Prologue

PROLOGUE

U pstate New York, many years ago . . .

Kane Townsend crossed his arms and stared down at his new baby sister. Her name was Penelope and Kane stuck his bottom lip out as only an angry six year old could. He didn't want another sibling. He was the fifth of nine now. Smack dab in the middle of the Townsend family. He was already ignored and now he'd be even more so. At least he didn't have to share his toys with her.

The little baby batted her eyes at him as if she could read his thoughts. Damon, the oldest of the Townsend nine at twelve years old, had made all his younger siblings bring a present for their little sister. Kane had brought a toy policeman.

Kane grinned at the squirming baby. A girl wouldn't want that. Kane glanced around, and when his mom wasn't looking, he reached into the crib to grab his policeman back.

He'd almost reached his favorite toy when Penelope grabbed his finger, yanked it to her mouth, and gummed it. She gurgled up at him happily as she refused to let go of his finger.

"I think she likes you," Damon said from behind him.

"Well, I don't like her," Kane pouted. "No one sees me now. They'll never see me with her around."

"I see you, brother." Damon put his hand on Kane's shoulder and squeezed. "Come on, let's go play cops and robbers. I bet Hunter will play with us too."

"Hunter always wins," Kane said, continuing with his pout.

Hunter was third of the Townsend nine. Damon, Stone, Hunter, Olivia, Kane, Wilder, then the twins, Forrest and Rowan, and now Penelope. Damon and Stone were the closest. Then Hunter and their smarty pants of a sister, Olivia, were always together. Wilder floated. Sometimes he was with Kane, but he was mostly with Forrest and Rowan. That left Kane all alone.

"How about you and Hunter make a team and Stone and I will make a team?" Damon suggested.

"Fine," Kane said, giving up any hope of getting his toy back from their little sister. "But Hunter and I get to be the cops."

Kane shuffled his feet out the front door of their house and out onto the porch. They lived in a small town in rural Upstate New York. They could walk to town, but it was a hike. However, they had a lot of land to run wild on. Kane liked to hide in the woods and pretend to be a cop searching for thieves or kidnappers. Damon would hide a toy that he "kidnapped," and Kane would spend all afternoon searching for it and then rescuing it.

Damon, Hunter, and Stone came tumbling out the front door. They were laughing and pushing each other. They stopped by Kane and the plan was hatched. These were good times for Kane. He loved playing with his siblings. Damon and Stone took off into the woods as Kane and Hunter counted to one hundred.

"You're the best at finding them," Hunter told him. "I'm glad I'm on your team."

Okay, so maybe if Penelope was like his brothers, it wouldn't be so bad. His family was pretty cool at times.

Kane walked into the bedroom he shared with his brothers. It had been a room full of bunk beds for years. Then Stone left to go play hockey and Hunter left to join the military. Damon was moved into his own room and that left Kane, Wilder, Forrest, and Rowan in a room together.

Kane glanced around to make sure he was alone before closing the door and going to his desk. He pulled out the chair, opened the drawer, and pulled out the stack of envelopes. The deadline to decide which college to attend was drawing closer.

His mom had the younger kids down at the pond ice skating. His father was at work, like always, and so it was up to Kane to decide what to do. His parents were great but overwhelmed. His father worked two jobs. He had to with nine kids. His mother was constantly cooking and taking care of the younger ones. Kane knew there was no money for college, which made this decision harder to make. Did he go to college or not?

There was a knock on the door and it opened before Kane could shove the acceptance letters back into his desk. He hadn't wanted to burden his parents with the decision because he knew they would break their backs to make college happen for him.

"Hey," Damon said, striding into the room and taking a seat on Wilder's chair.

"What's up? Did you need something?" Kane asked, trying to play it cool with the stack of papers sitting on his desk.

Damon didn't even glance at them. "It's time to make a decision about college. I know you've been accepted to at least four colleges."

Kane was shocked. He thought he'd kept it quiet. "Eight colleges, but how do you know that?"

Damon was Kane's complete opposite in both appearance and personality. Kane was tall, lean, and muscular. He had brownish-blond hair and blue eyes. Damon had black hair and his eyes looked brown until you were closer and realized they were a dark gray. He worked as a mechanic and had begun customizing motorcycles and he looked it. He was jacked.

"I know everything, bro. Well, except for the other four colleges. They must have come in when I was at work. Congrats. That's a huge accomplishment. The question is though, why didn't you tell us?"

Kane leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath. "I'm not super smart like Olivia, who got a full ride. I'm not talented enough in sports to go pro like Stone. I'm not Special Forces material like Hunter either. And I'm not knowledgeable in a trade like you are to start my own garage. I don't know if I can go to college and I don't want Mom and Dad to feel guilty for not having enough money to pay for it. I don't even know what I want to major in, so it'll probably just be a waste for me to go."

