Teaser 1 
Blaze crossed his burly arms over his black tee shirt. The blue-black tattoos peeking out from under his short sleeves pointed toward his wrists like ice crystals and were just as frosty as his ice-blue eyes. “I’ll show you to your bedroom and find a tee shirt of mine for you to wear. I have some travel kits with a toothbrush and such in them for unexpected guests.” 

Sarah said, “Too bad you didn’t let me grab some clothes when you kidnapped me.” 

He lowered one eyebrow. “If you hadn’t argued with me so much, we would have had a few minutes for you to pack a suitcase before the hit men showed up to murder you.” 

 

Teaser 2
Blaze’s biceps and shoulders rounded under his skin and khaki shirt as he crossed his arms. Even the thick column of his neck looked strong. His shirt must have been soft because the fabric clung to his body, settling onto the stacked bricks of his abs on his torso and clinging to his tight waist. 

The navy-black ink of the tattoos trailing past his elbows to his forearms looked like vine tendrils. 

He said, “I’ll deep-fake your voice using your SnipSnap videos and call your friends.” 

“But I won’t know if you really called if I don’t hear you,” she said. “You could just say you did.” 

He nodded. “You can be in my office while I talk to them, but there’s a condition.” 

“Yeah?” Sarah said, breathless. Charlie and HowNow had to be okay. She felt it, but she needed to know it. “I’ll do it. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.” 

“I’ll have to tie you up.” His chin dropped while his gaze still bored into hers, and his voice lowered to deep bass tones. “And I’m very good at tying people up.” 

 

Teaser 3
Her heart was pounding like she’d been sprinting on that treadmill, the one right over there in the underground gym room. The inside of her chest was echoing in her ears. 

Blaze ducked his head, peering at her. “Can I get you anything? Glass of water?” 

She shook her head, trying to hear anything other than the slamming of her heart inside her rib cage. 

“You’re not all right.” 

“I’m fine.” 

Blaze stepped right up to her and wrapped his arms around her body like he was going to lift her and bodily throw her into a closet or something. Her nose and cheek were smashed against his blue tee shirt, and heat from his burly chest underneath warmed her face. 

Her muscles locked up, ready to fight. 

Instead, Blaze murmured somewhere above her head, “You were supposed to be safe here.” 

Dear Lord, her kidnapper was hugging her. 

 

Teaser 4
Blaze coasted the car and braked at a stop sign. The world slowed, and a green valley quilted with farmland spread from the road to the forested mountainsides. “Are you asking if I like you?” 

“Oh, I would never pressure you like that,” she said, staring out her window.  

He rested his hand on the console between the car’s two bucket seats and turned his palm up, offering it to her. “I like you. I like you a lot. I like you in a way that I’ve never liked anyone else, like I can’t take my eyes off you. Like I want to wrap myself around you every moment of the day and night. Like I will murder anyone who goddamn touches you.” 

Sarah turned and looked at him, her round-arched eyes stretched wider than usual. She slid her hand into his, palm to palm, fingers entwined. “I like you, too.” 

And that was when a deranged horse leaped in front of the parked car, planted all four of its formidable hooves on the asphalt, and whinnied directly into the windshield at them. 

So much for a goddamn tender moment. 

 

Teaser 5

Tiffany struggled to her feet and towered over Sarah, seated in the chair. “Please, for the love of God, tell me that you aren’t attracted to the guy who broke into your house and held a knife to your throat while he threatened to murder you.” 

Well, when she put it like that— “Of course not. But he was really sorry he had to do it.” 

“He was trying to get you not to call the cops.” 

Sarah blurted before thinking, “And he had a nice voice and pretty eyes.” 

Tiffany shook her head and spat her words. “Even if this guy was a fey prince with an eight-foot wingspan, you still should never see him again. And if you do, call the cops. Or shoot him.” 

And that’s why Sarah had to poke at her. “But definitely not call him my big bad zaddy.” 

“Jesus is Lord, Sarah. This guy is nothing but red flags, and you’re just feeling the flutters.” 

 

Short Teasers
-Dear Lord, her kidnapper was hugging her. 

 

-He reached with one hand, his shoulders shifting sideways, riffling through the duffel bag beside the bed and plucking out a square. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” he rumbled into her neck. 

 

-He stepped back. Sarah almost fell forward into the cold air, hobbled by her jeans and panties around her ankles. 

Blaze shoved his hands under her armpits and lifted her, not even giving her a chance to jump to help him, and he raised her over his head and planted her bottom of the cool metal roof of his car. “Oh!” 

“Lie back,” he snarled as he bent, pushing with his hands on her calves and pressing her knees toward her chest. 

 

-After Blaze settled her at the dining table, he brought her a bowl of baked oatmeal and a tall glass of milk. “Eat.” 

“Yes, sir,” she grumbled. 

He braced his arms around her and lowered his head almost to her shoulder, whispering, “If you’re trying to be a smart aleck, try something else. I’m used to being called sir, and I like it.” 

Darn military officer guys. 

 

-“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I never plan to fail.” 

 

-Blaze was a predator by nature, and prey had tripped his instincts. He leaned toward her and captured her hand under his, a tiger snatching a rabbit that had ventured too close. 

He shouldn’t. 

 

-I am an American Navy SEAL, and I will not be blackmailed by a goddamn Russian mafia boss. 

The head of the White Russian Syndicate is demanding I pay back an old loan in illegal military-grade weapons, but I won’t.  

It’s time to hit back. 

So I kidnap the mafia boss’s niece. 

Who I did not realize is my best friend’s estranged little sister. 

