Tread

by Mia Searles

Salvador “Tread” Diaz spent years burning through the underground racing scene before prison taught him one brutal truth:

Some mistakes cost everything.

Nine years later, Sal has rebuilt his life from the ground up. Grimline Treadworks, his custom automotive shop and rising reality series, has turned him into something legitimate. Controlled. Respected. Legend.

More importantly, it’s become a refuge for men like him. Men with scars. Men searching for redemption. Men the rest of the world gave up on.

Then Milana Sheppard walks back into his garage.
His best friend’s little sister.
The girl he spent years trying not to love.
The woman he never forgot.

Mila isn’t the soft eighteen-year-old he left behind anymore. She’s brilliant, guarded, and carrying scars of her own beneath the polished edges of the life she built without him. She came back with a proposition Sal never saw coming, one that drags them dangerously close again.

And Sal has never known how to stay away from her.
The closer they get, the harder it becomes to ignore the history between them. The tension. The unfinished feelings. The way Sal’s control slips every time someone looks at her too long.

Then Mila’s past comes crashing back into her life.
Threats. Obsession. A man who refuses to let her go.

And suddenly the only thing more dangerous than Salvador Diaz’s rage… is his devotion.

Because once Sal decides someone is his to protect?
He doesn’t let go.

TREAD is the first book in the Grimline Treadworks series - a gritty second-chance romance featuring feral devotion, protective obsession, found family, emotional redemption, and a hero willing to become dangerous for the woman he loves.

450 pages, Unknown Binding

Expected publication October 22, 2026

About the author

Mia Searles is an English teacher, artist, mother, and lifelong romance reader who has been falling in love with fictional heroes since she was young enough to sneak historical romance novels past unsuspecting adults.

She holds a B.A. in English with a minor in Art History and spends her days teaching literature, creating art from old books and recycled newspapers, and reminding students that stories matter.

When she's not writing, you'll find her listening to metal music, spending time with her family, or raiding a stash of Snickers and Haribo gummy bears.

Mia writes gritty contemporary romance featuring possessive heroes, found family, emotional redemption, and men who would burn down the world for the women they love, especially the ones who believe they're undeserving of love themselves.

TREAD is her debut novel and the first book in the Grimline Treadworks series.