Damon nodded with understanding. He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees, and looked Kane right in the eyes. "You know what you want to do. I know what you want to do. Why not just talk about it?"

Kane laughed without humor. "I'm so glad you know all about me. Want to enlighten me?"

"You people watch. You're fascinated with crime and the psychology behind it. You're constantly trying to figure out what makes a person tick."

Okay, so maybe his brother did know him. "Yeah, but that's not a job."

"Sure, it is. You have two tracks you can go down. Criminal justice or psychology. Ever heard of criminal profiling?"

Kane leaned forward now, with his heart picking up a bit at the sound of that job. "No, what is it?"

"You like research, pull it up on your computer." Damon sat back and waited as Kane read. Everything clicked into place. This was the grown-up version of cops and robbers. The mental part of crime solving was fascinating to him. "What do you think?"

Kane leaned back in his chair and turned to face Damon. "I think this is the only job I've ever been excited about. But, again, how do I afford it?"

"Show me the colleges you got in. Let's first find the one that's the best for this type of job. Then we'll worry about the money."

Kane laid out the acceptance letters across his desk. They researched them all and came down to the reasonable one and the dream one. "This one in Washington, D.C. would be perfect, but even with this scholarship, I'll still owe ten thousand dollars a year. I just can't make it happen."

Damon shook his head. "No. It's the best program for you. You're going. You can get a part-time job, a loan, and Stone and I can cover the rest. This is it. Accept it."

"You already pay for so much, Damon. You help Olivia with books and stuff for college and I know you pay for the younger kids' activities and some of the bills for the house."

"And when you get your degree and a job, you can pay it forward and help Rowan and Penelope. We're family. It's what we do. Now," Damon said, pulling out a checkbook from his back pocket. "Send in your deposit and accept your college."

Kane felt his throat tighten with emotion. "Thank you, Damon."

"You can thank me by getting good grades and earning your diploma. You're smart, Kane. You see things others don't. Probably because you're a middle child and I know that sometimes you feel like we're not here for you. But know that we always are, even if sometimes we get busy. You're our brother and we wouldn't be the Townsend Nine without you."

Kane gave in and leaned forward. He wrapped his arms around Damon and hugged him tight. He swore to himself right then and there that he'd work his ass off to show his brothers how thankful he was for them.

Kane leaned back in his office chair and looked at the picture on his desk. In the picture, he was in his cap and gown, having just earned his master's degree in psychology. His parents and all eight of his siblings had come. It had been a perfect day. It had ended with Kane taking the job of his dreams with the FBI. They started recruiting him his senior year of college and by the time he earned his master's, he had a job in the Behavioral Analysis Unit waiting for him.

Three years in the BAU had aged Kane twenty years. The politics. The jurisdictional pissing contests. The bureaucratic red tape that always seemed to tie his hands when he needed them the most. Yes, he'd saved a lot of people. No, he hadn't saved enough.

Kane shut down his computer. It had been a bad day. He chose to walk home in the rain, trying to clear the visions of what he'd seen today from his mind. It didn't work, but he kept hoping it would. He was putting his key into his apartment door when his phone rang.

Kane closed his eyes and swore. He just hoped it wasn't his office calling him back in. He opened the door, walked into his apartment, and pulled his phone from his pocket.

Kane answered it with relief. "Hey, Damon. What's going on?"

"I saw the news today. Three missing children were found dead outside of D.C. and I thought I saw you on the news." Leave it to Damon to cut right to the shit part of the day.

"Yeah, that was me. I found them, but not soon enough. The medical examiner estimates they'd been dead for two hours. That's it, just two hours." Kane shrugged off his wet coat and kicked off his shoes. "You know what I was doing while they were being killed?" Damon didn't say anything. He knew he didn't need to. He knew Kane needed to talk about his day. It seemed Damon always knew when to call. "I was fighting with a judge to get a search warrant for the house they were found in. They didn't think my profile was enough evidence for a warrant."

"Damn, I'm sorry, Kane."

"I'm so sick of always being too late because the local law enforcement is pissed that I'm coming in and taking over, or some judge thinks what I do isn't real science or evidence."

"The news says you shot the perpetrator. Is he dead?"

"No. I shot him in the dick. He'll have lots of fun in jail. They don't like child predators in jail. Of course, I'll probably be suspended for my actions today. I wasn't happy with how this went down. I could have saved those children. Instead, I had to tell three sets of parents their nine year olds had been raped and murdered before I could save them."

Kane's phone pinged with an email. He glanced at it and sighed as he dropped onto his couch.

"What is it?" Damon asked.

