Part 2
Decades of Marine combat training don't just vanish because you've gone gray. I dropped my shoulder, letting the heavy steel tire iron slice through the empty air where my skull had been a fraction of a second before. I lunged forward, driving my palm brutally upward into the intruder's chin. His teeth cracked together with a sickening snap....
Part 2
I kept one hand on the phone and one between Travis and Caleb.
“Leave,” I told him.
Travis pointed at me. “Rachel will call the police.”
“Good. They can photograph the empty refrigerator.”
He backed toward the door, but not before kicking Caleb’s backpack across the floor. I caught Travis by the jacket and stopped him.
“You will pick that up.”
His face reddened....
Part 1
The heavy oak door to the bridal suite inside Manhattan’s St. Thomas Church slammed shut, the deadbolt clicking shut with terrifying finality. Exactly sixty minutes before my wedding, I was cornered against a gilded velvet sofa, clutching the one object I refused to trade for money: my great-grandmother’s nineteenth-century Brussels lace dress.
I am Eleanor Alden—or at least, that...
Part 1
I am Maya Vance, senior forensic accountant at Harrison Global, and right now, I am kneeling on the cold marble floor of a 40th-floor Manhattan penthouse with a gun pressed to the back of my head.
Three minutes ago, I was supposed to be celebrating my engagement to Julian Harrison, the golden-boy heir to a three-billion-dollar real estate empire....
Part 2
My left hand shot out like a coiled viper. I clamped my fingers around Julian’s wrist just as his fingertips brushed the rough canvas of my tactical bag. With a sharp, practiced twist, I applied a standard military joint-manipulation lock.
Julian let out a high-pitched, agonizing shriek that echoed violently through the quiet first-class cabin. His knees buckled instantly...
Part 2
Vice Admiral Owen Caldwell entered the aircraft with two Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents and an airport police supervisor.
Every conversation in first class stopped.
Blake slowly pulled his jacket straight. “Admiral, I’m Blake Mercer. Mercer Aeronautics. We’ve met at defense events.”
Caldwell did not look at him.
His attention stayed on me. “Are you injured, Senior Chief?”
“Minor impact, sir.”
Captain Reyes lowered...
Part 2
“Hide the laptop,” I ordered Beatrice, my voice dropping to an icy whisper. I shoved the flash drive containing the downloaded footage into my boot.
Beatrice scrambled into the kitchen just as the wood of the front door began to splinter under Mark’s weight. I took a deep breath, killed my location sharing on my phone, and unlocked the...
Part 2
Patricia slipped the key into her pocket.
Ryan moved between me and the staircase. “Who called you?”
I looked at the dead bolt, then at the glass panel beside the door.
“You should unlock it.”
“Answer me first.”
He reached for my purse again. I caught his wrist, turned it away from my body, and drove him back against the wall without striking...
Part 1
"Throw her out in the rain! She’s nothing but a penniless leech trying to bleed us dry!"
Margaret Prescott’s shrill voice echoed off the marble walls of the Newport estate, slicing deeper than the freezing wind whipping through the open foyer. I’m Amelia Caldwell, a quiet botanist from Boston who thought she had found true love. But right now,...
Part 1
I’m Amelia Caldwell, a botanist from Boston, and thirty seconds ago, my wedding turned into my execution.
"Get this peasant off my property!" Margaret Prescott’s voice echoed like a whip through the grand marble foyer of her Newport, Rhode Island estate.
Two hundred-pound security guards slammed me against the heavy mahogany doors. Rain slashed through the doorway, soaking my antique...
