Jax woke with a start. She was drenched in sweat, her heart rate triple her resting rate.

Six months ago, her night terrors had been about Montes. Now they were about something else. She’d prefer to do without them altogether, but so long as Montes stayed where he belonged—in her past—she’d take comfort in that.

“Latent performance pressure anxiety,” Dr. Martin had diagnosed right after the L.O.S.T. mission in Vegas. It had pissed Jax off. The op had gone off perfectly, so why the anxiety? She wasn’t a nervous Nelly. Not by nature. And not anymore.

Nonetheless, she couldn’t deny it—something inside her worried the next mission might not go so well. That niggling something kept her up at night. Was it simply the baggage of her past, or was it a premonition?

Shivering, Jax rolled on her side and mumbled, “Don’t get all woo-woo, Jax. Your past would give anyone nightmares.”

But it didn’t matter, she told herself. She’d left her old life firmly behind. Angela Giacomelli was a stranger to her now.

For a long time she had felt less of a woman because of the internal and external scars left behind by Montes, her squad, and her boyfriend, Judd, a man she had trusted, loved and thought to spend the rest of her life with. His horrified looks after the doctors told him what Montes had done to her were burned into her memory banks. He hadn’t been horrified for her; he’d been horrified at the thought of touching her again. She’d replayed the way he’d walked away as she’d been wheeled into surgery, never quite believing it had truly happened. Reality set in when he didn’t visit. She’d understood perfectly then: Her very public attack had very publicly disgraced him.

She’d understood, but she hadn’t forgotten or forgiven. She still hadn’t.

But she’d managed to put it behind her in order to move on with her life.

In time, with Doctor Martin’s help and the help of every operative at L.O.S.T., Jax had shed all of her baggage, reemerging from her past clean and reborn. She was a survivor. She had a new life as a highly trained operative surrounded by other highly trained operatives. She worked for the real good guys and knew that this time she would not be left behind as collateral damage. Life was damn good, and she was damn grateful for it.

With sudden clarity she realized what fueled her anxiety. She didn’t want to lose this life. And just as importantly,she didn’t want to disappoint the man who’d given it to her.

Godfather had created the ultimate weapon: Jax Cassidy. He had complete confidence in her not only as a woman but as a prime operative. She would not let him down. Taking a deep breath, she rolled from the bed, dragging her fingers through her dark mahogany-highlighted hair. She’d colored it and had let it grow. Longer than it had ever been. Maybe it was time to chop it off. She tossed the thick mass over her shoulder and headed for the bathroom.

As Jax got into the shower, she thought of the terror she’d experienced during her night sweats. She couldn’t help it. She was like that. She wanted—no, needed—to know the whys of everything. Maybe it was her Catholic upbringing. Asking God why he did this or that. Mostly, she learned God did’nt have much to do with the whys, at least not hers. It was just life. She was lucky to get a second chance.

She focused on what Doc Barb had said—that once Jax got into the swing of regular missions, the anxiety would dissolve as her confidence increased.

She’d never thought confidence would be a problem for her.

Jax smiled as she turned off the harsh spray of hot water. She was cocky by nature and had become more so with her training. She knew she was good. Her fellow operatives knew it too.

Jax dried off. As she was dressing, her cell phone rang to the theme from Godfather I. Her heart rate leapt into high gear. There was only one reason Godfather would be calling this early in the morning.

---

“Cassidy,” she answered.

“War room, twenty minutes,” Godfather said, then hung up.

Fifteen minutes later, still damp from her shower and dressed in a sand colored tee shirt and desert BDU’s , Jax sipped a hot cup of coffee as she entered the war room of L.O.S.T.’s ranch compound. As she strode deeper into the room, her fellow operatives stood and clapped. They were all there. Stone, Cruz, Jackson, Satriano, Donovan and the others.

For the slightest nth of a millisecond, Jax felt a hard jolt of emotion wrack through her chest. She leashed it before it took on a life of its own.

“Nice work on the Vegas job, Cassidy,” Jackson said, giving her a hearty slap on her back. She got another from Satriano, then Cruz. By the time Jax made it to her seat and set her coffee cup down, half of it had sloshed onto the floor.

