Leaving her father behind in Ireland was one of the hardest things Jaya had ever had to do.

She didn’t expect it to be. She wanted it to be as easy as it always seemed for him to leave her and Finn behind when he went off on one of his treasure hunts.

But it wasn’t. Even though Shelby had stayed, and the police were keeping tabs on Sean, it still worried her to leave him. She’d called his room and told him she had the package—Jon wouldn’t let her use the word cross just in case—and that she was headed back to America.

I have the cross, she’d texted the kidnappers under Jon’s watchful eye. He’d told her exactly what to type. She’d attached a picture so they would know she was telling the truth. Where do I find you?

Wolfe knows, came the reply a few seconds later. Have him bring me the cross—no one else or your brother dies.

Me? Was there only one kidnapper?

That fact and the directions had made Jon antsy—he was stewing over the connection of Thief River to what had happened in his past and this made him even more agitated. Beatrice had called and he’d gone to the back to speak privately to her, making Jaya wonder. Was this really about the O’Sullivan cross or something much, much bigger?

But when she asked Jon, he’d told her he wasn’t sure either, and that in the end, it didn’t matter. The goal of the mission was to save Finn, nothing else.

As the plane taxied down the runway, Jon seemed relieved to be getting her out of Ireland, and she couldn’t say she blamed him, but a part of her longed to stay. Under better circumstances, she would have. She’d only scratched the surface of finding out about her family and learning more about the Gypsies. Once things settled down, she hoped to return and go about getting to know her family more thoroughly.

Of course, there was her business to run, her mother to take care of, and Finn—what was she going to do with him? He needed direction with his life, and unfortunately, her attempts so far to steer him toward something productive had met with total failure.

On top of all of that, she was going to have a baby around…she scrolled through the weeks on her phone’s calendar. If her calculations were correct, the baby was going to make an appearance the first week in August.

The cabin was dark except for some running lights on the aisle and the overhead one above Jon. Colton was up front with the pilot, Moe. Charlotte and Miles sat in the back with Percy, talking and finishing up the meal they’d made from the plane’s pantry of luxury food items, Jaya had requested a cheeseburger. Jon had nearly danced a jig to see her eat and had made sure she had all the fixings to go with it.

He was texting with his boss again, having not eaten anything himself. His brow knit with worry and his jaw was tight.

“August,” Jaya said softly. “Early August.”

His gaze came up and met hers. As understanding dawned, his brow softened. “I love late summer.”

“Me too.”

They shared a smile.

“I’m so torn about all of this,” she admitted.

His brows drew together again. “The baby, you mean?”

“I’m happy about the baby, but I’m scared for Finn. Scared for my dad. I don’t know…what’s going to happen.”

Her eyes teared and Jon put the phone away and swung over to sit next to her. “Finn’s going to be okay, but I doubt he’ll be interested in treasure hunting after this, so that’s a good thing. The rest, with your dad, we’ll figure out. He’s got some good people on his side—Percy, Shelby, Beatrice. They’ll do what they can for him.”

She laid her head on his shoulder, watching his fingers intertwine with hers. “August. Seems like a long time away.”

They sat like that for a while, the hum of the plane and her full stomach lulling Jaya to sleep.

When she woke, it was to Jon buckling her in. “We’re here.”

As the plane descended, Jaya saw it was still dark out. Mountains rose like black sentinels in the distance, miles and miles of tree silhouettes rolling down them, blurring into a single shadowy carpet.

“We’re heading straight to Thief River. Beatrice has already secured a safe house there and that’s where you’ll hang out with Parker and Ruby while Colton, Miles, and I hook up with Trace and his team. They’ve scouted the area and have the site narrowed down to three cabins. I’ll figure out for sure which one Finn is in and then we’ll decide whether we flush the kidnapper, or kidnappers, out or we go in.”

“Ruby? Who is she?”

“Jaxon Sloane’s girlfriend. You haven’t met her or Jax yet, but you will. Ruby is CIA. She was in town for the wedding and Beatrice told her what was going down. She insisted on helping.”

There it was again, that automatic friendship. A woman who’d never met her offering to help rescue Finn.

Not because of Jaya.

Because of Jon.

“CIA, huh? You work with a good group of people. It’s almost like a family.”

He nodded. “Beatrice preaches all the time that we are family. Most of us don’t have blood relatives we can count on, so we count on each other. A lot of SEALs naturally feel that way when they’re in the Teams. It’s truly a brotherhood, and that doesn’t end just because we’re not active duty anymore.”

“You’re lucky.”

He touched her face and planted a light kiss on her lips. “I am that.”

Before he pulled away, she snuck her hand around the back of his neck and kept him there, returning the kiss and deepening it. He was quick to respond, parting her lips with his tongue, his hand going down to her waist and anchoring her.

