A flash of familiar white-blond hair hung in my periphery. I lowered the phone and turned, expecting to make eye contact with the man I’d noticed was following me on my search for Kate. But he hadn’t seen me. A large group of college-aged girls were lingering nearby with their bags. I ducked behind them and settled on my haunches, letting my back rest against the wall. Quickly I pulled up the map application on my phone and searched for architectural firms nearby. If Kate was on the move, I’d try like hell to meet her half way.

“I’m so hungover,” said a girl close by.

Another girl groaned. “Oh my God, I know. I thought I was going to throw up in the cab on the way here. That guy was driving like a maniac.”

I rolled my eyes. I’d pay for her problems. Laughter and more stories of drunken debauchery ensued as I waited endlessly for the search results to offer Kate’s possible location. Service was exceptionally shitty in this building. I cursed it and the gaggle of idiotic girls next to me every second the search wheel spun.

Finally, a hit.

Moniz & Whitehead Architectural Associates was on 34th and 8th. That had to be it. I rose and glanced around for the man who’d been following me. He was nowhere to be seen. Frankly, I didn’t care as much about the threat of him as I did about moving swiftly in Kate’s direction. I wasn’t confident he’d attempt to shoot me in public. Didn’t seem to be Cybermark’s style, as vicious as they were.

I headed toward the exit that would deposit me on 8th Avenue. Kate was close. Barely a block away. Hundreds of people filled the streets between us, but those people were our protection. I just had to get to her.

“Price Lewis?”

I spun at the sound of a man’s voice. Two more men in suits flanked me at once, the air of authority in their postures unmistakable.

The man who spoke lifted a badge. “Agent Martino, FBI. We need you to come with us.”

I widened my eyes. No one had called me by my full given name in a year. “How—”

“I’ll explain everything in a minute. Let’s go.” The agent nodded toward a black town car idling by the curb and reached for me.

I jerked away from his grasp. “No. I have to get Kate. She’s here.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You mean Kate Lewis, your wife?”

Before I could explain that she was in grave danger, shots rang out. Screams echoed down the street, too many of them at once to distinguish one as Kate’s.

My whole body jolted forward, my heart beating like a jackhammer in my chest. Two more quick shots and more screams. Kate. My God. Where was she? Adrenaline surged through my veins as a wave of people came rushing toward us, running away from the danger. I lurched toward it when a strong hand grabbed me and held me back.

“Not so fast, Lewis,” the agent said. “You need to stay back with us.”

I tried to rip away, but then all three of them were on me, halting my forward movement.

“Get off me!” I fought with all my might, but they’d taken me down to the ground. “Kate’s over there. I need to get to her. She’s not safe.”

“Stop fighting, Lewis, goddamnit,” another agent spoke through gritted teeth as he tried to hold me still.

No. I’d never stop fighting to protect her. I wrested one arm free and slugged the first face I saw. Agent Martino.

“Fuck!” He fell back, his hand over his eye.

Before I used the opportunity to escape, something hard came down on my head. The pain was blinding, piercing through my desperate determination.

In mere seconds, everything went black, and the sounds of chaos all around us drifted away.

---

My body burned. Waves of heat singed my skin like the sun. The unrelenting island sun. Bright white light filled the frame of my vision, fading enough that I recognized the familiar landscape of Leiloa.

What was I doing here?

The rhythm of rough ocean waves crashed along the shore. Stretches of beach that had come to feel like home sprawled all around me. Except this felt more like a desert to die in. My mouth was dry, my throat parched. My limbs didn’t want to move.

Then I heard my name on her lips. Soft, like the song of a bird in the distance. I heard it again, stronger this time. I closed my eyes, wrapping every thought around the sound, as if I could draw her near with my mind.

Then I felt her. Cool palms sliding over my bare torso. She hovered above me like an angel from heaven. I blinked my eyes open, feeling my chest collapse with a whoosh.

Kate. My angel.

“Baby,” I whispered, my throat seemingly healed by her mere presence.

She smiled sweetly, leaning forward to brush her lips over mine. I savored the soft touch only a moment before lifting into it, seeking more of her delicious mouth. I kissed her like a dying man, and she was shade and water. My only hope. Salvation on the edge of an unforgiving sea.

She straddled me slowly. She trailed her fingertips down my chest, and her breasts spilled free from her sheer white dress designed to tease rather than conceal. I covered their perfect softness with my hands, no longer dead weight, seemingly reawakened by the intense magnetic force that existed between our two bodies. How was it possible to crave her flesh like I did? I squeezed and pinched her nipples firmly. She closed her eyes with a breathy sigh, and my question floated away with the breeze.