“Guys, guys!” she said, “enough, already. I want to drink the rest of my coffee!”

As she sat down, she wiped her hand on her . The door behind her opened and she turned.

From the grim look on Godfather’s face as he walked into the room, as always dressed in his I’m-a-badass black on black, she knew this was going to be a doozy.

She was ready. She was also eager to prove to these men that Vegas hadn’t been an anomaly. She needed them to know, as much as she did herself, that she was a solid, dependable part of this team.

Jax looked up at her mentor, the man who had yanked her kicking and screaming from the black hole of life in prison and, in so many ways, had saved her. He had more confidence in her than she did herself. It was because she respected the hell out him that she’d allowed herself to even try. And in the end, Godfather had bet on a sure thing. He hadn’t given up on her when she had given up on herself.

It felt good to be here. In the golden circle, the war room, where the top secret details of each mission were presented, disseminated and strategized down to the smallest detail, ensuring mission success. The same place she’d been brought to six months ago, the same room where she’d agreed to join the Last Option Special Team, and the same room she’d been forbidden to reenter since her first mission two weeks ago.

Jax took a deep breath and attempted to look casual and relaxed, like this was old hat. Nearly impossible with the continued rush of adrenaline that flooded her system.

Godfather looked down at her, forced the grim lines from his face and actually cracked what might be called a smile. “Cassidy, I thought you might want to know the Sudanese bought the recalculated Scud codes the CIA mole gave them. Recalced to return home after launch, of course. That particular extremist group is enjoying their seventy-two virgins as we speak.”

Jax smiled.

Godfather nodded and continued. “There was more valuable information encrypted in the files you downloaded than the Scud codes.”

“Like what?” Cruz asked.

Godfather looked his way and answered, “Like a dozen secret locations of core plutonium.”

A collective gasp rippled through the room. Godfather nodded. “Kozovic was dealing in atomic bomb parts.”

Jax sat in stunned silence. A freaking atomic bomb? Suddenly shaking down prostitutes and chasing two-bit thieves didn’t sound so important. She looked up at her mentor and knew that the reason he had called them together was not to congratulate her on the success of her last op.

“We get very few missions that directly threaten world peace,” Godfather began, his tone grim, his handsome face taut with tension. “But as it is, we have a guy who thinks he’s God. His henchmen do his bidding without question. ‘Patriots’ they call themselves, operating on blind faith.” He picked up the remote on the table next to where he stood and pressed a button.

A picture of Senator William Rowland flashed up on the surrounding screens. Christ. A rogue senator?

“Senator William Rowland. A conservative stronghold in left coast California. He chairs the Foreign Relations Appropriations Committee. He’s also sub chair for the top security clearance Intelligence Committee. He’s the go-to man for money and, as is common in Washington, earmarks have a way of funding non-earmarked ventures.”

“More fleecing of America,” Cruz crumbled.

Godfather laughed harshly. “Don’t knock it, Cruz. How do you think we’re funded?”

That answered one of a million questions that had been on Jax’s mind. Interesting.

Godfather turned back to the screen and pressed another button. The face that sprung up around them gave Jax a hard chill. He looked like an aged version of an evil Mr. Clean. Pale eyes stared at them with such intensity that Jax pushed back in her seat.

“Colonel Joseph Trueheart Lazarus, retired Army, and a legend among his peers,” Godfather started. “The guy has balls the size of Texas, and so did every man in his specialized unit. So specialized, the details of their missions are still top secret, and trying to get information regarding them is as difficult as breaking into Fort Knox. We do know when the unit was actively deployed they were used mostly to extract, but were also used to eliminate. The top gun honors went to Sergeant Marcus Cross, who we will get to shortly.

“Lazarus is sixty-two, retired seven years ago, never married, no family to speak of, and now heads up a dummy corporation, The Solution. The Solution looks like and acts like a general contracting company that has met all of the U.S. government’s preferred status requirements. It’s supposed to rebuild in Iraq and other parts of the world where big brother wants to look philanthropic. The only thing The Solution builds is business for the local mortician. The Solution searches for, then eliminates, enemies of the State.” Godfather stoically panned the room, allowing the information to sink in.