That was what he did—anchored her. With all the craziness swirling around them, he kept her from losing her shit.

“Thank you,” she murmured against his lips. “For everything.”

He grinned. “The first moment I saw you, I knew that was it for me. There would never be anyone else.”

She pulled back slightly to look in his eyes. She had felt it too, that magnetic attraction. Her mother always said when it was instant it was your soul mate calling to you. “Really?”

“That day in Good Hope, when I walked into that conference room at the hospital, full of people there for Shelby and her family? It was like you were the only person in the whole damn place. I had a bitch of a time concentrating on what Colton needed me to do.”

Jaya’s heart melted. “I felt the same way. All I could focus on was you. I love you, Jon.”

He pressed another kiss to her lips. “I love you too. I want you to stay safe, no matter what happens. My job is to get Finn back. Yours is to protect yourself and our baby, got it?”

She and the baby had become a team for him. Just like his SFI co-workers and SEAL brothers. Even though he wasn’t in the middle of giving orders and planning the next move to rescue her brother at that moment, he was definitely in charge of the Wolfe-O’Sullivan team.

She pinched his earlobe gently, just like her mother used to do to her. “Yes, sir. Roger that.”

He chuckled and hugged her close. The next moment, they were touching down, the plane bouncing slightly as the wheels grabbed the runway.

It was a long ride to the cabin and Jon had a lot on his plate, speaking with Trace and the men he’d brought, who were meeting them at the safe house in the hills of Thief River.

Night slithered defiantly down the mountain as the sun rose, revealing a heavy covering of snow. They drove up, up, up, Jaya’s ears popping at the ascent. Colton was behind the wheel, Miles rode shotgun, and Jaya was squeezed in between Jon and Charlotte. Behind them, Moe rode in a second vehicle with Percy.

The scenery reminded her of Ireland in some ways, the narrow road running along the edge of the mountain and the poor visibility, thanks to the snow, looking much like her Irish homeland.

Jon had the coordinates, based on the surveillance Trace and his team had been doing up and down Thief River. Somewhere in this backwoods place her brother was being held captive. Jaya wasn’t sure what to think. Her nerves were raw with worry. What if they were wrong? What if Finn was already dead or wasn’t here? What if the cross on her lap, worth millions of dollars, wasn’t enough to save him?

She knew the others didn’t believe the kidnapper was acting alone, and regardless of the warning the man had given her about ‘Jon only’ when it came to delivering the cross, they were already prepping for a full covert assault on the place.

Since Jaya couldn’t be part of that, the best she could do was hope the O’Sullivan curse went with the cross and damned the man and his cohorts to hell.

Colton took a sharp right and suddenly went off-road, the SUV’s headlights cutting a swathe between thick trees on each side of a dirt path. As they bumped along, Jaya’s stomach rebelled, flip-flopping like she had a fish down there desperate to get out.

Not now, she warned the baby. You and I have to keep it together.

The cabin was dark and looked completely abandoned. Vines grew up the wood planks, bushes and trees nearly obscuring the front. If the car’s headlights hadn’t reflected on the dirty windows, the house would have been lost in the canopy of the forest.

Where were Trace and the others? Jaya’s stomach dropped. “Is this the right place?” she asked as Jon helped her out of the vehicle. Miles and Colton were already waiting, guns in hand, eyes scanning the area as if they expected someone to jump out of the woods. She couldn’t see a discernible path to the front door because of all the overgrowth and snow lying heavy on top of it. “Doesn’t look like anyone is here.”

“Oh, they’re here.” He smiled as if it were an inside joke.

Maybe it was.

Charlotte took the lead, Percy falling in single file, stomping through the snow. Jon guided Jaya as they stepped over tree roots and mashed down weeds and vines.

“Watch your step,” Jon said to her, pointing at a brown plant. “That’s poison oak. It looks dead, but it’s only dormant. You can still get a rash from it.”

“Lovely.” Not only did she have murderous kidnappers to worry about, the weeds were out to get her too. “Just don’t tell me there are snakes.”

Colton snorted as she passed by him. “Of course there are. Copperheads, corn snakes, rattlesnakes…this place is full of ’em.”

Jaya punched his arm. “Stop already. They’re hibernating or whatever, right?”

Jon shook his head. “Rattlesnakes don’t hibernate, technically. It’s called brumation and if there’s a sunny day, they’ll come out of their nests, even in the middle of winter.”

Great.

As they neared the front door, songbirds overhead began a wake-up call to the forest, the lovely notes drifting through the thick branches of pine, oak, and poplar. She tried to focus on that rather than the poison plants and venomous snakes.

