Jake turned toward Marley. The black slacks were standard for her. The red blouse was new. He’d thought about mentioning it earlier but had decided not to. Their relationship was structured and professional and had been for going on four years now. She was the best damn assistant he’d ever had. The woman monitored his team of operatives better than Central Command, and she put up with his ass on a daily basis, which, he knew, wasn’t easy to do. If he started tossing out compliments now, it’d all turn to shit. And he’d had enough shit relationships with women to span a lifetime. He wasn’t going there with Marley no matter how pretty she might look today.

“I think Archer’s thinking with his dick and not his brain. And even if he didn’t set that bomb—which I hope to God he didn’t, because it’s going to fuck Aegis if he had anything to do with it—I have a feeling he’s knee-deep in the shit. Send Miller Archer’s last GPS location and have him pick the son of a bitch up before he causes any more trouble.”

Marley was already dialing as she stepped toward the door. “You got it, boss man.”

She left the door open in her wake, and in the silence, Jake’s headache kicked up to the beat of a marching band. He reached into the pocket of his slacks for the bottle of Motrin he kept there, flipped the lid, and shook the contents over his palm. When nothing spilled out, his frustration shot to a whole new level.

“And get me some more grunt candy before my fucking head explodes!”

A small white bottle flew through the open door and nearly nailed him in the head.


“Come on, beautiful, naptime’s over. Wake up.”

The tapping on Eve’s cheek brought her around. She jolted.

“That’s it. Open those pretty amber eyes for me.”

Lifting her head, she tried to see through the haze. Confusion mixed with the grogginess. “Saw-Sawyer?”

“There’s my girl. Can’t have you sleeping on the job, now can we?”

What was Sawyer doing here? And where was here anyway? She looked around, narrowed her eyes, couldn’t see anything more than fuzzy shapes that seemed to bounce back and forth as if the world had been set on spin cycle.

“Over here, baby.” She followed the sound of his voice. “That’s it. Yeah, I think things are working well enough for us to get started now.”

Get started? Eve had no idea what he meant. Or what was going on. But a niggling thought in the back of her mind warned, Be careful.

Metal scraped the floor. Eve focused long enough to see Sawyer’s fuzzy shape pull a chair in front of her and sit. “We’ll start with something easy. Tell me your name.”

Her name? He knew her name. “What is this? What’s going—?”

“Your name, beautiful. And where you live.”

“J-Juliet.”

“No, not your CIA cover, sweetheart. Your real name.”

Eve’s mind spun, and before she thought better of it, she said, “Ev-Evelyn Wolfe. I live in . . .” Crap, where did she live? “Monterey. I live in Monterey.” That was right. On the beach. She had this great bungalow that overlooked the Pacific. It was small and had cost a fortune, but it was so worth it. “In California.”

“Good,” Sawyer said. “Very good. Now, how about who you work for?”

Why was he asking her these questions? Eve couldn’t seem to think straight. “I work for . . . the CIA. You know that.”

“Wrong.” Sawyer leaned forward. A snap echoed in the room, followed by a whisper of air across Eve’s skin and the soft clink of something hitting the floor. “Try again, Evie.”

Eve blinked twice, tried to clear her watery vision. Sawyer was sitting in front of her, and in his hand he held something silver. A knife? Eve tried to see through the fuzziness.

No, not a knife, a pair of scissors.

Scissors? What the hell would he need scissors for? He—

She looked down, and even though everything still seemed to be moving as if underwater, she noticed the top button of her blouse was missing. Her breasts all but spilling out of her once-white top.

Her gaze shot back to his face, and inch by inch, it came into view. Dark hair in need of a trim, several days’ worth of beard on his sculpted jaw, a thin scab across his forehead, and piercing, unfriendly, more-brown-than-green familiar hazel eyes. “Try again, Evie.”

She swallowed. Hard. Tried to make sense of what was happening. Couldn’t. Couldn’t seem to stop herself from talking either. “I . . . I work for the CIA. Counterintelligence. I’m—”

“Wrong.” Sawyer leaned forward again. Another snip. Another whisper of air across her stomach. Another clink as the button hit the cement floor. “I’m not interested in your lies.”

Eve’s stomach tightened. The venom in Sawyer’s words was new. And bone-chilling. She tried to move, to get away, but her hands were locked behind her. She tried to stand but couldn’t because her legs weren’t working. Too late she realized he’d tied her to a chair.