Confused, Jax asked, “So what’s the problem?”

“His message is patriotism, his method is terrorism.”

Jax nodded. “So it’s Rowland who uses the earmarks to fund The Solution’s ops, and now he wants us to end the relationship.”

Godfather grinned, the gesture nearly bowling Jax over. The man had a second dimension. Go figure.

“Very good, Cassidy. Until recently, the earmarks funded The Solution’s operations. Rowland put the brakes on The Solution last month. For his efforts, the senator’s chief of staff, Jason Blalock, was tossed from a tenth-story balcony last night.”

“No shit!” Stone said.

Godfather nodded and hit a button on the remote. The picture that flashed up on the screen made Jax’s stomach lurch. She had seen some grisly crime scenes, but this one ranked right up there with the worst. A body, Blalock, she assumed, his head split wide open, gray matter splattered everywhere and his body broken in pieces.

“Jesus,” she murmured.

“An associate of ours cleaned up the mess in the wee hours of this morning. To the world, Blalock fell asleep on his way home from a late night at the office and took an unfortunate dive off the beltway. His car exploded, and, well, our condolences to the family.” He looked pointedly at his operatives and continued, “Lazarus has threatened the senator with dire consequences, among them elimination of his only child should he not reinstate The Solution’s preferred status.” He looked up at the picture of a blood-spattered Blalock, and then back around the room. “Under no circumstance can that happen.”

Godfather pressed another button. A collective gasp rent the air. The picture showed the naked, broken body of a girl lying on a threadbare mattress. “The girl, identified as twelve-year-old Amy Stover of Towson, Maryland, reported as a runaway three months ago, and who was Blalock’s amusement for the night, was also eliminated,” Godfather said grimly.

Anger washed in rolls through Jax. Along with it, however, came fear. Murder was bad enough. Maybe sick fucks like Blalock deserved it, but an exploited child? Never.

Suddenly, it wasn’t the girl’s body she saw. Rage, and the violent urge to lash out and inflict pain on those who deserved it, ate at her like acid on flesh. Most of the time, Jax managed to quell her violent urges. When, thinking of Montes and the abandonment by her department, she hadn’t been able to quell them, she’d beaten the crap out of the heavy bag in the gym to the point of raw-knuckled exhaustion. Those fits had become fewer and further between, but they still lurked. Ever since arriving at L.O.S.T., when she felt the violence erupt, she’d replay Doc Martin’s repeating theme: “Give yourself a break, for God’s sake! You beat yourself up more than Montes did.”

She focused on those words now.

She hadn’t taken too kindly to them that first time. She’d stalked from the good doctor’s office that day and refused to go back. She hadn’t wanted to face the truth. Later that night, when she’d awoken in a cold sweat, the doctor’s words had hovered in her consciousness.

She’d let go of Angela then. Angela was dead, and if she was going to survive, she’d known she would have to survive in this world as Jax Cassidy. A calmness had settled over her that night, and for the first time since her attack, some of the demons had subsided inside of her.

Jax sucked in a deep breath and slowly let it out, the practice easing the tension in her muscles. Since there was no punching bag in the vicinity, she mustered her control, focused on the picture in front of her, and asked, “What kind of bastard kills a little girl who was already exploited?”

Godfather pressed another button. Jax stared unblinking as the face burst into her senses.

“Marcus Cross, Lazarus’s triggerman also known as the Coyote. Our boy is a piece of work. Born Daniel Marcus Killroy, he legally changed his name to Marcus Cross when he turned eighteen. He was raised by his Native American grandfather on a reservation near Clearlake, California.”

Another picture flashed up on the screen, this one of an old Indian man and a small dark-haired boy who looked solemnly at the camera. It was followed by another picture, similar setting, the two of them sitting on the steps of a dilapidated house, the boy, younger, with a man who resembled the older one in the first picture. But this man’s eyes were dead. “Cross’s old man became a classic cliché. Drank himself to death by the time Marcus was six. He had a good reason. His wife, a trust fund baby and heiress to the Taylor conglomerate, took off two weeks after Cross was born.”

Another photo flashed up on the screens. The woman was extraordinarily beautiful. She could have been Jean Harlow’s twin.