"According to the subject line of the email I just received, I'm being officially reprimanded. Damon, I don't know if I can do this anymore." Kane finally admitted what he'd been thinking about for the past six months. "I can't sleep. I know I'm drinking too much. Now this."

"Look, I have my own business. Wilder has his own business. Olivia plans to once she's paid her dues. Maybe you've paid yours and it's time for you to have your own business," Damon told him.

"What would I do? Private security?"

"I think there's a lot more to private security than being a bodyguard. You know that. Look, I have a friend in New York. He runs a firm and I know they do a lot more than babysitting rich people. I'll text you his number. Give him a call. See what other options you have out there. Real options that will let you satisfy that need to protect, but also let you sleep at night."

Kane heard the text come through. "Thanks, Damon. Hey, I wired you money for Rowan's and Forrest's last semester tuition."

"I got it. Thanks. I can't believe Forrest is about to graduate with his master's and Rowan is working his way through med school. I'm proud of them all."

"I haven't talked to Penelope. I can't bring myself to call her when I'm in this mood. How is she doing?" Kane asked.

"She's good. Just enjoying college life to the fullest. At least that's what I'm gleaning from our short calls. She's always off doing something. But you need to call my friend. Life's too short to be this miserable. Let me know how it goes."

"I will. I heard you just built a bike for some big Hollywood movie. That's really cool. Proud of you, big bro."

"Thanks. It's really cool, but I made them promise they weren't going to crash it. I think I'd cry if they did."

Damon and Kane chatted a little longer but then it was time to make a decision. Kane finally read his reprimand and then immediately called this friend of Damon's — whoever he might be.

"Edgar speaking."

"Hello, Edgar. My name is Kane Townsend."

"Ah, Damon finally gave you my number. You must have reached burnout to call me."

Damon continually surprised Kane. "I guess I did. It appears my brother has told you about me, but he hasn't told me anything about you."

"I run the hostage and ransom branch of my security firm. I have others who do the bodyguard stuff, but it takes a special kind of person to be able to do hostages, kidnappings, abductions, and ransoms. Damon thought you would be that kind of special person. So, what was the final straw?"

Kane didn't know what to think about Edgar or what he did. If Kane was hamstrung by the government, surely Edgar was even more so. "I shot a child predator in the dick. I was too late to save the kids he killed because a judge wouldn't give me a warrant."

"So, you're suspended." It wasn't a question. It was a statement. "I'm getting ready to leave for a case in Europe. If you leave now, you can meet me in London. Let me show you what you can do when your hands aren't tied with red tape."

Kane didn't stop working for two years. He worked harder and longer hours with Edgar than he'd ever worked in his life. Then one day, Edgar walked into Kane's office and set down a key ring and a contract. "Buy me out. I'm ready to retire."

Edgar had broken up his firm. Each department had bought him out until only Kane was left. Kane scraped together enough on his own, with little loans from Stone and Olivia, and then Kane Allen Townsend was the proud owner of a private security hostage and ransom firm.

Three years after that, he'd turned the newly named KAT, his initials but also standing for Kidnapping, Abduction, and Transaction, aka ransom, into a giant in the industry. He cut out the middle man—insurance companies—and began self-insuring at-risk people for kidnapping, abduction, and ransom.

If one of his clients was kidnapped, he would negotiate their release. If they weren't released or if they were in life-threatening danger, Kane would go in and rescue them. He never failed to deliver on a promise or a contract. He had the respect of both governments and criminals. Governments didn't want to, or couldn't be seen negotiating with criminals, so they gave Kane wide latitude to do whatever he needed to do to get their citizens back.

His company had prospered and expanded. He had a whole team working for him. He slept at night. He didn't drink heavily anymore. He was proud of his job and had a wall full of photos of the people he'd saved. And now he was relocating. He was moving his headquarters to Charleston, South Carolina. All the current offices across the United States and the world would stay open. But after Olivia got married, then Stone, and just recently, Hunter, it was time to move to South Carolina full-time. Plus, the quirky little town of Shadows Landing, right outside of Charleston, was the peace to counterbalance the storm of his job. The town was founded by pirates. The reverend taught women's weapons classes in the church. There were battles over barbecue. And he'd made actual friends there. Sure, he was "one of the Townsends" again now that most of the family had moved there, but he had actual friends of his own who didn't just lump him in with the rest of his family. Plus, he'd missed his siblings. It was good to be back together again. Although, now in separate houses instead of a shared bedroom full of bunk beds.

"Send all this to the Charleston office. I'm working on finding a space next month. I'll send you the final details once I get them. Until then, I'm working from home," he told the new manager of the New York office.

Kane looked around his old office and felt a sense of peace and accomplishment. It was time to go home.