Chapter 1

January 7th

10:59 P.M.

Something snapped Scarlett Madden awake.

Bolting upright, she scanned her dark bedroom.

Nothing moved amongst the shadows, and as much as she strained her ears, she couldn't hear anything either.

A dream?

That didn"t seem to be particularly likely. Sure, her childhood had been rough, but it wasn't abusive per se, and working for the world-renowned Prey Security she'd seen a lot, but her job was mostly lab work. Nightmares had never been a problem for her, and she doubted she'd randomly had one.

Couldn't remember one anyway.

She'd just been asleep and now she was awake, and the feeling in her gut said something was off.

While she was a romantic when it came to matters of the heart, in all other aspects of her life, she was every bit the logical, sensible, practical scientist. If she felt like something was wrong, she was going to make sure she was prepared if she was right.

If she wasn't, then, no harm no foul.

Inching her way closer to the side of her bed where her cell phone was sitting on her nightstand, she tried not to make any noise. She'd grab the phone, then send out a text while she snuck over to her walk-in closet where her weapon was locked in its box.

Positive she was overreacting, Scarlett tamped down on the fear that was rolling around in her stomach. No one was in her house, maybe something had bumped into the window, and that had woken her up. Or it could be the neighbors, they had been known to have huge fights in the middle of the night. She'd had to call the cops a couple of times because she'd been worried one of them was going to wind up in the hospital. Or it could have been a car hitting something in the street. A couple of weeks ago, someone had knocked down all the garbage bins driving drunk.

Or the whole thing was just her imagination.

This was going to turn out to be nothing, and the other women on her team were going to tease her about it for the rest of their lives.

Still, better to be teased than dead.

Just as she reached a trembling hand out to scoop up her cell phone, she heard it.

Footsteps.

Definitely not her imagination.

Someone really was inside her house.

Trying to pretend she wasn't panicking was completely off the table now. Scrambling, she grabbed the phone and darted across the room and into her closet. Of course, it was the first place any intruder was going to look for her, but all she had to do was text one of her colleagues at Prey, grab her weapon, and then she could hunker down and defend herself till backup arrived.

Defend herself.

She'd never once in her life been in a position where she had to defend herself.

As a kid, she'd had to be mentally prepared for the psychological warfare her family loved to play, but she'd defied them and refused to join the military, instead choosing to fight evil with her brain. Sure, she knew how to shoot and had been taught almost as soon as she could walk. And she knew plenty of self-defense moves, too.

But knowing them and practicing them in a gym wasn't at all the same as actually having to use them in real life to protect herself.

Just as she reached up on tiptoes to grab the gun lock box, Scarlett heard the door to her bedroom ease open.

They were so close.

She only had seconds to do something before she wound up just another statistic.

If her parents could see her now, they'd be appalled. They had always accused her of being too weak, too soft, of not having what it took to be a warrior. While she would have sworn that their narrowmindedness could no longer affect her it seemed she was wrong. Seconds away from death—if she was lucky a quick death, if not, it would be rape and death—and she was worrying about the fact that as far as her family was concerned, she was nothing but a great big disappointment.

Unlocking her phone, she started typing out a text one-handed as she pulled the gun box down, grabbed the key, and squeezed herself into the back corner of the closet. Hiding behind her long winter coats, Scarlett barely breathed as she heard footsteps cross the room.

There were only so many places you could hide in a bedroom. Under the bed and in the closet had to be the top two, and she had no doubt that if someone had gone to all the trouble of breaking in here, they weren"t going to leave just because she wasn't sleeping tucked in under the covers.

Her walk-in closet led through to the attached bathroom, which she was sure the intruder would check next. If he didn"t thoroughly search the closet, she might buy herself a little time, but not enough for help to arrive.

With the gun box open, she picked up the weapon.

It felt much heavier than usual in her shaking hand.

Could she do it?

Could she shoot to kill if it was the only way to protect herself?

Scarlett honestly doubted that she could.

Wasn't even sure she could shoot to disable the intruder long enough for someone from Prey to show up.

Had it been a mistake to text her team rather than call 911?

Pure instinct had been driving her. The people at Prey were the best and she trusted them implicitly. But now that she thought about it, the cops probably could have gotten here quicker than one of her colleagues.

It was too late to second guess her decision now.

The door to her walk-in closet opened, and two huge black boots walked in. Of course, Scarlett knew that the boots were attached to a person, but right now, they were all she could see. All she could fixate on.

They were huge.

The largest pair of shoes she had ever seen.

How big was the man they belonged to?

Big enough to crush her like a bug, she knew that much.

Slowly, the boots moved through the wardrobe. The gun in her hand shook. She was holding her breath. Her pulse pounded so loudly she was quite honestly shocked that the intruder didn"t hear it.

After walking to her bathroom and looking inside, the man turned and headed back toward the door. As badly as she wanted to let out a breath of relief, she knew she wasn't even close to being out of the woods yet. It was obvious she had been in her bed, which meant he knew she was somewhere in the house. He'd search it and find her.