She swiveled her hips, grinding against my groin. I drifted my palms from her breasts to the tops of her thighs, inching the delicate white fabric up until I could see her bare cunt. Before I could maneuver her onto my aching cock, she grabbed it, stroking from base to tip. I lifted my hips into every stroke. Then she shimmied lower, a coy smile curving her lips.

“Let me take care of you.”

I groaned, because she hadn’t stopped stroking me. And because I couldn’t ignore the soul-deep ache to possess her fully, to feel her perfect pussy gloving me in this moment. But before I could argue for that, her lips were around me. Her tongue trailed perfect circles around my cock, swirling around the tip where she licked and sucked.

Perfection. Her mouth. Her body. Every succulent inch of her…

---

“Lewis!”

The pleasure and the fantasy abruptly ended at the sound of my name echoing harshly off the walls. I blinked awake with a grimace, finding myself in a small shadowed room. The silhouette of a man caught my eye. I turned, but the small movement invited a bullet of pain shooting through my head, so violent that I immediately rolled off the bed and vomited in a nearby toilet.

Then I remembered everything. Someone had clocked me. Probably with his sidearm. The gates of what I identified now as a cell rolled open, and every movement of metal on metal seemed to reverberate in my brain. Without a doubt, I’d sustained a concussion from the blow. But even through the pain and the sickness, only one thought was truly clear.

I glanced up at the beefy guard. “Where’s Kate?”

He shrugged. “Agent Martino is waiting for you. He’s got the answers if there are any. Get up, kid.”

I wiped my mouth and got to my feet. He led me to another room where, as promised, Agent Martino stood.

A deep purple bruise marked his cheekbone. He shot me a tight smile. “Lewis. We meet again. How are you feeling?”

Truthfully, I felt like I could probably use a doctor, and no matter how much trouble I was in, I should be entitled to one. But I only had one goal. One gnawing fear that penetrated the pain and my foggy brain.

“Where’s Kate? She could still be with them. Did you look for her?” I couldn’t hide the raw desperation in my voice.

Martino’s expression didn’t change. “Sit down.”

I hesitated a moment before dropping into a chair. He sat across from me, his body crooked, his arm slung casually off the back of his chair. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the over-confident tough guy routine.

“You said you’d explain everything,” I began.

“Then you fucking slugged me. What the hell?”

I slammed my fists on the table. “Do you know where my wife is or not?”

He shook his head, and my heart beat so loudly I barely heard his next words.

“You’re going to tell me everything you know, Lewis. And then I’ll tell you where your wife is.”

My jaw fell a fraction and I snapped it shut. I wanted to slug him again and tell him precisely where he could shove his FBI power trip. But what could I do when I was this hopeless, not knowing where she was or if she was safe?

“We’ve been tailing you for a few weeks,” he said. “You’re slippery. I’ll give you that.”

I winced. “You’ve been tailing me?”

“Sure. We hung on the outskirts of the property you were staying at in Leiloa. We just watched, hoping your wife would lead us to whoever you guys are working for.”

“Working for? What the hell are you taking about?”

“Cybermark Enterprises. Ring any bells?”

My jaw tightened.

“See, Lewis, I’ve been working this Cybermark case since before you fell off the map. People in their accounting department have been dropping like flies.”

“I know.”

“We figured you did. Or at least we thought your wife did. We followed a few tips that led us to your friends, Sven and Krister. We weren’t too surprised to find them headquartered next to your old apartment. I can tell you we were pretty fucking surprised to find you alive on an island in the Pacific, though.”

“Those blond hitmen are not my fucking friends. They’ve been stalking Kate ever since I reached out to her again.”

“Is that so? You want to explain why you faked your own death if you have nothing to do with these murders?”

My lips fell agape. How could this be happening? How could they have it so wrong?

“They tried to kill me.”

He lifted an eyebrow.

“I had been following their company through my work and noticed some odd numbers. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to dig deeper, so I reached out. They invited me to their headquarters in Switzerland and then put me on a goddamn death trap plane.”

“The pilot’s body was found. No trace of yours.”

I shrugged. “One parachute.”

He nodded.

“I didn’t have anything to do with this. I…” I rubbed my forehead, unable to allay the physical or emotional pain that coursed through me. “I couldn’t stay away from Kate anymore. I made a decision. Still not sure if it was the right one. But I couldn’t live without her another day, at least not until she’d had a chance to decide whether to come live off the grid with me.”

Agent Martino leaned in, pulled out a small notepad and pen from his jacket, and tapped the tip of the pen on the paper. “Let’s start with what you know about Cybermark.”

