48 hours

2 covert operatives

1 chance to get it right

Maddox Kinkade is an expert at managing the impossible. Tasked with neutralizing a lethal bioweapon, she turns to the one person capable of helping her stop the threat of pandemic in time: the love of her life, back from the dead and mad as hell at her supposed betrayal. Recruiting Cole to save millions of lives may be harder than resisting the attraction still burning between them, but Maddox will do whatever it takes…even if it destroys her.

When Maddox crashes back into Cole Matthews’ life, he wants to fight back. He wants to hate her. But the crisis is too strong to ignore, and soon the two former lovers find themselves working side-by-side in a breakneck race to stop a world-class killer with a secret that could end everything.

The clock is ticking…

Excerpt: Every Last Breath

“Immunity should be respected,” she said. Two feet between them, arm’s reach. An electric buzz hummed in her blood, firing her muscles. “But it doesn’t mean it can’t be violated.”

Gideon whistled on her left, drawing the Russian’s aim.

The guy pivoted, redirecting the SIG Sauer. Maddox snatched the muzzle. She torqued it counterclockwise with her left hand while driving the heel of her right palm into the inside of his wrist, popping the gun free of his grip. His phalanx bones snapped, with his finger caught on the trigger. At almost the same time, she kicked his groin, smashing her shin up into his crotch.

He crumpled to the blacktop beside the rear wheel, holding his privates. Poor guy wouldn’t even need tear gas to stay put.

Reece belted around the corner in the GMC Yukon, tires squealing on the hot asphalt, and slammed into park behind the white SUV. Gideon threw open the rear door on the driver’s side of the Russian car, grabbed Matthews’s upper body, and hauled him out.

The asset’s head hung forward, chin to chest, a sheet of black hair curtaining his face.

Maddox tossed the SIG into the front seat of the white SUV, stepped over the Russian writhing on the ground, and hustled to their vehicle.

The scent of melting rubber peppered the air. Maddox climbed into the back seat, opened the other door for Gideon, and helped him load Matthews inside, tugging the unconscious man by the shoulders. Once Gideon hopped in, sandwiching Matthews between them, Reece cut into the snarl of traffic. Horns blared and another car screeched to a halt. He made a sharp right out of the congested artery and gunned down a clear road.

She was shaking from the high of the retrieval, the rush flooding her system, but the hardest part was yet to come—getting inside the target’s head and figuring out the right buttons to push.

Cole Matthews was slumped over, head on her shoulder. She tilted his chin up and pushed his hair aside. A sudden knot in her chest forced all the air from her body as her hand fell from his face.

For a staggering moment, the shock couldn’t have been more brutal if she’d been blindsided by a speeding bus.

The world warped in a shattering upheaval. Sent her careening into the impossible.

It couldn’t be. Yet it was.

Longer hair, but the same pristine black of a starless sky. Tattoos befitting a killer on his arms—those were new. His body a marvel of lean muscle honed by dedication. The jagged scar added a savage touch to his brutally handsome face, but without a doubt, it was her Nikolai.

“Maddox,” Gideon said, jumpstarting her brain. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s him.” Her voice was a ghost of a whisper. “Nikolai…” His name tasted of bittersweet ash on her tongue and words failed her.

“Your fiancé?” Gideon peered at him. Her best friend had seen the picture in her locker many, many times, heard the name—first name only—although he didn’t know the whole story. Recognition ignited in his blue eyes.

“Holy shit.” Gideon recoiled with an uncharacteristic crack in his composure.

“I thought he was dead.”

The knot twisted. “So did I.”