Then …

She didn"t have to know exactly what this man had planned to know it would be bad for her.

Just as he was about to re-enter her bedroom the intruder stopped.

The shoes turned around until they were facing her again.

He knew she was in here.

The breath she had been holding shuddered out of her. She lifted the weapon and pointed it at the man.

Do it, Scarlett.

It might be her only chance.

If she hesitated, it could be too late.

Life and death.

You have to do it.

What were the chances that the intruder wasn't armed? None. Zero. Zilch. If he didn"t have a gun, he'd have a knife or something equally as capable of killing her.

At the exact same second, she found her courage and fired her weapon at the man who had broken into her home in the middle of the night, he must have fired too.

Pain burned through her arm, causing her to drop both her weapon and her phone as her good hand instinctively went to press against the searing agony.

Voices shouted.

Footsteps pounded through her house.

But …

Prey couldn't be here yet.

Could they?

"She shot him!" a voice shouted.

Definitely not Prey.

Scarlett didn"t recognize the voice.

"A kill shot," a second man said.

There were at least three men who had broken into her home. What did they want? Why were they doing this to her?

"Scarlett Madden, put your weapon down and come out," a third voice ordered.

They knew who she was.

How did they know who she was?

This wasn't random.

They'd come for her.

Specifically.

But why?

Tears of pain, fear, and frustration rolled down her cheeks, and she scrambled to pick up the weapon she had dropped.

No way was she coming out. If she had to, she would shoot every single one of them. Just because she hadn"t followed in her family's footsteps didn"t make her weak, or pathetic, or any of the other insults that had been slung at her over the years.

"Boss wants her alive," a fourth man said, and a couple of muttered curses followed.

Then the next thing she knew, five men were storming into her closet, grabbing at her, dragging her out of her hiding place, and pulling the weapon she'd only just reclaimed a grip on out of her hand. It was tossed uselessly onto the floor beside her cell phone.

Training flew out of her mind. Scarlett just fought like her life depended on it.

Because it did.

Throwing punches and kicks, she was sure she connected a couple of times at least. Not that it did any good. There were five of them to one of her.

Something sharp pricked the side of her neck.

Her vision grew fuzzy, limbs heavy, and then, poof, everything just … disappeared.

January 8th

8:38 A.M.

"What the hell?"Tate Laurier exclaimed as he and his Navy SEAL team walked in for a mission briefing.

Taped up to the board was a picture of a woman he knew.

Not just knew, had slept with.

Not just had sex with, but been unable to forget about afterward.

That wasn't normal for him.

At all.

While he was hardly a playboy, he had a strict one-and-done policy when he was with a woman. Easier to avoid heartbreak that way. Watching his dad grieve long and hard after his mom had died, he had sworn off the whole idea of relationships and forever.

Not even love guaranteed forever.

No way was he going to willingly invite that kind of pain into his life. Losing his mom had been hard enough, he wasn't going to risk falling in love and possibly losing a partner as well.

The woman on the board was the only woman he'd ever slept with and thought about afterward. For months. Almost three of them. That's how long it had been since he'd had sex with Scarlett Madden, and he still wasn't over it.

Couldn't get the damn woman out of his head.

And he didn"t like it one bit.

But he didn"t want her out of his head bad enough that he wanted her to be the focus of an op because that meant something had happened to her. Something that needed his kind of skill set.

Looking from him to the photo pinned to the board and back again, his CO asked, "You know her?"

"Yeah. I know her," Tate replied as he took a seat at the table. And now he might never get a chance to know more about her. Months of doing his best to forget her sweet giggle and shy smile, her warm milk chocolate brown eyes, and long silky black locks. The woman had made an impression on him because she was the opposite of who he usually slept with. She had white picket fence and happy ever afters written all over.

Everything he didn"t want.

Everything he couldn't give her.

So, he'd ignored her calls and texts. Even went so far as to pretend he didn"t remember her when they'd accidentally bumped into one another at the supermarket one day.

Humiliating her by pretending he hadn"t even remembered her name or that they'd met hadn"t felt good.

In fact, it was one of the things he felt the most guilty about.

Sleazy, slimy, dirty.

Problem was, he should never have touched her in the first place, but there were no do-overs in life. Tate had known from the moment he laid eyes on the giggling woman dressed up as Little Bo Peep at a Halloween party at a local bar he frequented that she wasn't for him. Too sweet, too good, too pure. The kind of woman he had no business taking into his bed when he was neither sweet, good, or pure.

"This going to be a problem?" his CO asked.

"No." The word came out automatically, but if Tate were to think about it, maybe it could be a problem. Unlike with any other woman, he wasn't completely clearheaded when it came to Scarlett. Despite knowing that he absolutely did not want to fall in love and get married, he couldn't seem to rid the woman from his thoughts.