I shook my head even though it hurt to do so. “I’m not sure I know any more than you do. I have a history of financials that don’t add up and a list of dead accountants.”

He dropped his pen and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re going to need more than that to get out of this. You faked your death, and you’re in possession of falsified identification. Your wife collected on your life insurance. That’s fraud. These are felonies we’re talking about.”

The list of offenses Martino ticked off meant so much to him and so little to me.

“These men are killing people! I faked my death to protect my wife. They would have killed us both. Jesus, they still want to. By some miracle, I survived a plane crash that should have killed me. I spent a few months doing manual labor, and after that, I bought a boat, taught myself to fish, and debated whether or not to risk Kate’s life by reaching out to her. Whatever they’re involved in, it has nothing to do with me. I swear to you.”

A knock sounded at the door. Agent Martino rose, opened the door a crack, and spoke in a hushed whisper to whoever was outside. He poked his head back into the room. “I’ll be back. We’re not finished.”

I rose quickly. “Where’s Kate? You promised you’d tell me.”

“You haven’t told me everything.”

“She’s my goddamn wife! Tell me where she is!” My voice echoed loudly against the walls. My skin chilled with fear of the unknown. She could be in danger, or hurt. Who had fired the shots on the street? Had she found her way to safety? God help me, she could still be on the run. Or worse, she could be dead at the hands of those blond brothers, and these suits were just holding out to get more information from me before my whole world shattered.

Martino ignored my shouting and ducked away. I sucked in a series of uneven breaths, but nothing could calm me down short of another whack to the head. I was going to hyperventilate at this rate. Fisting my shaking hands in my hair, I paced the room. I berated myself. I prayed. I tried like hell to put together a plan, but I had no idea what I could devise in my current state.

Then, mercifully, Martino returned. Some of his smugness had slipped away. In fact, he appeared downright disappointed, like someone had tossed his ice cream cone on the ground.

I halted and held his stare. Only then did I notice a manila envelope in his hand that hadn’t been there before. “What’s going on?”

“Have a seat.”

“Tell me where my wife is.” I balled my fists, entertaining a fleeting vision of using them to get the answers I needed.

He lifted a hand, as if to wave off my unspoken wish. “Kate is being held here at the station. She’s fine.”

The relief was so intense—like a sudden change in the pressure of my whole body—all I could do was drop back into the chair and cradle my face in my hands. Thank God. Thank God…

After a moment I lifted my gaze to the agent. “What about the shots? I heard shots fired.”

He nodded. “We had one team on Sven, one of the brothers, and another on you. We took down their driver, and when Alejandro Dominguez pulled his firearm on our guys, he went down. He died from his injuries. The brothers were taken into custody. We found Kate after everything went down, on her way to find you. We questioned her while you were passed out.”

“And?”

He shrugged, an almost bored expression flattening his already unremarkable features. “Her story checks out with yours.”

Even as I buzzed with relief knowing Kate was safe, we weren’t out of the woods yet. Not if Martino really believed I could somehow be involved in Cybermark’s heinous assassination spree.

“What now? What do I need to do to convince you I wasn’t in on this?”

He leaned in and opened his folder. “Don’t have to. But I will need your cooperation in this case against Cybermark if you want to avoid jail time for the fake IDs.”

I frowned. “I’ll tell you everything I know. But what’s changed?”

“My partner just finished up with Sven and Krister. Typically we can get someone to roll over to save his own ass. This worked out a little differently. Turns out the brothers are quite close. You know, when they’re not sinking people to the bottom of a lake. They both offered to take the heat. Sang like canaries to save the other. Pretty adorable, actually.”

“Will it be enough to take Cybermark down?”

He shrugged. “It’s a start. We’ll need to fit the rest of the pieces together with their help. And yours.”

“When can I see Kate?”

He rolled his eyes with a loud sigh. “Jesus Christ. I can see why you crawled out of the grave to be with the woman.”

“You have no idea.”

I was relieved, sure, but nothing would be right until she was in my arms again. Until I could touch her and hold her. The urge to tell her how much I loved her again, to apologize for not being able to keep her safe twisted me up inside. I had failed her, but I never would again.

The agent pulled a tape recorder from his pocket and positioned it on the table between us. “All right, Lewis. You’re going to tell me everything, from the first time you came to know about Cybermark all the way to them coming after you and Kate. I need to know everything if we’re going to take these fuckers down.”

“And then what?”

“Then you can see your bride and start to get your life back. How does that sound?”

I nodded toward the recorder. “Turn that thing on. Let’s do this.”