Panic pushed in, mixed with the drug still wreaking havoc on her brain to make things seem surreal. “Sawyer—”

Sawyer leaned back and rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay,” he said more calmly. “Let’s try something else.”

Metal scraped the floor again. Eve held her breath as he stood and moved around behind her, where she couldn’t see him. “What were you doing in Beirut?”

Beirut . . . The word mixed with fuzzy memories. Fuzzy, heated memories of the two of them locked tight together. In their apartment. In the shower. In that crappy car when she’d been sure no one could see them. “I . . . my job.”

“Yeah, I know that, beautiful.” He leaned close to her ear, his warm breath rushing over bare skin to send tingles down her spine. This close she could smell him. Musk and mint and man. She’d always loved the smell of him. “But you weren’t working for the CIA then.”

She had been, though. Synapses slowly started to fire, like links in a chain firming up when pulled tight. And oh man, he wasn’t going to believe her. But the truth . . . the truth was the only thing that seemed to be condensing in her mind. Where were the carefully orchestrated covers? Where were the lies she so often rattled off without a second thought? “I . . . I was working undercover.”

“Spying.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“For whom?”

“The CIA.”

“Oh, Evie.” Snip. Whoosh. Clank. “I didn’t realize how eager you were to get naked.”

Eve gasped as her blouse fell open all the way to her belly button. Frustration, fear, and panic all coalesced in the bottom of her stomach. “I’m telling you the truth!”

Blinding pain lit off behind her eyes. Before he could ask her another question, she slammed her lids closed and groaned. “Oh God, my head.”

“You took a nasty hit on the noggin, beautiful. Breathe through it.”

She did. But not because he told her to. Because it was the only thing she could do.

“That’s better,” he said when her face relaxed. “Now, back to what we were discussing. You said you were spying. Are you implying you were spying on the CIA for the CIA?”

“Yes,” she managed, gritting her teeth through the pain that was, thankfully, now easing. “I mean . . . the Pentagon—”

“I’m not buying it, honey.” He snipped another button from her shirt. Only one remained.

A red haze lowered over Eve’s vision. He was trying to intimidate her. But this was Sawyer, not some terrorist. He wouldn’t really hurt her. Would he?

She struggled against the chair. “This is bullshit.”

“Ah, but you like bullshit. You spin it so well.”

Pain shot up her arms. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why? You tell me, Eve.” He leaned close to her ear. So close she could feel his lips brush her skin when he whispered, “Think hard. About the phone call you made to me. Just after the raid. When I was lying on the floor of that Huey bleeding out. Remember what you said?”

Eve’s whole body went cold. And that day—a year ago—flashed in her memory. Not fuzzy and watery as everything else, but crystal clear.

“ ‘I never lose.’ Ring a bell, Evie?”

Bile rose up in Eve’s stomach. This was not the same caring man she’d once thought of leaving the CIA for. Whatever gentleness used to be inside Sawyer—no, Zane Archer—was gone, thanks to what she’d done.

“There are all kinds of ways to go about getting the answers I want,” Archer said softly in her ear. “If you cooperate and tell me what you know, I’ll try to make it . . . pleasurable. You remember how nice I can be, don’t you, Evie?”

Unfortunately, she did. She remembered everything. Every secret touch, every stolen kiss, every nip and lick and suck and thrust. And she remembered how he’d made her feel. Not dead inside as she’d felt since Sam’s death, but alive.

Only this, what he had planned for her here—something in her gut told her this was not going to end up being sweet or romantic or anything like she remembered. The man she’d once known was nowhere to be found in the one at her back. Fear—true fear—slithered into her chest. Unless she found a way to make him listen, this was going to be bad.

Think, dammit. Archer knew all too well how important control was to her, and he was taking that from her now. Exposing not only her secrets but her body in the process, using that to intimidate her. This was a mind fuck, nothing more. He wouldn’t really hurt her.

Or so she hoped.

“I-I didn’t compromise your team in Guatemala, Archer. I-I wasn’t the one who turned you over. I found out the raid had been compromised after it was too late to get in touch with you.”

“You always were good at the lies, Evie.” He snipped the last button on her blouse. It hit the floor and rolled away, leaving the two halves of her shirt to swing open and a chill to slide over her bare skin.