At the door, Charlotte stopped and looked back at Jon. He nodded. “They know we’re here. Go ahead.”

“Just didn’t want to end up cannon fodder,” she said with a grin before reaching for the doorknob.

She’d barely grabbed it when the wooden door creaked open and a man filled the threshold. “Charlotte! What the hell happened to you?”

Jaya barely recognized Trace, who was dressed in combat gear and had smeared paint on his face. He pulled Charlotte inside quickly, nodding at Percy, and waving Jaya to hurry up.

Once they were in, her eyes needed a moment to adjust. Charlotte gave a quick explanation about her injured arm, Percy was introduced, and Colton and Miles locked up the door.

Still not able to see well in the dark interior, Jaya was glad when Jon took her hand and put his arm around her waist, guiding her through one room and into another.

This one was lit and two other men, dressed like Hunter, stared at the newcomers from a table where a map was spread. A dog rose from the corner and rushed forward, greeting Jon with enthusiasm. He crouched and ruffled its fur, kissing the flat head. “How you doin’ Nyx? I missed you.”

Nyx. Was this a tracking dog, or possibly a pet he’d neglected to tell her about?

The men rose with greetings and leaned across the table, Jon accepting handshakes from them. “Good to have you back in one piece,” a burly guy with reddish hair and a close-cropped beard said. “Looks like you brought help.”

He introduced everyone to them. “Jaya, Percy, this is Rage, and that guy over there”—he pointed at the other man who sported spiky champagne-colored hair, a beard, and piercing blue eyes—“is his brother, Clash.”

Brothers? Jaya exchanged handshakes, as did Percy. She guessed underneath the face paint and beards, they might appear to be related.

“Rage and Clash?” Percy said. “Interesting names.”

“Code names,” Hunter told him. “We’re Rock Stars.”

As if that explained everything.

The redhead dropped back into his seat. “My band is Rage Against the Machine.”

Blondie saluted them. “The Clash, in case mine isn’t obvious.”

“Lost my virginity listening to them,” Percy said with a grin. “My favorite band ever.”

Clash held out a fist and Percy bumped it with his own.

Trace and Miles rounded up chairs and the group sat at the table, eyeing the map.

“Okay,” Jon said, blowing a deep breath. “Tell me what we’re looking at.”

Four hundred acres, and at last count, thirty-five survivalists all making their homes there. Most had some form of security—dogs, fences, traps, and trip wires. The three most likely places kidnappers would take Finn included two Jon knew well.

His father’s cabin, abandoned since his dad had gone to prison, and Dalton Watt’s, which had been empty for just as long.

The third place Jon immediately X’d off the map, even though Hunter had circled it—a camper trailer near the riverhead. From his summers in the area as a kid, campers and RVs had come and gone, but this one, according to Rory had only been in that spot for the past five years and was registered to a woman named Goss. Since Jon had no prior links to the camper or woman, he knew it had to be one of the other two.

Which made his guts crawl.

“So here’s the deal.” He pointed at the first red circle, a part of him ready to get the weight off his chest about his father. Another wished he didn’t have to. “This is a cabin that belonged to Dalton Watt, and according to Beatrice, is still listed in his name, although the guy disappeared seven years ago. He’s a serial killer who murdered thirteen kids but framed my father for their deaths. My dad has paid the price, and so has the rest of my family.”

The folks around the table exchanged looks, none of them expecting that news. He saw their surprise, heard the uncomfortable shifting in their chairs. Not from the men who knew him, like Hunter, Duncan, Bouchard, or Bells, but their newest members who had never worked with Jon before. They had to be wondering if he was defending his father because of blood or if he was telling the truth.

He couldn’t offer proof, only reassurances. “There have been no active cases that suggest Watt has continued his killing spree, but he may have just gotten smarter and the bodies have yet to be found, so yeah, I know what it looks like.”

Hunter leaned back on his heels. “Evidence?”

“He used my father’s bow and left it at the cave where he disposed of the bodies. That was it, the only evidence. Watt and my dad were friends—Watt was with everyone around here back then. He got inside my Dad’s head, knew his routines. It wasn’t hard to set him up.”

Silence. Jon tensed. He’d lived with this hanging over his head for too many years, never being able to clear his father’s name.

Nyx whined and laid her head in his lap. He sank his fingers into her fur. “Look, my dad is no hero, and he’s pulled a lot of crappy shit in his time, but he isn’t a murderer, especially of kids.”

Rage sat forward, setting his elbows on the table. “The police do any kind of investigation or did they just take the easy option?”

“They wanted to believe it was my dad who killed those kids,” he said, digging a fingernail into the table. “Comes with the skin color and our ancestry, so they didn’t even look at anyone else. They still, to this day, believe it, since the killings stopped. No trail of bodies in seven years. But they’re wrong. Watt was—is—an extremely smart sociopath.”