If it was just getting himself off replaying that night in his mind it would be one thing. But it was more. The woman intrigued him, brought out a protective side of him, worse, a softer side.

He could do this though.

Treat her as though she were any other op he and his team were sent on.

Before his CO could press him on it, and he knew the man well enough to tell that he wasn't convinced, the door to the room opened, and a group of men followed by three women walked in.

What was going on?

Tate would have sworn that the men belonged to Prey Security. Were they involved in whatever was going on with Scarlett? It wouldn't be the first time that a SEAL team would work with Prey, but he couldn't figure out what Scarlett could have gotten messed up in that would necessitate a joint Navy Prey mission.

"I"m sure you've all heard of Owen "Fox" LeGrand," their CO said, nodding to the man who had joined him at the head of the table.

Yeah, every SEAL knew of Fox and his team. They were all retired SEALs who had gone to work for Prey. Prey Security was legendary in the special ops world. While the company also worked private security for wealthy clients, their covert ops made them well known in the special forces' community.

The expression on Fox's face was tight, as were the expressions on the five other men and three women who had come in with him. Tate recognized the other men. Ryder "Spider" Flynn, Eric "Night" McNamara, Logan "Shark" Kirk, Grayson "Chaos" Simpson, and Charlie "King" Voss. All six men were married with families, and he had no idea how they had managed to make family life work knowing what they did about the world and the evil that permeated it.

While he knew the men, the three women sitting in the room he'd never seen before. The former SEALs looked angrier, but there was fear in the women's faces, and he wondered who they were to Scarlett. Not family, because there was no way they would be allowed here without high enough security clearances. So, who were they?

"What"s going on?" he asked, anxiety mounting inside him. What had happened to Scarlett? And why did he care so much?

Fox's dark eyes met his and narrowed slightly, but the older man didn"t comment, just moved his gaze to take in the entire gathering. "Scarlett Madden is part of Prey Security's Athena Team," he said, pointing to the picture of Scarlett on the board and then to the other three women.

Shock would have knocked him over if he wasn't already sitting down.

Scarlett Madden worked for Prey?

The sweet, innocent woman he had known he was corrupting just by taking her into his bed worked for the best private security company in the world?

How was that possible?

And how had he not seen beneath the pretty pink veneer to the skilled warrior beneath?

Gullible just like his father.

Anger slowly bubbled to life inside him, knowing he'd been played. For months now, he'd been obsessing over Scarlett, thinking she was all soft and perfect, too good for him, and all that time she'd been lying to him.

Okay, lying was a stretch. He hadn"t told her much about himself either. They'd laughed and talked, shared some food, then headed back to Scarlett's house to spend the night.

"She works for Prey?" he asked, needing to hear it said again.

Fox's eyes narrowed again. "Do you know Scarlett?"

"You"re Tate Laurier," one of the women said. She was a little younger than the others, with long chestnut brown hair and large brown eyes. With her head tilted to the side, she examined him, and he very much felt like a bug under a microscope.

If these women knew his name, then it was obvious Scarlett must have talked to them about him. But what exactly had she said? And more importantly, what was she doing for Prey that had garnered the Navy's attention?

"What happened to her?" he asked, ignoring both the older man's question and the young woman's observation. Angry with Scarlett for not telling him she was part of Prey—unjustified as it might be—didn"t mean that his anxiety had disappeared.

"Last night a little before midnight, Scarlett sent out a text to Lucy," Fox said, nodding to a blonde with light blue eyes. "It just said help. Athena Team does not work in the field, they are primarily a team of scientists who work on processing forensics for Prey. They also do some development work for us. While they are all trained, they rarely have cause to use those skills. Lucy alerted me, and since I live about ten minutes from Scarlett's house, I went straight there. I found her back door open, a dead body in her bedroom, along with a puddle of blood in the walk-in closet. There was no sign of Scarlett."

Kidnapping.

Not random if it had been more than one man and she'd been taken.

If it was just some sicko, he would have done what he wanted with her and then killed her.

Fox stood with a piece of paper in his hand and went to the board, pinning up a picture of what was clearly a dead man. The shot between the eyes was a direct kill shot. Scarlett might not spend a lot of time in the field, but she had skills.

"I'm sure you"re all familiar with this tattoo," Fox said, pointing to a mark in the hollow of the dead man's neck.

As soon as he saw it, Tate knew what it was.

A small gun surrounded by a ring of dynamite.

The symbol of one of the world's most dangerous weapons traffickers.

Why had the notorious Raul Castillo sent a team after a woman who worked in a lab at Prey? Made zero sense.

"There's more," he said, looking to Fox, who nodded tightly.

"We also discovered an email that indicates someone might be trying to sell the wonder drug Athena Team have been working on," Fox informed them.

There was no need for the man to say more.

The person who was trying to sell the drug to a notorious arms dealer was none other than Scarlett herself.