Chapter One

S team filled the small bathroom, and the scent of lavender bodywash hung in the air, the closest thing to a spa that Shiloh Sutherland had experienced in months . She luxuriated under the warm flow of the shower and drank in the calming scents. Being in hiding meant she couldn’t go out for manicures or massages anymore. She couldn’t even risk being seen at the grocery store. But thanks to delivery services, she could quietly hole up within the four plain walls of her New York City apartment.

At night, she laid in bed listening to the sounds of city life humming around her, wishing she could be a part of it all. But it had to be this way if she wanted to stay alive.

Rubbing a towel over her damp hair, she reached for her fluffy bathrobe and slipped her arms in.

A soft metallic click shattered the silence.

Shiloh froze. The towel slipped from her fingers. Cold, hard steel pressed against the back of her head.

“Don’t move.” The voice was gruff, placid and terrifyingly close.

Under her still-warm skin, her blood went ice-cold.

Her mind raced as she flipped through every possible option of escape. Before her mind totally registered what was happening, her body flipped the switch into fight-or-flight mode. Desperation pulsed in her veins.

The odds were not in her favor.

She swallowed the sharp lump in her throat. Hadn’t she been waiting for this very moment? Ever since she ran away from William, she’d anticipated the moment he found her. Even hiding in plain sight in a city of eight million people, she knew her time was limited.

“You’re coming with me, Shiloh.” His breaths were as steady as hers felt frantic.

She drew in a deep breath and released it, filling herself with as much steadiness as she could muster with a bullet inches from the back of her head and her crazy ex’s finger on the trigger.

“Can I at least get dressed?”

William gave her a little shove in the shoulder to get her moving, but he didn’t shift the gun from her head.

She walked into her bedroom, taking slow steps more as a way to stall than from fear. What objects were in her bedroom that she could use? A mattress on the floor and a lamp beside it. Or one of three books she was reading, depending on her mood of the day.

Other than that, she didn’t own much. Living in hiding meant being a minimalist.

She swept a swift glance around the bedroom, but she didn’t see a single thing that she could use to defend herself against a man holding a gun, unless she whipped him with the pair of workout leggings dropped in the corner.

While she was in the shower, William had torn apart her room. Her closet door stood open, the garments dangling off hangers. What was he searching for?

Of course, she knew the answer. William Vanderpool might be a criminal aiding Russian terrorists, but first and foremost, he was a tech mogul.

He was searching for her laptop.

Good thing she was always prepared. Her system uploaded every scrap of evidence she had on him to a cloud, leaving nothing on the hard drive but the bare basics of pre-installed software. Since she hadn’t started her day yet, she hadn’t signed in. Thank god.

He shoved her in the back, causing her to stumble forward. “Get dressed.”

When she didn’t jump at his barked command, he stalked over to the closet and yanked a sundress off the hanger. He tossed it at her, but she let it fall to the floor.

No way was she leaving the house—at gunpoint—wearing uncomfortable clothes.

With a haughty tilt to her jaw, she slowly drifted to the closet. When she had a pair of leggings, an oversized T-shirt and a trench coat in hand, as well as undergarments, she finally turned to face her ex-boyfriend.

As their stares locked, a shiver ran through her. He was still handsome, carrying himself with the air of mystery that sucked her in at the beginning of their relationship. Back when she was dazzled by her boss.

Now she saw through the pretty exterior to the criminal core hidden underneath the expensive designer outfit he wore.

She cocked a brow. “Holding women at gunpoint in a two-thousand-dollar leather jacket?” She clicked her tongue. “What if you scuff it?”

He narrowed his brown eyes on her. “This is the last time I tell you to get dressed, Shiloh.”

“I’m not changing in front you. Get out of my bedroom.”

Two heartbeats passed, as if he was wondering how she could dupe him into leaving and make an escape. But she was trapped, and he knew it.

“Make it quick.” He turned and sauntered out as if he owned the building, leaving the door cracked open.

With a frustrated cry barricaded behind her sealed lips, Shiloh threw off her robe and dressed in seconds while her mind plotted her getaway.

The windows on the fifth floor were too high. The fire escape would take her to the ground, and she could immerse herself in the crowd that never seemed to thin on sidewalk. Maybe duck through an alley.

She was just eyeing the window when the door smashed off the inner wall of the bedroom, announcing her ex’s return. William stood there, a bag in hand. The bulky shape told her that he’d found her laptop and probably her phone too. Stashing them behind the trash bags in the kitchen cupboard wasn’t much of a hiding place.

He hustled her out of the apartment and into the street. He was tall, but so was she. Her long legs easily kept up with William as he yanked her down the sidewalk.

She cast a frantic look at the pedestrians and the cars lining the street. Taxi drivers honked their horns, and the general bustle of the city she’d utilized to hide herself now made her invisible.