“So Watt just went on living his life here?” Moe asked from the corner where he stood with Parker.

“He went to ground around the time I started contracting with the FBI for search and rescue. I knew he was the killer all along, but I had—have—no evidence. Not that I can take to the police, anyway. He threatened me once, back when I found the cave and bones. Told me I ruined everything and he was going to pay me back someday.”

“And now he’s returned,” Hunter said.

Jon nodded.

The big man crossed his arms over his chest. “Kinda passive-aggressive, don’t you think? He frames your dad, then bugs out when you put heat on him, and now he’s kidnapped your girlfriend’s brother in order to get back at you?”

It was a stretch, but Jon had seen and heard weirder things. “Told you he’s clever.”

Jaya’s gaze was weighted. “You really think he’s involved with Finn’s kidnapping?”

Under the table, he slid his hand over to hers. “I really hoped it was just a coincidence when Rory traced Finn’s phone to this spot, but Beatrice and I don’t believe in coincidences, and Rory ran Emit’s tracking program. Watt is a fourth cousin to Lorna Doyle.”

“Nooo,” Charlotte breathed. “That witch. I knew better than to trust her, all that carrying on about Gypsies. Not only is she after the cross, she’s related to a serial killer!”

Jon sighed. “It gets better. Mathew Fitzpatrick’s family members are descendants of the French consort who slept with that Catholic cardinal that the cross may have originated from.” It made his brain cramp trying to keep all the different threads straight. “They believe the cross, or at least the emeralds on it, belong to them, so according to the men Kieran interrogated, Lorna hired Fitzpatrick to find it.”

Parker snorted. “This is better than reality TV.”

“Could this be any more convoluted?” Jaya asked quietly. “What are the odds of your family and mine crossing paths like this?”

“One in a million,” Jon said, “but it’s happening, so we have to wrap our minds around it and figure out a plan. Your dad decided to sell the cross, which he’d had all along, and contacted Fitzpatrick. Fitz was already looking for the cross because of the Doyles, and he jumped at the chance to get his hands on it.”

Jon brought everyone up to speed on what they knew regarding the Doyles and Fitzpatrick’s scheme, and how Moreau had gotten in the middle of it and messed things up. “According to what Kieran’s interrogation provided, the Doyles figured Sean was going to find a new buyer once Fitz turned up dead and Sean got away. They had no trouble tracking Finn, since he’d returned to the States and they were betting he was good leverage to flush out Sean. Lorna contacted Watt, who came out of hiding.”

Everyone fell silent, each turning things over in their head.

Jon pointed at the second circle. “This is my dad’s place. It’s still in his name and has been abandoned since he went to prison. I’ve been paying the property taxes on it. Doesn’t look like much from ground level, but it was built in the late 80s, and there’s 2000 square feet of living area below ground.”

A soft whistle came from Bells. “He wasn’t messing around.”

“The Russian threat was big at that time,” Parker said. She may have been a cognitive scientist, but she’d also been a spy. She probably knew as much about history and politics as she did about the human brain.

“Hey, I saw Red Dawn,” Colton told her. “Everyone was scared the Russians were going to take over the world or nuke it. Take your pick.”

“They still think that around here.” Jon’s father had certainly feared both of those scenarios. “With these survivalists, it’s all the same—nukes, Big Brother, the plague, zombies. You name it, they’re prepared for it. Survival—of anything—is the name of the game, and they don’t trust our government any more than they trust foreign ones.”

Clash rubbed a spike of hair between his finger and thumb. “What’s this Watt guy’s MO? Got a picture of him?”

Jon tapped at his phone. “I’m not a profiler, people, but what I know about him, and the last photo Beatrice could find, is all coming to you now. Also, a second picture where Rory did an age progression on Watt’s face so you can see what we anticipate he looks like today.”

Jaya’s phone buzzed along with the rest of them and she tapped it to open his text. Her body stiffened and she enlarged the first photo of Watt in camo gear, holding a rifle and standing over a five-point buck.

“Holy crap,” she whispered.

The hair on Jon’s neck rose. Her face paled and her fingers trembled as she scrolled to the next one.

“Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap.” Again, it was whispered as if she had lost her voice.

“Jaya?” He reached for her. “What is it?”

Her dark eyes were scared as they came up to meet his. “You’re sure this is him? This Watt fellow?”

He tightened his grip on her. Nyx lifted her head from Jon’s lap and stared at Jaya. “You know him?”

She put her head in her other hand and shut her eyes for a brief second. Her chest expanded on a sharp inhale before she looked up once more. “This man? He works at the home where my mother lives. Jon, he’s one of her aides.”