My father was a complicated man.

The world knew him as a criminal who consorted with other, worse criminals. To me, he was my savior—the man whod rescued a scared, orphaned little girl. Hed taken me in when I had no one. Duty bound, I became the woman he wanted me to be.

Powerful. Respected. Resourceful.

The Mediator. The Dove.

Strictly speaking I was criminal, too, only I didn't consort, I commanded a team of assassins—though I preferred to call them mercenariesIt sounded less nefarious, less criminal, and more palatable. Two words that meant the same thing Men who at my call would do my bidding. I lived in the grey, in the shadows. I kept the darkness at bay, acting on behalf of the good people of the world who didn't deserve anarchy to spill out from the underbelly of society. I was on the right side of evil.

Or so I thought.

The mentor I trusted, a man who alongside my father taught me the skills I needed to survive, turned out to be nothing more than a greedy traitor.

With no choice I continued to play their game. Only, I changed the rules.

Unfortunately, that led me straight to the one person I'd done everything in my power to avoid—Zane “Viper” Lewis. I knew his secret. The one thread of the intricate web he'd flawlessly woven that could ruin everything he'd built. I was prepared to keep his secret in exchange for help.

But as with all things Viper, nothing was simple. He had other plans and my life went spiraling out of control.

Life-altering lies and deceit.

The kind that tore your soul apart and killed your spirit.

With nothing left, once again I changed the rules.

I was the mediator. The fixer. The student who had learned really freaking well how to play the game. And it was damn time they all learned—with their last breaths—just who they made me into.

The fatal flaw: Easton Spears. The man I never should've let in. But I needed to know what it felt like to be loved. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like having someone see me, the real me, not the Mediator or Dove, but Nebraska Michaels. I wanted it so desperately I gave him what he asked for—my heart. And in return, he showed me a world I didn't know existed.

To execute my mission, I'd have to turn my back on the first person who'd ever truly loved me. I'd have to give up the man I'd fallen in love with.

I had a plan for that, too.

But just like everything else, that went FUBAR.