“Sophia Scott Taylor. She ran off with ‘that half-breed’ Johnny Killroy to California when she was sixteen. She lasted long enough to get pregnant, have the baby, and run home to Las Vegas, where her marriage was annulled, and Johnny Killroy and her infant son were erased from her life. Daddy hurried up and married her off to husband number two, retired ambassador to Japan, Holby Philips.”

“You say that like there are more husbands,” Jax quipped.

Godfather nodded. “Philips died of a heart attack five years after they were married. By then, the lovely Sophia was imbedded in politics. She was patient and chose her next husband with great care. There’s chatter about him becoming Calhoun’s running mate. Could mean the White House. That ups the stakes exponentially.” He clicked another picture. It showed an older but still gorgeous Sophia Taylor smiling beside Senator William Rowland.

“Cross’s mother is married to Rowland?” Jax asked, shocked by the connection. “Does he know?”

Godfather shook his head. “I thought it was an odd coincidence, so we pulled the birth certificate. It names Jane Doe as Cross’s birth mother. But we dug a little deeper and found the original in the reservation archives. We have no idea what he was told as a child. From our perspective, if you combine the circumstances and the paperwork, I’m betting he doesn’t know.”

“Does the senator know Lazarus’s top gun is his wife’s firstborn?”

Godfather slowly shook his head. “No, and for now we’re going to leave it that way.”

“Does Lazarus know?”

“I’m not going to assume anything about Joseph Lazarus. It would be too much of a coincidence for him not to know. I don’t believe in coincidences. I’d bet my retirement Lazarus recruited Cross solely for the blood ties to the senator’s wife. Lazarus is a manipulator. He wants it all, and he’ll use the mother/son card if he has to.”

Jax slowly shook her head, wondering who else Lazarus would use and how. Was anyone off limits to a man like him? “I doubt Cross, if he knows or finds out about Sophia Rowland, would do much to save her. Hell, Lazarus would have to save the mother from the son.”

“That could end up working in our favor, Cassidy,” Godfather said, then clicked another frame. A picture of an angry boy flashed up on the screen. “This was right after Cross was caught coming back onto the reservation. He was twelve. He’d taken off to parts unknown for over a month. No one knew where he went. He refused to talk about it. After that, the shit really started to hit the fan.”

Jax held her breath for a short second, then exhaled. The expression on young Marcus’s face defied description. If she had to give it words, they would be a blatant combination of hate, distrust and venom. The boy who stared at the camera held the entire world in contempt.

Jax sat in stunned silence as the assassin’s pictures, one after another, flashed before her. Something deep and primal lurked behind his crystalline-colored eyes and the jagged scar that ran from just behind his right ear down his throat and across his collarbone.

“Marcus was a classic problem child,” Godfather continued. “Antisocial. Acted out by setting fires, stealing from the local bullies, and swindling whites out of their cash. By the time he was fifteen, he’d been arrested for assault with a deadly weapon three times. The deadly weapon being his fists. He excelled at an early age in martial arts, kung fu specifically. Each charge was dropped for lack of witnesses, but there were notations in each case file that he was defending reservation kids against the white kids. Once Marcus hit his teens, he was regularly in trouble. Petty theft, alcohol, truancy and fighting. In and out of juvey. Lots of fighting, and he didn’t discriminate. Defiance appears to be his default action.”

Godfather pressed the button again. Another classy image of socialite Sophia Rowland flashed before them. Marcus had his mother’s light skin, which tempered the swarthy skin of his father, but his paternal ancestry was evident in his prominent cheekbones and square jaw. He was a complex compilation of angles and planes, punctuated by dark, hawklike features. He reminded her of something otherworldly in his intensity.

“His mother deserted him when he was two weeks old, his grandmother dropped dead in front of him when he was seven, his father was a drunk, and the grandfather had his own problems. The kid was screwed from conception. The day he graduated high school with a 1.5 GPA, his grandfather dragged him down to the Army recruiter and signed on the dotted line. Cross was seventeen.”

Jax nodded. “That might draw a tear if he wasn’t a child killer.”