Not one person was aware of a woman being taken against her will.

If she screamed, William just might be pushed to kill her. In the tight grasp of his fingers around her elbow, she felt a new tension in him. He was running off fear too—fear of what she could do to him if she went to the authorities with the dirt on him she’d scraped up.

He yanked her around a group of pedestrians. As they passed, she threw the older ladies a glance. None of them were paying attention to just another woman on the street.

Up ahead, a moving van was double-parked—the reason traffic was backed up and taxis were blasting their horns.

“Walk faster!” William’s voice was low and tight with anger.

Shiloh stopped dragging her feet. Nobody was going to help her. Not here.

Then she turned her head. A muscular man slammed the doors of the moving van and swung around just in time to meet her stare.

Military. He had military written all over him.

In a blink, her mind was made up. She mouthed: Help me!

She had no idea if William saw what she’d done, but the man’s face blurred past her vision as her kidnapper dragged her across the street. He ripped open the back door of a black car—armored, if she knew anything about the way William traveled. When he twisted his fingers in her hair, shoving her down into the back seat, she swallowed a scream.

William jumped into the front seat. The doors locked, and the vehicle shot off.

There was no escape. No hope of getting away from a man who would have no problem burying her in a shallow grave or dumping her off a pier into the Hudson River.

Hopelessness lodged as a hot brick in her chest. Then she glanced out the window and spotted a van. Not the moving van, but it reminded her of her silent plea to the broad-shouldered man on the street.

Was it her imagination, or had he given her an almost imperceptible nod?

* * * * *

Oaks Malone’s SEAL training kicked in. In the blink of an eye, he assessed the situation.

That woman was being forced against her will.

In the split second after she looked him dead in the eyes and mouthed help me , Oaks’s brain ran through several scenarios.

He could rush after her, tear the victim away from the man forcing her at a near run across the street and figure shit out after she was safe.

He could pull his weapon from where it was concealed in his waistband along the base of his spine and order the guy to stop. But there was also a cop making a big deal about the moving van being double-parked on a busy street to deal with, and Oaks couldn’t see the officer being very happy with him pulling out a gun.

The man now dragging the woman across the street at a fast clip was probably armed too.

Oaks couldn’t risk a shootout. There were too many people around. Too many casualties.

The best he could do…was follow.

He leaped in the van. The officer rapped on his window just as Oaks whipped the van into a tight U-turn in the middle of oncoming traffic in pursuit.

The black car wasn’t making a fast getaway. New York City traffic prohibited that, and the driver wasn’t trying to draw attention.

Oaks had seen him force the woman into the back seat by her hair.

She hadn’t even screamed. Why hadn’t she screamed?

There were plenty of reasons she’d allow herself to be taken, but Oaks wasn’t going to waste brainpower on them—not when he had to get a plan in place.

The whoop of the police siren forced a groan from his throat. Fucking hell. The last thing he needed to deal with was an officer who had no clue as to what Oaks was.

He was no longer military, but did anyone ever truly stop being military? Besides that, his job as a personal protection officer for Black Heart Security, his family’s company, gave him certain privileges.

Like disregarding the officer giving chase.

A bullhorn blasted from behind. “Stop!”

Ignoring the command, Oaks continued to tail the car.

The vehicle was clearly armored judging by the glass. Obviously, the man thought highly of his personal safety. It was a huge red flag and raised a lot of questions.

Who did he think was after him? And what did he need the woman for?

Luck was on Oaks’s side—he blew through a dozen red lights. The thirteenth one he ran with the cop right on his tail.

He’d had enough of this and ordered his phone’s automated assistant to call his brother, Carson.

A second later, Carson answered. “Where’d you go, man? We have a lot more boxes to put in the van—”

“Stop talking. Listen to me. I need you to call off the cops on my tail.”

“What the fuck , man? What did you do?”

“I’m following somebody. She’s been kidnapped.”

“What the hell? Jesus, Oaks.”

“Carson.” His brother’s name came out as a warning.

“Okay, okay. Give me a minute to handle the cops. Keep me posted on the rest.”

“Will do.” He bit off the words and ended the call with the same level of abruptness.

Another car managed to get between him and the black vehicle he pursued. It was a good thing, as now it didn’t look like he was directly following them. The driver must be crapping his pants with a cop flashing his lights a short distance behind, but he never slowed, nor stomped on the gas, continuing with his nonchalant act.

The vehicle between them acted as a buffer, but it also made it impossible to spot the black car’s turn signals. When they took a right, headed over the river to New Jersey, he had to whip into the other lane.

With a glance in his rearview mirror, he noticed the cop had shut off his lights. The siren stopped, and the cruiser continued on a straight path through the city.

Good—Oaks was on his own. Just the way he liked it.