Tate Carlisle sat in the chair at her hair salon and scrolled through her phone, reading the news. Her hair was growing longer, and she had decided instead of cutting it, she was going to get some blonde highlights. In the short time she’d been working as President Stratton’s press secretary and involved in the shadow group he’d formed headed up by former FBI Agent Elizabeth James, Tate had changed. And she needed a new look to show that change.

The past was the past. While she’d always been a strong, independent woman, she realized she hadn’t been as strong as she thought. Not when she watched Elizabeth James work. As a television journalist, Tate had been able to keep her face flawless and emit the perfect emotional response at the appropriate times. She had reported for KNS News’s smaller lifestyles division after her reign as Miss Georgia. Then she’d moved up to weekend reporting. Four years ago, at thirty-two, she’d been given an hourly show at seven o’clock on Saturday night. It wasn’t a big-time slot like media darling Claudia Hughes had, but she received excellent ratings on her in-depth investigations.

Then BBN Nightly News offered Tate an investigative show right before The Claudia Hughes News Hour. Tate had eagerly taken it, but it was clear Claudia didn’t want to share the limelight. Tate was constantly battling Claudia over who got to report on stories, even when it was a story that Tate had uncovered and investigated. She had been given freedom to continue her investigative pieces as part of her package for moving to BBN. However, between Claudia and pressure from her editors, agent, and even the other journalists, Tate felt suffocated. And then it had happened. She had a source who wanted to present her with evidence that media outlets were working together with certain Hollywood and political heavy hitters to assert a certain agenda. People were being manipulated, and the press was being biased. When she brought the investigation up with her boss, she’d been fired on the spot.

As she sat in the hair salon, she reflected on the changes in her life over the last several weeks. In the past month, she’d been filled in on a group trying to influence world events from the shadows. They went by the name Mollia Domini, or Puppet Masters in English. Tate had gone from asking questions to answering them from her former colleagues during presidential press conferences, all the while making sure not a hint of what she knew about this evil group escaped her lips.

In the time since she’d started working for the president, she had broken the law and had seen death and compassion in their most basic forms. It had only been a week since that horrific night at Jason Wolski’s camp for military veterans up in the woods of northern Virginia. The memory of a man as big and strong as he was, trying to save his wife—it broke her heart. The sight of President Stratton, or Birch, as the group knew him, hugging Jason and whispering private words in a way only a fellow widower could do, turned her frozen heart soft.

During her years of investigating the worst of the worst, Tate had turned into a cold person. Oh, yes, she was bubbly, energetic, and everything a prime-time reporter should be. But to continually report on these truly evil deeds done to innocents, Tate had closed her heart and her feelings from the world. It was the only way she could sleep at night.

As the hair stylist pulled the foil from her hair and washed it, Tate felt empathy. She thought when facing the people out to destroy the world, the ones who had murdered Elizabeth’s father and countless others, she could compartmentalize them as she had when reporting crimes against children. But with that one hug, the president had taken her frozen heart, thawed it, and handed it back to her. Now she was fully engaged in the mission. She knew in her heart she would do anything to stop Mollia Domini and protect her small group working to defeat them.

“How do you like it?” the stylist asked, turning Tate’s chair to face the mirror. Tate looked at the new version of herself. Her hair had a slight wave to it, and the blonde highlights made her violet eyes seem brighter and livelier. Today she was going to embrace the new her.

“I love it,” Tate smiled.

“Now you really look like Little Miss Sunshine,” Valeria McGregor said dryly when Tate walked into their newly acquired gym. Valeria was a couple inches shorter than Tate. She stood with her hands on her hips, her long, rich, walnut brown hair streaked with highlander red tied back into a ponytail. Valeria was ex-DEA in the same way Tate was an ex-reporter and Elizabeth was an ex-FBI agent. One thing Valeria had that the others in the group didn’t was the ability to curse creatively in multiple languages. Valeria had tan skin inherited from her Puerto Rican mother and bright blue eyes from her Scottish father. She spoke both English and Spanish well, especially the cuss words.

“I like it,” Elizabeth smiled as she hit a punching bag. Her long blonde hair swayed with every punch she delivered.

“Thanks. I feel as if I’ve changed somehow and needed to reflect that.” Tate looked around the small, former mechanic’s garage down the road from Quantico in Dumfries. There were no windows, and the only way in was a small door by the garage door. They had placed rubber matting on the floor and added punching bags, weights, and cardio equipment. After the president saw what Elizabeth had gone through during her last mission in the South China Sea, he figured a private place for them to keep in military condition would be a good idea.

“I understand that. It’s like we’ve taken off the rose-colored glasses,” Elizabeth said, slamming her knuckles into the bag, sending it swinging with the force of her punch.

“And on that note, I was hoping y’all would help me with the more physical aspect of our job,” Tate said a little nervously. She was the last to join the team and still felt as if she were an outsider.

The shadow group the president had formed was comprised of their leader, Elizabeth, or Lizzy, to most of them now. Then he’d brought in a techie in young Alex Santos, who helped forge documents, hack into computer systems, and anything else that involved a computer. Next came Dalton Cage. He was a former Air Force Pararescueman, basically Superman in camo. Valeria came next, and Tate filled in the last spot. The president worked with his childhood best friend, Sebastian Abel, who had surpassed nearly every billionaire’s worth by the time he was thirty. Abel was privately bankrolling the operation.

“You want to get your hands dirty?” Valeria asked as she dropped the weights and wiped her sweaty hands on the short black elastic shorts she was wearing.

