ethan’s story delivers danger, passion, loyalty, and emotional payoff, while also setting the stage for what looks like another intense ride in book four. I can hardly wait.

5/5
MM Paramilitary Assassin find lost love
Written by KassH on 23rd Jun 2026

Niko Keahi and Ethan Rhodes had a past. They had been lovers at one time until Ethan’s father took that all away, forcing him into a marriage with a woman from another crime family, threating both Miko and Ethan’s younger brother Marko. She hadn’t wanted the marriage either a bore a child sired by her lover. But when she died, leaving Poppy as technically an orphan, Ethan was the only father she had ever known and he disappeared with her. As a critical member of Black Tide, a para-military group of assassins for the right reasons, when Niko is kidnapped in a case of mistaken identity, Black Tide reaches out to Ethan to help them get Niko back. Because Ethan is one of the most talented pilots in the world and he owns the fastest commercial jet in the world, two things Black Tide needs to save Niko. Controlled Drift has the requisite amount of gun battles and high tech ogling for any Black Ops junkie, but it is also a love story. It is book 3 of 3, but was released as a standalone. Be as that may, when I finished this book I loved it so much I ran right back to Amazon and bought books 1 and 2 in the series as this is just the genre I adore. Now I am looking forward to what I hope will be another release as there were enough things hanging to suggest it. Niko and Ethan do get their HEA.

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