His most anticipated, without question, was the snotty Romanian bitch who’d spurned his advances but drunk his champagne, had come to his hotel suite but refused to sleep with him, had slapped him hard across the face when he tried to overpower her, like he’d done so many times before with so many of his conquests.

The night he’d met the drop-dead-gorgeous brunette, she’d been all too ready to talk to him and to drink his booze, but she’d also seemed a little standoffish and dismissive. And when, on the third night in a row they’d seen each other, she told him he was too old for her, he’d leaned over to Jaco and demanded she be delivered on a platter to him in the USA, no matter the cost. Jaco had protested; he claimed to sense a rebelliousness in her that would be more trouble than she’d be worth, but Cage liked this trait. In fact, her defiance ranked just below her beauty in reasons why the American ordered the young woman be rolled up and placed in the pipeline for delivery.

He wasn’t worried about rebelliousness, about defiance. At the moment, Cage knew, the girl sat aboard Kostas Kostopoulos’s yacht, getting mind-fucked by Dr. Claudia Riesling. He knew Riesling would rid her of part of her rebelliousness, and he’d rid her of the balance of it himself when she got here.

So now the girl was on her way. He didn’t remember what she told him her name was—there were so many women he met on his recruiting trips, after all—but he’d been told Riesling was calling her Maja. She, the Thai, the Indonesian, and the Hungarian would be the newest members of Rancho Esmerelda, just seventy minutes north of the Hollywood Hills, and he and his protection detail would make the drive up there whenever he could get away from his duties at home and at work.

His thoughts returned to his present surroundings, but only until he saw his personal protection agent, Sean Hall, step out of the two-thousand-square-foot pool house tucked deep into lush landscaping on the other side of the patio. The wiry and tan blond made his way purposefully along a small fieldstone footpath, past a pair of koi ponds, and towards the family he protected. He had iPhone EarPods in his ears, and his gesticulations as he walked suggested to Cage that the ex–Navy SEAL was fully engaged in conversation.

Ken looked down at his watch and saw it was not yet eight. Hall didn’t normally report in till nine thirty.

The two men made eye contact and Hall ended his call, pulled out the EarPods, and stepped onto the patio.

Charlotte, Ken’s sixteen-year-old daughter, sat on a lounge chair by the pool away from her parents. “Hey, Sean. You been surfing?”

He kept walking, but smiled as he replied. “As much as I can. You’ve been practicing on your board?”

“A little bit,” she said unconvincingly.

“Waves have been up at Zuma Beach. We’re still going next Wednesday morning, right?”

“Yeah, I’m down,” she replied, and then Charlotte returned her attention to her phone.

Sean passed and high-fived twelve-year-old Juliet, also on her phone on a lounge chair, and waved across the pool to seven-year-old Justin, who sat watching a YouTube video on his iPad.

Ken Cage’s head of security stepped up to his table, and Heather finally took her eyes off her tablet. “You’re early. Want me to get Isabella to bring you out some coffee so you can join us?”

The forty-year-old shook his head. “I’m good, but thanks. I just need to talk to the boss here a second.”

“Then you both are starting work early this morning, I guess.” She said it with an admonishing tone, but it was clearly focused on Ken and not Sean.

Cage saw a serious look on his bodyguard’s face, so when Heather’s eyes drifted back down to her device, Ken jerked his head towards the house. Hall nodded, indicating that whatever he had to say did, in fact, need to be said in private.

Cage finished the last of his coffee in a swig as he stood. “Just give me a couple minutes. I’ll be right back.”

His wife replied, “Ask Isabella if she can bring me a refill.”

“Will do, honey.”

The fifty-four-year-old entered his home office a minute later, followed by his security chief. As soon as he made it to his desk, Cage glanced down at his computer screens, getting his first look of the day at the international markets. While taking in the data, he said, “Heather kicks me in the nuts when I work before nine, Sean. Make it quick.”

Hall shut the door to the office. “Can we get the white noise?”

Without looking, Cage reached for the remote next to him and tapped a button, and the ambient noise on the high-end entertainment system came on. Still looking over the markets, he said, “What’s got you so fired up this morning?”

Hall said, “I spoke with Verdoorn a few minutes ago.”

“That’ll do it.”

“He’s . . . he’s concerned about this clown who has been attacking points along the pipeline.”

Distractedly, Cage said, “Believe me. I’ve been made aware.”

“Right. Sir, in light of all the information he’s provided me . . . I’m going to go ahead and suggest we cancel your trip to Italy tonight.”

Cage swiveled his gaze away from his monitors quickly. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Jaco has filled me in on some of this threat’s career exploits. He’s the real deal. The Albanians didn’t stop him in Croatia, the danger to the pipeline seems to be ongoing, and until White Lion puts a lid on it, I feel like it’s in our best interests to curb your travel into that theater of operations.”

Cage rolled his eyes. “Theater of operations? It’s a fucking tourist trap where we’re going.”

“For tourists, it is. But for you, sir, it’s an unnecessary security risk.”

Cage sighed like a child, then sat down at his massive desk and swiveled his chair so he could face his phone. “We’re calling Jaco right now.” He punched numbers, then waited. He neither knew nor cared what time it was over in wherever the hell Jaco was.

He put the call on speaker and the two men listened to it ring in silence.

After a click and a pause, they heard, “Verdoorn.”

“Encrypted,” Cage said, and Verdoorn replied.

“Confirming encrypted. Hello, sir.”

“You’ve got Sean here saying he wants me to cancel my trip.”

The South African had clearly been expecting the call. He replied, “I think that would be best.”

Cage sighed again, louder, slower, and more dramatically this time. “So some asshole running around in Croatia has control over my itinerary now? Telling me where I can and cannot go? Is that it?”