“I do. I can outshoot all of you. I know because Alex showed me your DEA and FBI files. Hand-to-hand is something completely different,” Tate said defensively. She may be a former Miss Georgia, but she was also an Olympic sharpshooting medalist.

“You don’t break a nail firing a gun,” Valeria pointed as she looked at Tate’s perfectly manicured nails.

“Val,” Lizzy warned as she stopped punching the bag, “I’ll be happy to help you. It’s probably a good idea for you to learn some moves. Valeria is right, though. You need to cut your nails or you could potentially tear one off and that hurts like a motherfucker. Just ask Phylicia.”

“Asking Phylicia anything will be hard since she’s dead,” Dalton said as he strode into the garage with a duffle bag over his shoulder.

“We were talking about fingernails,” Lizzy said in a familiar way. They weren’t overly affectionate, but there was definitely something going on between Dalton and Lizzy, even if they didn’t know what exactly it was.

Dalton cringed. “Yeah, I saw Lizzy rip Phylicia’s off. You don’t want that.”

Tate swallowed hard at the mental image. Phylicia deserved it. She’d been Lizzy’s boss at the FBI and was part of Mollia Domini. She’d ordered Lizzy’s father’s death, embassy bombings, assassinations, and she’d killed Jason Wolski’s wife.

“Little Miss Sunshine wants to learn how to fight,” Valeria taunted.

“Good,” Dalton said with a shrug as he turned the treadmill on and started to jog.

Tate turned away from Dalton and faced Valeria. “What is it? Why don’t you like me?” All the snide remarks from the past weeks culminated as Tate lost her temper. “What have I ever done to you?”

Valeria put her hands on her hips, and Tate nearly regretted her outburst. But she was tired of being considered the weak link in the group. Even Alex got more respect, and he couldn’t form a sentence without saying the word dude in it.

“It’s not what you’ve done, it’s what you won’t do. You won’t be protecting any of us. You won’t be on any missions with us. You won’t be putting your life on the line,” Valeria responded as she ticked off each point on her fingers.

Tate shook her head in frustration. “I know. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be useful. We know there’s someone in the White House. What if they go after President Stratton? I may need to defend him. Goodness knows Orville won’t.” Humphrey Orville was a former professor of military history turned chief of staff. He was a little man with a shaved head and black wire-rimmed glasses that he kept pushing up his nose.

“She’s got a point,” Dalton called out, not even breathing heavily as he ran.

Val cocked her head and looked at Tate. “Fine. I’ll help you, but no girly shit. No whining about sweating or your muscles hurting or your manicure scuffing.”

Tate held out her hand. “Deal.”

Valeria shook it and with a flick of her head indicated for Tate to follow her.

Tate had never felt so alive. She slammed her hand into the pad Dalton held for her and then rammed her knee up and into the pad.

Valeria shook her head. “You know what? I might have been wrong about you. Tate, I’m sorry. Under that Little Miss Sunshine smile is a girl who likes to kick ass,” Valeria grinned as she slapped Tate’s sweaty back.

“Thank you for showing me. I can’t wait to learn more.” Tate said as she took a towel from her bag and wiped her face off.

“You’ve created a monster,” Lizzy laughed as she looked down at her watch. “I have to go. I have to open Lancy’s soon,” she said. Lancy’s was the bar her father owned and ran in downtown Quantico until he was killed by members of Mollia Domini. The team now spent nights at the bar as part of their cover story.

“I’ll see you down there tonight,” Tate said, picking up her phone to check messages. “I’m meeting my brother for a drink.”

Tate had missed multiple calls from an old classmate from journalism school. Like, five of them in the past two hours. “I’ll be right back,” Tate mumbled as she walked outside to return the call.

The phone rang once and was picked up immediately. “Oh my God,” Brenda gasped into the phone. “Where have you been? Have you heard the news?”

Tate blinked at the rush of words. She hadn’t talked to Brenda in three years, maybe more. “What news?”

“Joel Davidson killed his wife, Sheila, and then committed suicide.”

“What?” Tate asked shocked. Joel had been in their class, and they went through school with him. He was the nicest man. Tate even remembered when he had first met Sheila and how during finals she would cook for them all. “Didn’t they just have a baby?” She remembered receiving the announcement a couple months before.

“They did. A little boy. Sheila’s mother came over to take Sheila and the baby to go to the zoo. She discovered Joel and Sheila in the kitchen and the baby upstairs crying in his crib,” Brenda told her.

Tate felt her heart break for them. They hadn’t been in constant contact, just Christmas cards and social media, but the thought of their poor son tore at her. “They seemed so happy,” Tate said, sounding like every neighbor ever interviewed after someone committed a crime.

“I know. I thought they were, too. The funeral is tomorrow. I thought you’d want to know.”

Tate nodded even though Brenda couldn’t see her. “Yes, I want to go. Thanks.”

After getting the information on the funeral, Tate headed back inside. Lizzy was pulling her shirt on over her sports bra, and Valeria was taking a turn at the punching bag as Dalton reached for his duffle bag.

“Everything okay?” Lizzy asked.

“A friend was involved in a murder-suicide with his wife. The funeral is tomorrow. They had a newborn son.” Tate was still trying to process it as Dalton gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder.

“Sorry, Tate. Let me know if you need anything.”

“That goes for me, too,” Lizzy added.

“Want to get drunk? I’m your girl,” Valeria offered.

“Thanks. I have some calls I need to make. I have to tell Birch, and I’ll have to miss a meeting tomorrow for the funeral. I’ll see you all tonight.” Tate grabbed her stuff and numbly headed to her car to get to work on reorganizing her schedule.