"Sometimes you have to burn your world down before you can live in it."

Brian, a clean-cut recent college grad, takes a side job in an underground casino in New York City to make extra cash to help his derelict brother out of a jam. Nothing goes as planned, and soon, Brian is forced to team up with a charismatic co-worker to rob the mobsters who run the casino.

Lion on Fire is the third book by Ted Galdi, the Amazon number one best-selling author of Elixir and An American Cage. He's been featured by Kirkus magazine, ABC, FOX, iHeartRadio, and many other media outlets.

Main character Brian is shocked to learn that his younger brother not only has been dealing cocaine but foolishly lost a whole package of it, and now owes his boss $30,000. If Brian's brother doesn't come up with the money in a few weeks, he's dead.

Brian decides to help. However, he realizes scrapping together that sort of cash in such a short time frame is nearly impossible legally. So he approaches Dusty, another driver at the limousine company where he works, and asks him about the whispers of lucrative yet illegal side jobs he's heard among the staff.

After proving himself trustworthy with an initiation test, Brian is invited to participate in an underground driving network that shuttles wealthy individuals to extravagant, though illicit, gambling events set up in multi-million-dollar Manhattan penthouses.

At first things go smoothly, and Brian pockets a lot of much-needed extra income. However, they turn jarring once he finds out a high-profile Russian gangster is behind the gambling events and becomes mixed up with him not only professionally but personally.

With tensions rising, and the fate of Brian's relationships with his parents and girlfriend now entangled with the underground casino, not to mention the life of his brother, he winds up in a position where pulling off a mafia robbery may be his only chance to get himself and his loved ones out of this mess alive and intact.