Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

January 21 st

10:43 A.M.

"What's happening?" Lucy Elrod demanded.

The plane was making a horrible sound, and an alarm was blaring, screaming at them that something was wrong.

"We're going down," the pilot said. Considering what he'd just told her and the kind of wailing sound coming from the engine, he should not have said those words with such a steady calm.

The man didn't even look the teeniest little bit panicked while terror was clawing at her insides with a viciousness she hadn't felt in a long time.

It wasn't so much their likely impending death that had her hands growing clammy and her pulse kicking into high gear, after all, you didn't live your entire life with an illness that controlled everything you did and still get terrified of death.

Nope.

What had her heart hammering in her chest was the fear that had been on the face of her friend and fellow Prey Security colleague while they'd been video-calling just seconds ago. Scarlett Madden had just lived through a horrific ordeal. Kidnapped twice, accused of being a traitor, and of making plans to sell a drug that all four Athena Team members had created together to a notorious weapons trafficker.

With her name cleared and a fledgling relationship with SEAL Tate Laurier, Scarlett should be on cloud nine. Yet as soon as she'd glimpsed something in the plane she'd freaked out and demanded to see the pilot.

"Lucy, whatever happens, don't trust him," Scarlett's voice screamed through the phone she'd dropped and was now lying on the floor at her feet. "That's Zander, my brother. He's supposed to be dead. If he's there then you're not safe."

Shock had her turning to gape at the pilot.

At Zander Madden.

A man who was supposedly killed in action a little over eighteen months ago.

How could a dead Delta Force Operator be flying a plane for Prey?

Not possible.

While she hadn't met Zander many times in the years she'd been friends and teammates with his twin sister, what little she knew of him was that he was incredibly smart, driven, and determined. He also loved his sister despite the distance that had grown between them after he enlisted in the Army.

But that Zander would never allow Scarlett to think he was dead when he clearly wasn't.

So, if he'd been prepared to deceive his twin in the worst possible way, what else was he willing to do?

Was it a stretch to wonder if he was somehow the mole who had framed his sister to take the fall for him? How would Zander even know about the Reactivator? They'd started working on it six months before his supposed death, so there was a chance Scarlett had talked to him about it.

But why would he want to sell his twin sister's drug to a weapons trafficker?

And why had he taken this job when he knew it would put him in contact with Prey and someone who knew his sister?

There was no time to quiz the man on what exactly it was he was doing here and what he hoped to achieve because the plane engine was still whining, and Zander—who had introduced himself to her as Zeke when she met him at the airfield—was the only thing standing between her and certain death.

Did she trust him?

Nope.

Not as far as she could throw him.

Which was not far at all. While physical fitness was important to her, a way to compensate for her epilepsy, and she spent a minimum of an hour working out in the gym every single day, there was no way her slight five foot three, one hundred and ten pound frame could so much as budge Zander's.

He had to be at least six foot three and close to two hundred pounds of pure muscle. His eyes were blue, but she knew he had to be wearing contacts because Zander Madden's eyes were brown just like his twin's. With a deep tan and his hair a little darker than she remembered, it was no wonder she hadn't recognized him.

"Why are you here?" she demanded as her hands curled around her seatbelt. Not that the belt across her stomach was going to do her much good when they crashed. From the way Zander was fighting with the plane and the ground quickly rushing up to meet them, she knew that it was the inevitable outcome.

"To fly the plane," Zander muttered, making her roll her eyes. So he was a smart alec as well as a liar.

"Real funny, wise guy," she shot back. "You know who I am. You're not here by accident. Does Eagle know who you really are? Are you here because of what happened to your sister? Are you the one who set Scarlett up?"

Throwing her a quick glare, Zander asked, "You really want to have that conversation now? Because I'm thinking I'm the only thing standing between us and certain death."

Yep, he was a smart alec all right.

The thing was that with Scarlett's revelation, Lucy had no idea if she could trust a single thing about this man. For all she knew, he was faking an issue with the plane in order to gain her trust. After all, everything had been going smoothly right up until she'd gotten the call from Ella Whitlock, another member of Athena Team, and spoken with Scarlett.

Then all of a sudden, the plane started blaring an alarm.

So forgive her for being suspicious of the ghost man.

"Are we really going to crash?" she asked.

Shooting her an incredulous look, he shook his head at her like he wasn't convinced she wasn't crazy. "Not if I can help it."

"I mean, is there really an issue with the plane or are you faking it?"

"Are you for real? What does it look like?" Zander waved his arms to indicate the flashing warning light on the control panel and the alarm that still blared.

