Ella Cassidy’s fears were pretty much rooted in her childhood. Hey, who’s weren’t, right? She didn’t like being trapped in a room with men she didn’t know, so she only took meetings from her home office conducted over video chat. She didn’t feel safe at night unless she could see into the shadows around her, so she lived in a loft that was one big room with the best lighting money could buy. She was afraid that her little sister’s identity would be revealed, so she had changed her name and cut all public ties with her.

So when her one and only friend, Kaylee Thomas, a cyber operative for Grimaldi Global, had uncovered the identity of Diavolos—the man who’d held her captive from the time she was eight until she was thirteen—and then asked her to reassume the identity she’d left behind, her first answer was no.

“Sorry, Kaylee. I want to help. You know I don’t want him hurting anyone else—but going back into that world? No way. I’m lucky I got out when I did.”

“I know,” Kaylee said. “I wouldn’t ask if there was any other way.”

They were sitting at the refurbished kitchen table in her loft. Kaylee’s black hair hung to her shoulders and she had blue eyes that didn’t miss a single thing. She was the daughter of a legendary hacker who she’d left when she was a teenager.

One of the things that Ella had always liked about her and Kaylee was the fact that they both could take care of themselves. Kaylee wouldn’t be here if she thought there was another way to capture Diavolos. Ella had seen the information that leaked to the news organizations and knew that Reece Hammond was the man behind Diavolos. She wanted him punished. She wanted him stopped. But she had her sister to think of. She had endured years of torture to keep her hidden. She couldn’t just step into that world again.

She couldn’t.

“Why me?”

“You’re the only one I can trust, and you have a stake in taking him down,” Kaylee said.

She would like to see Reece dead. She wasn’t going to pretend that letting the justice system take care of him would be enough. “I can’t do it. You know that I have to check in once a week and if I miss it, she might… She’s fragile.”

“I know. That’s why I’ve asked for a concise timeline. You wouldn’t be gone more than a week.”

Ella shook her head. Already she felt dirty. She needed a shower and she wanted to dye her hair again. She was going to change her entire image after Kaylee left. Run away from this life she’d created for herself.

She’d been foolish to think she could have anything normal.

“No.”

“Okay, I’m not going to push you into this. But you should know that he hasn’t changed. He’s still taking young girls and boys.”

Ella had dedicated herself to raising awareness about online grooming of children, so she couldn’t just close her eyes to this. “I can use my blog to get the word out.”

“If that’s what you want to do,” Kaylee said. “I know what I’m asking isn’t fair to you.”

“But who said life was fair?” Ella said under her breath.

Kaylee hadn’t come here this morning because she didn’t know about Ella’s past with Diavolos. She was aware of it, and the fact that she had come anyway meant that Kaylee believed Ella was the only one who could do this. She tucked a strand of her long blonde hair behind her ear and pulled her planner toward her.

Somehow, writing things down and making a list had always made her feel more in control of her world. Even when her living quarters had been that gross little room she’d had to share with three other girls back on Diavolos’s island, she’d used her fingers to draw a list in the dirt on the floor every night.

“What would my involvement be?” she asked.

“We’d like you to go in as Ella, you’re well known on the internet and we think that you’re a target anyway, because of your activism. We have a guy working on the inside who will “kidnap” you and then auction you off as a sex slave on the black market. We think that will draw Reece out. You’re the one that got that away, after all.”

She shivered and knew it was only partially fear. She wanted Reece captured…she’d already thought about it, but he was the demon who kept her up at night. She’d only ever seen him hidden in the shadows, watching, and it was something she’d never forgotten. The other men and boys, their faces had disappeared, but Diavolos’s never had.

“How can you be sure that they want me?” she asked.

“You’re on an online list of the top ten most wanted sex slaves on the black web,” Kaylee said. “You know how much time I’ve spent on the web, and even I had no idea something like that existed. We found it when we were analyzing the data we got from Diavolos’s headquarters in Virginia.”

A top ten list.

It was disheartening to realize after all the work she’d done to make the web a safer place for kids and the vulnerable that there was a list like that out there. She shouldn’t be surprised—and deep down inside, she wasn’t. But it hurt to think that all this time she’d been deluding herself. She’d thought she had made a difference in the world and now she realized she hadn’t.

“Who else is on there?” she asked. She was on it; did that mean they’d found her sister too?

“Don’t.” Kaylee lifted her hands up in a placating gesture, but she wasn’t going to be distracted.

“Who else?” Ella really didn’t need Kaylee to say it out loud. She could tell by how hard her friend was trying to keep from talking about it that her sister was on there.

“Bri is number two.”

Of course she was. “Do they have a recent picture?”

“Yes.”

“Dammit. I need to get her someplace safe.”