“Here’s the kicker. He scored nearly perfect on every ASVAB he took. He went in as a private, less than a year in was recruited by spec ops where he excelled. He spent ten years in the military, mostly covert stuff, but suffered what should have been a fatal injury in the mountains of Afghanistan. He was immediately discharged.”

“Why the discharge? Why not a desk job?” Satriano asked.

“He didn’t want it. After his discharge, he drifted for a couple of years. There’s sketchy intel about where he was and what he did. He’s good at disappearing. He surfaced five years ago in D.C. and was recruited by Colonel Lazarus, who was his commanding officer when he was discharged. Something went wrong on Cross’s last op. We think—but cannot confirm—his unit deserted him.” Jax stiffened at the information and couldn’t help but feel a tug of compassion for a man left behind by the unit he would have died for. They were bookends in that regard. Trust was a commodity she rarley shared.

Godfather continued. “Yet someone was not willing to leave him behind as collateral damage. Personally? I suspect it was Lazarus, and because he came back for Cross, Cross owed him for his life.”

Good for Cross. Somebody cared enough to come back for him. So maybe they didn’t have much in common after all. “Boo-fucking-hoo. Sad, sad story. Still doesn’t give him the right to kill a baby,” Jax said.

Godfather looked long and hard at Jax, so long and so hard without speaking that she squirmed in her seat.

“Just remember that when you come face-to-face with him, Cassidy. He’s your mark.”

If her adrenaline had pumped before, now it shot through her system. “Take him out?”

Godfather nodded. “Eventually.” He pressed another button and more images of Marcus Cross flashed before them. Most of them in regular army greens. But the one in his dress blues, his broad chest covered in medals, would have stilled most women’s hearts.

Her suppressed rage surfaced.

He didn’t fool her. He was a cold-blooded killer of children. He had no scruples, no code, no heart. And she would have none when she dealt with him.

Godfather freeze-framed a picture of Cross as a boy. “When this picture was taken, Cross had just shot and field-dressed his first deer. He’s a killer. Don’t forget it.”

Jax nodded as the excitement she’d felt earlier heated her blood.

“Get into his head, Cassidy, get under his skin, get so deep he trusts you, then offer your services to The Solution. We need to know where Lazarus has gone to ground. Then we’ll cut the head off the snake.”

“What makes you think I can just waltz in and make him sing?”

Godfather grinned. “Cross has two weaknesses. Weaknesses we will exploit. He’s a competitive bastard, and he likes women. Women like you, Jax, who are sleek and as intelligent as he is.”

Despite herself, Jax warmed at the compliment. “So we invite him to a tennis match, I beat him and he’s intrigued?”

“Cross does a little cleanup work on the side.” Godfather pressed the button on the remote and another image popped up. “Salvador ‘Chava’ Tuturo. He runs the Vela cartel in Chicago. Our intel has it that he’s recently contacted Cross to eliminate his brother Jaime.”

“Sibling rivalry?”

“Not really. It’s just business. Jaime lacks and has been bringing the heat down on Chava’s operation. His latest screwup was turning one of the deputy superintendent of police’s goddaughter into fish bait. Even though everyone knows Jaime is a ticking time bomb, big brother can’t take out his blood brother, but he can pay someone to make it look like he had it coming, which by all accounts he does. He makes the Hussein boys look like lambs.

“Cross is scheduled to land at O’Hare tomorrow night at twenty-three thirty-eight under the name of Alan Matheson. We’ll have a man on him. The DEA has a CI inside Jaime’s circle. Gabriella Montavida. She’s his amigo, Miguel Vasquez’s, flavor of the week. They’re going out on the town tomorrow night. And so are you.”

Jax smiled. “You think Cross will make his move then?”

“It’s the way he operates. He’s succinct, never staying in one place more than a day or two, tops. He has few habits, but that’s one of them.” Godfather set the remote down on the table and looked hard at Jax. “I want you to rain on Cross’s parade. Do you know what that will entail?”

Jax swallowed hard and showed no fear. Indeed, fear was the last thing she felt. “Eliminate Jaime.”

Godfather nodded. “Cross will come after you.”

Jax stood and set her cup down. “And I’ll be waiting.”