Chapter One

Fear.

It was the first thing Leo Nolan remembered.

Since those earliest fractured memories of his mom’s illness and death when he was five years old, fear had gnawed and festered inside him until it was all he knew. All that made sense. All that mattered.

He longed to destroy The Fear, and had spent most of his life trying to do just that. But of course, The Fear could not be destroyed. So the day he turned eighteen, he decided he’d had enough of being afraid and chose to become the feared instead.

He became a US Marine.

The fire of combat taught him that, although The Fear could not be conquered, it could be tricked into usefulness—for a time. He became the best there was at fooling it. Deception became his game, madness his playing field. There were no rules, only the desperate, reckless will to survive.

Now, four years removed from a decade of service in combat zones around the world, he hadn’t just been to hell and back, he was a permanent resident. The Fear was real. It lived inside him. Every time he thought of them. Every time he tried, but failed, to make the next drink his last. Every time he recalled the reason she’d died was because of him.

Every. Fucking. Time.

Which was every minute of every day.

He was The Fear.

So it shouldn’t have unnerved him as much as it did to receive the phone call from his good buddy and former comrade Owen.

“You want me to do what?”

“I need you to check up on my sister,” Owen said. “I think she’s in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Immediately, Leo wished he could take back the question. He didn’t care what kind of trouble Owen’s sister was in. All that mattered was that he not be responsible for her—or anyone else’s—well-being in any way, at all, ever. Not ever again. Never.

The weight of Owen’s heavy sigh through the phone only intensified Leo’s resistance to the cause. “Nothing too serious, I hope. She pissed off some internet trolls and they’ve been harassing her online. Gideon’s looking into them, but I want to make certain nothing has carried over into real life.”

Leo dragged a suddenly trembling hand through his hair. “Why don’t you just ask her?”

“I have. She swears she’s fine, but I fully expect her to lie to me.”

Leo yanked on the ends of his hair. “What makes you think she won’t lie to me?”

“Oh, she will.” A hint of laughter infected Owen’s tone. “That’s why I picked you. Well, that and you live in the same city.”

Leo had no idea what city Owen thought he lived in anymore. For the past four years, he hadn’t lived in any one place longer than a few months, preferring to bounce around instead.

“I’m not asking you to babysit her,” Owen said. “Just do some recon, make sure things stay quiet for a few days. I’ll be home at the end of the month and will take it from there.”

Denials screamed inside Leo’s skull. “I don’t know….” Desperation clawing at him, he paced the living room floor at his brother’s house where he’d been staying. “Maybe Claymore can help you out.”

“I don’t want Claymore’s help. I want yours.”

“But why?” The words rasped from him.

After a beat, Owen responded, “I trust you.”

Leo drew up. “Don’t you trust your sister?”

“It’s not that.” Owen seemed to pick his words carefully. “She’s a bit naïve sometimes, that’s all.”

Except that wasn’t all.

“And… soft-hearted. You could say a little… fragile even.”

Fragile?

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Owen was quick to add. “She’s the baby of the family, and well, you know how girls can be….”

The only thing Leo knew was that if Owen’s kid sister wanted to play damsel in distress, she’d have to find some other poor sap to act the hero. He opened his mouth to say exactly that, but Owen beat him to the punch.

“I need your help, man.” Through the phone, Owen’s voice deepened with a shadow of fear. “I promise, I won’t ask anything of you ever again.”

The weight of inevitability settled around Leo’s shoulders, cementing his feet to the floorboards. Owen had been there for him more times than Leo cared to count. He didn’t want to turn his back on his friend, but The Fear rose up to choke and silence him.

Then, while he stood there, powerless and mute, his sister-in-law, Emily, waddled into the room, her large, heavily pregnant belly leading the way, and the despair he’d wasted the last four years trying to move past ripped through him. All he could do was stare while the agony rolled over him in sickening waves.

Finally, with a vicious wrench, he twisted away from the sight of her.

“Fine, I’ll do it.” He despised the telltale quiver in his voice. “Where do I find her?”

432, 433…

Prudence Lockhart leaned to the side, causing her desk chair to groan.

434, 435…

She stretched a tad more, peering into the far corner of the room. “Four hundred and thirty-six.”

Collapsing back in the chair, her satisfaction was short-lived. After all, she’d known before she’d begun counting that there were 436 carpet squares covering the floor of the Cambridge Science Institute’s reception area.

It wasn’t the first time she’d counted them.

A glance at the wall clock pulled a groan from her. An hour remained in the workday.

On a typical day at the Institute, Prue answered the phones, scheduled meetings for the staff of scientists, and kept the coffee brewed. She always completed her duties with time left in the workday. Hours, usually. To fend off boredom, she often helped Amanda with her work in payroll, or cleaned the staff break room, but this Friday afternoon, in the middle of summer, she’d finished all such tasks and was one of only a few people who remained in the building.

Hence she counted the carpet tiles.

But the thrill of the count was long gone. She feared she was going to have to start naming the squares.

A scowl pulled at her features as she eyed the floor. So what if her job didn’t challenge her? Or that the most interesting part of her day involved picking out a color to paint her toenails, or a new screensaver image for her monitor? Boredom sure beat the sharp bite of failure.

She sighed heavily in the empty room.

Sally, Louise, Natasha—

The soft jingle of her cell phone saved her from her fate. She dove for the desk drawer where she had stashed her purse and retrieved the device from a side pocket. Anticipation bubbled up when she opened the private message sent to her social media account. Maybe Paul had something new to share.

You stupid bitch, you need to stop with your insane attacks. You’re going to regret—

She closed the app without reading the rest.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been a target of harassment online, though she didn’t recognize the username behind this particular note. The threats, which began about a month ago, now came in droves. At first they’d disturbed and frightened her, but then a pattern emerged and she started tracking which of her posts generated the strongest attacks. Now the menacing messages only served as proof that she was getting closer to the truth.

She slid the wire-bound notebook from her purse and laid it on her desk. A thrill chased through her as she flipped to the last pages containing her scribbled handwriting. For the first time in years, she’d taken up work of her own. It was the only project she’d cared to undertake since Aron King ripped her world out from under her feet, but before then, she’d spent hours filling notebooks with her studies. Everything from chemistry and physics to quantum theory and nanotechnology. But these days, she was focused on only one thing.

One man, actually.

Aron King.

Her mind churning over the seemingly disparate notes she’d scrawled, she turned to her desktop and logged in to her social media account. While she posted the latest nuggets of information from her notebook, she frowned at the monitor, puzzling over the pieces that refused to fit together.

Absorbed as she was in her project, the last hour of her workday melted off the clock, and, with a jolt of surprise, she realized she’d remained at her desk more than an hour past the close of business. Now she was late for dinner.

She shut down her computer and snatched up her purse and notebook on her way to the building’s back door exit. Outside, heat from the summer sun radiated off the asphalt as she crossed the nearly empty employee parking lot. Drawing in a lungful of fresh air, she lifted her face to the sky and relished the sun’s warmth on her skin.

Not so long ago, she’d only been able to observe the sunshine and gentle summer winds from within hospital walls. One of her sharpest memories from that time was wanting to be outdoors again, enjoying something as simple as a beautiful summer day. The wish had marked the moment her recovery veered away from illness and back toward health.

But as she approached her car, her peace was shattered.

The driver side door stood slightly ajar, and she pulled up abruptly. Through the windows she saw the interior of the vehicle had been trashed. Her dirty laundry had been ripped from its bag and strewn throughout the car. The contents of her glove compartment and center console were scattered among the mess, and her coin tray, filled with quarters for the laundromat, was empty.

Someone had broken into her car.