“Grimaldi will protect her. Even if you don’t go on this mission, she will be safe.”

Ella stood up, knocking over her chair and looked around her big open loft. She’d fooled herself into believing she was safe. That she and Bri could just move on.

“What would I have to do?” Ella asked.

“Just allow yourself to be kidnapped. We need to catch him in the act of human trafficking to prosecute him.”

“So I’d be in the same room with Diavolos?” she asked. Her hands were shaking and sweaty, so she balled them into fists.

“Yes.”

She couldn’t do this. Even thinking about it had her so rattled her breath was sawing in and out. Closing her eyes, she pictured Bri on the beach where she lived. Isolated. Away from the world. Safe. If Ella didn’t do this, he’d find Bri. There was a reason why her sister was on that list. He’d kept her for her his private use, and when Ella had killed his guards and taken Bri, Ella knew he thought she’d stolen from him.

“Okay.”

“Are you sure?” Kaylee asked.

She opened her eyes and gave her friend a hard look. “Are you kidding me?”

“It’s just, once you commit to this there’s no turning back,” Kaylee said, getting up from the table and coming around to her. She put her arm around Ella, but Ella couldn’t handle being touched right now and scooted away from her. Kaylee dropped her arm and just watched her with that serious blue gaze.

“I know that. But I have no choice. I think you know that, the same as I do.”

Kaylee nodded. “We can’t give you a weapon, but you’ll have your purse and whatever clothes you’re wearing. I have a tracker that we’ll embed under your skin, so that I’ll be able to keep tabs on you.”

Kaylee kept talking about safety and plans and arrangements but Ella had stopped paying attention. She knew what she was going to do. She’d take Grimaldi up on their offer to protect her sister, and she’d be used to get close to Diavolos—and once she was, she’d give the devil exactly what he had coming.

* * *

Working out wasn’t the best way to get rid of his frustration, but since the director at Grimaldi Global didn’t approve of full-on fistfights in the conference room, this was the only option available to Linc at the moment. They’d been so close to capturing not only the vital information on Diavolos’s dark web businesses, but also the man himself. Linc Garrison hadn’t been shocked when Diavolos’s true identity had been revealed. He came from old money and had grown up wintering with men of Reece Hammond’s ilk. So the fact that he was a despot willing to use anyone and anything to get his next thrill wasn’t a shock.

What had surprised him was seeing that top ten list of most-wanted sex slaves and realizing that the girl he’d helped escape ten years ago, but had always felt he hadn’t saved, was on there. She’d been one of the last ones to escape the human trafficking facility he’d helped to take down and she had done it on her own. He’d saved a lot of kids that day, but he hadn’t been able to help her.

He’d been a young agent, not really ready for the field, when he’d been sent undercover into that east coast sex ring. He’d done his best to help the kids…but he had been too green.

Linc hit the punching bag in front of him, seeing his younger self. That cocky, arrogant guy who had been too much talk and not enough action.

Now the girl was back. Or would be, if Kaylee convinced her to set herself up as bait. Linc knew he couldn’t fail her again. He would save her this time and take out Diavolos. It was past time to put that guy in the ground.

Everyone on Ares Team wanted a piece of him. Not just for the wild goose chase he’d led them on from Europe to the Virginia coast. But because of the unspeakable crimes he’d committed.

“Want a sparring partner instead of that defenseless bag?”

Linc glanced toward the doorway of the gym, where his team leader Mick O’Halloran stood. Mick had taken a lot of hits on their last mission and really wasn’t at one hundred percent. A decent guy would say no, but Linc wanted a fight.

“I’m not going to pull my punches,” he warned Mick.

“I’d be surprised if you did,” Mick said, coming further into the room and going over to the table where the tape for wrapping knuckles was kept.

Linc shook his arms and then double-checked that the laces on his gloves were tight enough.

“I don’t really like gloves,” Mick commented.

“I’m in a destructive mood. I’m not sure we should do this,” Linc said.

“Why?”

He shrugged.

“She’s the one, isn’t she?” Mick asked as he used his teeth to tear the tape.

Linc took off his boxing gloves, staring down at his hands. They all had someone or something they thought they had failed. A mission that could have gone better. The girl—Ella—and her sister were his.

He’d been born into a world of wealth and privilege and probably would have stayed on that path if his mother hadn’t been killed in a terrorist attack when he was sixteen. It had been a wakeup call to the world around him, and he’d taken it.

His family name gave him an excuse to travel all over the world—something the director took advantage of.

“Ready, son.”

“Son? You are itching to get your ass kicked, aren’t you? What’s the matter? Kaylee kick you out of her bed?” Linc taunted as he got into fighting position.

No matter that he worked for a company that existed in the gray area between right and wrong, Linc was a rule follower, so boxing or martial arts appealed to him more than a straight-out street fight.