"Gee, forgive me for being suspicious of you, ghost man," she muttered, wishing she knew more about flying planes. While she was a total adrenalin junky, chasing highs wherever she could find them, there was a lot her epilepsy prohibited her from doing. Flying planes was one of them, heck, she wasn't even allowed to drive a car because, unfortunately, for her even with her medication there was a chance she would have a seizure behind the wheel.

Ignoring her, Zander kept doing whatever it was he was doing, which didn't seem to be working if you asked her because the green of the jungle beneath them was quickly getting closer. Which left her with nothing to do but think about the fact that she was mere moments away from likely dying.

Leaving behind her parents, who had always been there for her, standing at her side during her lowest moments, and her four siblings, who drove her crazy but who she loved fiercely, would be hard, but it was leaving her fur baby behind that hurt the worst. While all of her family would grieve her, at least her parents and siblings, nieces and nephews, would all understand what had happened, but her poodle, Cotton, would never understand why she didn't come home.

The thought of her sweet, slightly neurotic, fluffy baby forever waiting for her to walk through the door had tears blurring her vision.

Lucy didn't want to die, she didn't want to leave behind so many people that she loved and cared about. Practical, sensible, no-nonsense, those were all the words people would use to describe her, but in this moment, she didn't feel any of those things. She just wanted to scream and cry that it wasn't fair, that her life shouldn't end like this.

"Brace for impact," Zander announced.

"I thought you were going to stop us from crashing," she snapped, glowering at Zander. Somehow, she couldn't help but feel like this was all somehow his fault. Just because she didn't know how didn't mean it wasn't. Although why he'd risk his own life just to kill her she had no idea.

Looking over at her, there was still not an ounce of panic or concern in his eyes, despite their situation, and she envied his ability to not care that he was about to die for real. "We're going to crash. There's nothing I can do about it, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure we survive the landing."

There was zero reason why she should believe him.

Yet she did.

Giving him a shaky nod, Lucy adopted the brace position and started counting seconds, wondering if she was counting down to the end of her life.

She had to be.

Right?

There was no way, even if he was the most skilled pilot on the planet—and Zander had been in Delta Force, he wasn't in the air force so his skills couldn't be the best—that he could really land the plane with mechanical problems in the middle of the jungle.

No way.

Moments later, her worst fears were confirmed when they collided with the trees, and she was tossed about, held in place only by her flimsy seatbelt. It was no match against the force of the crash, and when her head slammed into the side of the plane it was lights out.

January 21 st

10:56 A.M.

Agony speared through Zander Madden's skull.

Trying to open his eyes turned out to be a big mistake.

Sunlight shot through them, and he promptly turned his head and threw up.

Great.

A concussion.

That was the last thing he needed right now.

It had been a big risk to take on this flight, but his entire future was riding on this job going smoothly. He'd been hoping that given what had just happened to his sister, he wouldn't have to make contact with her because while he could fool anybody else there was no way his twin wouldn't recognize him the second she laid eyes on him no matter the changes he'd made to his appearance.

Damn his twin for ruining this.

If everything he had worked so hard for fell apart because of Scarlett, he was going to be furious. Not with his sister, Scarlett was the only person in the world who loved him—well, she used to love him, but there was every chance she now hated him—but with the world in general.

This wasn't how he'd wanted things to turn out, but in life you had no choice but to play the hand you were dealt.

That was all he was doing here, but it still sucked.

However, looking on the bright side, he had survived the crash.

Shockingly.

Despite the fact he'd played it cool when they were up in the air—he had no choice, it was the only thing that gave them a chance at living—inside he'd been panicking. He didn't want to die for real.

He hadn't wanted to fake his death either.

But again, it was the whole playing the hand you were dealt thing.

This time, he inched his eyes open more slowly. One eye was harder to open than the other, and when he lifted a hand to brush at it, he found that blood had dribbled down over it, sticking to his eyelashes. An impressive set, the kind that made girls jealous, his sister had always told him.

The set of eyelashes on his gorgeous passenger was also pretty impressive.

Actually, everything about Lucy Elrod was impressive. Zander was a sucker for a beautiful blonde, throw in a set of baby blues, and he was a goner. She was everything he usually looked for in a woman, pretty, intelligent, and down to earth. He'd been attracted to her from the first time he met her, but since you didn't date your sister's friends, he'd never done anything about it. For the last several years he'd merely admired her from afar. Respected the hell out of the fact that she never once allowed her epilepsy to hold her back from doing anything. Sure, there were times when her condition prohibited her from doing something she wanted to, but instead of complaining or moping about it, she just looked for a workaround, an alternative.