“Worried about my love life?” Mick asked. “You must have too much time on your hands.”

Linc threw the first punch, landing it squarely on Mick’s jaw, which was just as hard as the rest of his commander’s head. Mick took the hit, returning a punch to Linc’s midsection. Neither man was pulling their punches. They went around and around the mat until they were both exhausted. Linc couldn’t speak for Mick, but his arms were tight and his knuckles sore.

They both stepped back to catch their breath, Linc walking over to the mini-fridge and taking out a bottle of Gatorade and tossing one to Mick, who caught it one-handed and twisted the top off to take a long swallow.

“I’m one of the few people who know about your first assignment,” Mick said after they’d both downed their drinks.

“So?” Linc paused unwrapping his knuckles. He’d been the one to tell Mick about it one night when they’d both been drunk. Linc trusted Mick, knew he wouldn’t be bringing it up without reason.

“You can’t fix the past. That’s all I’m saying. I want you to be sure you’re in the present,” Mick said.

“Have I given you reason to doubt me?” Linc asked.

Mick shook his head. “You know you haven’t. But this girl—”

“Isn’t going to be used again,” Linc said. “You know the entire team feels the same way. I’m just the guy who knows the setup better than the rest of them. It’s a job, O’Halloran, nothing more.”

Mick put his hands up and backed away. “Just needed to make sure.”

Mick left the gym and Linc stayed, letting the sweat dry on his body. He’d just lied to his commander. Hell, he’d been lying to himself since he’d seen her face on the mission dossier. He remembered the girl, and wouldn’t have connected her to the woman she was today—Ella Kennedy—if it weren’t for the data file that had compromised her new identity.

He cracked his knuckles and remembered every detail of that first job. He’d gotten in to bust up the ring and he’d not been…good enough. But he was now. He’d cared the last time. Let emotion keep him from being objective and doing the job right.

That boy had wised up a long time ago. He should have been smarter back then, but his father had always said it took him a few tries to learn things.

He showered and got dressed in a black Tom Ford suit before joining the others in the mission room. Everyone had a part to play if they were going to make a success of the mission and take down Reece Hammond.

Frank let out a wolf-whistle when Linc walked in.

Linc flipped him off and kept walking toward the back of the room where Mick was cursing at his computer. Mick was an old-fashioned warrior. He could fight in this modern age, but all the tech pissed him off.

Cory Wilson was the communications expert. He loved tech as much as Mick hated it, and never hesitated to take Mick to task for his rough treatment of his equipment. Cory kept them all in contact with each other and made sure that no one else could track them.

Cory was the one who had to try to teach Mick to use all the new techy stuff and it was only as he got closer that Linc realized Cory had a grip on Mick’s wrist, presumably to keep him from punching the screen.

Frank Ross oversaw logistics and functioned as the team’s sniper. Scarily accurate, he was someone who saw the bigger picture, since he was usually positioned high above them and able to see the entire operation as it unfolded. He sat in the corner looking like he was dozing off, but Linc knew from experience he was alert and aware of everything going on around him.

Mick O’Halloran looked like he’d been forged in steel. His face, tough and often sporting scabs and bruises, had been labeled a harbinger of death in some parts of the world. He was a soldier who meted out justice at the bidding of his bosses. There was no man Linc would rather have at his back in battle.

“Let go of my arm or I’ll deck you,” Mick said.

Cory stood up and walked away. “Stubborn and unskilled. I don’t know why I volunteered to stay on this damned team.”

“Because you like us,” Linc said.

“Yeah, right,” Cory said. “You’re a little overdressed, aren’t you?”

“I have to meet my dad for drinks at the Capital Lounge,” Linc said.

“What time?” Cory asked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back for the briefing. Did the girl agree to help?”

“Which girl?”

“The blonde one,” he said.

The one with the big eyes that he’d never been able to forget. She had a heart-shaped face that she’d grown into—when she’d been a young girl her face had made her eyes look very large, and he supposed to some men, seductive. They’d simply seemed empty and broken to him. Her mouth was full, her upper lip fuller than the bottom one, and all he could thing about was her face from that photo that the commander had shown them. She’d changed so much.

He’d spent some time in his quarters looking at the two pictures, trying to find the scared young girl in the strong woman she was today.

“Yeah, she did,” Cory said.

That was it. She was in and so was he. He wasn’t sure if she’d remember him. His mission commander had told him to drug all the kids to give them time to get them out of the compound. He’d missed her and her sister. Had only found them as she’d been battling a guard who’d been trying to force them into a van with blacked-out windows.

But he’d never forgotten her or the way she’d fought like a tigress to protect her younger sister. He knew it wasn’t in her to back down from a fight, but this time, he really wished she had.