In the plane, she'd been afraid when his sister spilled the beans on who he was, but she hadn't backed down, hadn't cowered, she'd still sassed him right up until the end when he'd yelled at her to brace for the inevitable crash.

Had Lucy survived as well?

Honestly, his life would be a whole lot easier if she'd died on impact. Awful as that made him sound, it was the truth.

Prying open his other eye, Zander did a quick inventory of his body. There were aches and pains all over, but there was nothing that screamed at him that it was a life-threatening injury. The head injury was probably going to be his biggest concern. Concussions sucked, he'd had a few in his years in Delta Force, and he knew the nausea, headaches, and dizziness were going to make traipsing through the Mexican jungle that much more unpleasant.

At least the plane had landed right side up, that was a small plus. Unsnapping his seatbelt, Zander shoved to his feet, barely sparing Lucy a glance. It was better for her if she was dead, and if he was going to sell her death then he didn't want to risk slipping up by checking to see if she had survived.

So he bypassed her and headed to the back of the plane to grab his survival pack. Always be prepared. The Boy Scout's motto. An acceptable extracurricular activity as far as his parents and grandparents were concerned, and the only one he'd been allowed to do as a kid. While he certainly hadn't expected to crash, he'd done what he always did and packed everything he would need to survive if the situation arose.

Just as he was hefting the pack onto his back, needing to keep one hand on the warped metal of the plane to keep his balance, he heard it.

About the worst sound he could have heard in this moment.

Not the sound of gunfire, or an explosion, or the sound of approaching footsteps, which out here were likely to belong to one of the cartels.

A moan.

A small one.

A pained one.

And there was only one person it could have belonged to.

Damn it.

Lucy had also survived the crash.

Too bad for her. A quick death would have been preferable to whatever Raul Castillo was going to do once he got his hands on her.

The notorious weapons dealer was not a man who was known to give up on something he wanted. Especially when he had already invested a lot of time and money on it. If Raul had decided that he was going to own the Reactivator, a drug created by Scarlett, Lucy, and the other two members of their team, then he would keep going until he got his hands on it. It was a wonder drug if ever there was one. When finished, it would help to give injured soldiers in the field a better chance at surviving their injuries by helping to dull pain, encourage fast healing, slow bleeding, and provide extra adrenalin to keep them on their feet.

Initially, Raul wanted the drug to sell to the highest bidder, and he'd kidnapped Scarlett in hopes of forcing the formula from her. When his sister had refused to give up the intel she'd been horribly tortured. Even after she'd been rescued, Raul hadn't been willing to give up on his plans, and managed to kidnap her a second time.

Just because Scarlett had been rescued then, too, and she was surrounded by too many people to make a third attempt successful, Raul was still determined to get what he wanted.

Enter Zander.

This game had always been risky, but it had just gotten much riskier.

Now that he knew Lucy was alive, he had no choice but to take her with him.

"Damn it, sassy girl, why couldn't you have just died and made both our lives so much simpler," he murmured aloud.

Turning back to the front of the plane, he did a visual sweep of Lucy. Like himself, there was a gash on her head, and blood streaked her face. One of her arms hung limply at her side, the other was resting on her lap, from the angle of it there was no doubt it was broken. Still, at least it wasn't a compound fracture. Out here infection would have gotten her for sure.

Strike that.

It would be better for her if infection killed her before Raul got his hands on her.

Crouching at her side, he battled another wave of dizziness as he ran his hands up and down her body in search of other injuries. There was nothing that stood out to him, although since she wasn't conscious there was always the chance of internal injuries he didn't know about.

Another moan tumbled from her lips, and her eyelashes began to flutter on cheeks that had lost their rosiness in the aftermath of the crash.

"Lucy? Come on, sassy girl, wake yourself up," he encouraged, cupping her cheek and sweeping his fingertips across her cheek with a gentleness that could wind up being dangerous. It didn't matter how attracted he was to Scarlett's friend, how attracted he had always been to her, there was no way he could allow it to develop into anything more.

"Mmm … Z … Zander …?" she murmured as her eyes finally opened. They weren't focused and he didn't have to ask any other questions to know that she also had a concussion.

"Yeah. I'm here."

"You … did it. We're … alive." Clear incredulity was in her voice, and he smiled despite the awful situation they found themselves in.

"Yeah, told you I could."

"You did good, ghost man."

A flash of pain shafted through his chest, and it had nothing to do with the crash and his injuries.

He was a ghost now, and that was how it should have stayed. Scarlett should never have learned that he was still alive. She was never supposed to. There was no going back from the choices he'd made, and while it was fair that he had to live with the consequences it sucked that his twin sister had to as well.

But there was nothing he could do about that.

Nothing he could do about what was going to happen to Lucy either.