 

Blaze 

 

Blaze Robinson crossed his ankle over his knee as he sat in front of his lawyer’s desk, trying to get comfortable but not fidget in the chair that was scaled for someone much smaller than he was. The squat seat made his knees stick up like a grasshopper, and his shoulders were broader than the chair’s back. He growled, “I am an American Navy SEAL, and I will not be blackmailed by a goddamn Russian mafia boss.” 

 

The lawyer behind the desk, Bình Huong, broke eye contact and looked down at the letter and documents he was holding. The corner of the paper in his hands wavered, and his fingers tightened. His hair on the top of his head stuck up where it had been cut too short. “This Mary Varvara Bell, whom you say is involved in organized crime, never specifically threatens you with physical harm in the letter. If she had, I would’ve recommended that you take it directly to the FBI.” 

 

Blaze bent one elbow, squeezing his bicep. His suit jacket tightened around his arm, and he rubbed his chin. “We will not be involving the authorities.” 

 

Dealings with foreign agents like Russian oligarchs could get his Top Secret security clearance revoked, even unwilling dealings. 

 

“I’m shocked that she rejected your settlement offers,” the lawyer said. “They were overly generous, assuming she doesn’t want to go to court.” 

 

“She knows I won’t.” 

 

The lawyer glanced up at Blaze again before he hurriedly shuffled the papers on his desk. “I can’t believe a competent attorney allowed you to sign this loan.” 

 

Blaze shrugged. “I didn’t have a lawyer. I was twenty years old and fresh out of BUD/S.” The elation and trauma of surviving the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training course, also called “A” school, had colored his perception with a blue sheen of invincibility for months. “I owned nothing except a few uniforms and my boots. It seemed low risk at the time.” 

 

“But then the original signatory, Stanley Bell, died, and Mary Varvara Bell inherited the company.” 

 

“Confiscated his assets in a hostile takeover is more like it,” Blaze muttered. She’d taken over the White Russian Syndicate in a maneuver like a military coup. 

 

“And now she’s threatening you with fulfilling the conditions of this contract.” The attorney flipped his gaze up to meet Blaze’s eyes again. “You haven’t disclosed your financials to me, so I’m unsure what to recommend. Most career military people wouldn’t be able to come up with the money to purchase what she’s demanding unless they had invested the initial loan in something with a thousand-percent return,” he chuckled. 

 

Blaze didn’t answer. He had accountants for financial advice. 

 

The attorney rifled through the pages, referring from one text block to another. “The list of her demands in lieu of your assets will run to millions of dollars if not many millions. It’s twenty times more than what the initial zero-interest loan was for.” 

 

“I’m aware of that.” 

 

“I’m not even sure that some of these weapons she wants are legal,” Huong muttered. 

 

Blaze knew a lot about weapons. “Some are not legal to buy or possess here in Illinois, but it’s relatively easy to purchase the equipment in other states or, for a few, other countries.” 

 

Huong looked over the top of the pages at Blaze, his eyebrows raised in exasperation. “Is she trying to set herself up like Blackwater, or Academi, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days? This list looks like she wants to equip a private mercenary force. I mean, private warfare is a lucrative field, but this can’t be legal.” 

 

“I could not discern her motives from the letter.” 

 

This time, the lawyer stared straight at Blaze. “But you know why she wants military-grade weapons like this.” 

 

Blaze didn’t know, but he had theories. The lawyer didn’t have a need to know his thoughts on the matter, so he just shrugged again. 

 

All the possible reasons for Bell demanding that particular shopping list were detrimental for the world and the US, which meant Blaze’s US Navy SEAL brothers-in-arms would be in harm’s way if she got those weapons. 

 

And that was unacceptable. 

 

Damn, he wished he’d refused that stupid loan all those years ago. Nothing was free in this world. Nothing was even cheap. 

 

Huong went back to scanning the documents. “All right, let’s go through the three basic parts of a contract, just in case we can break it. There is an offer and an acceptance on your and Stanley Bell’s parts, so it’s a quid pro quo agreement. That’s two of the requirements.” 

 

Blaze waited. He could outwait anything. He’d spent fifteen hours curled around a sniper rifle one time, waiting for a terrorist to come out of a building, and he’d made the shot. 

 

The lawyer continued, “As for consideration, the third component of a legal and binding contract, both the loan and repayment were something of value, so that just leaves your competence. You signed the contract when you were of legal age to do so and weren’t inebriated or otherwise compromised, right?” 

 

Blaze nodded. He’d been stone-cold sober. Stanley Bell, the Malefactor, had been drunk. Mary Varvara Bell would waive that stipulation if he tried to take her to court over it, so it didn’t count. 

 

“You received the money from Mr. Stanley Bell, Mary Varvara Bell’s predecessor in the company White Holdings LLC, so that fulfills their end of the contract and makes you liable for the later repayment clause. The contract is with the company, not with Mr. Bell, so you were not released from the debt when Stanley Bell died.” 

 

That was where Blaze had made his mistake. When the Malefactor had died, he’d breathed a sigh of relief. 

 

All four of them had erred in their supposed liberation. Tristan “Twist” King, Micah Shine, Logan Bell, and he had partied on Twist’s yacht in Monaco and toasted Stanley Bell’s probable descent into Hell. 

 

But they’d breathed easy too soon. 

 

The Devil always comes to collect a debt. 

 

The lawyer shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Robinson, but you need to liquidate all your assets and possessions and turn everything you own over to White Holdings. Otherwise, you’d have to figure out how to purchase this dictator’s wish list of weapons, ammunition, and sundry military items, including military-grade body armor and devices, and we both know that’s impossible.” 

 

Not impossible. Just morally reprehensible. 

 

And irresponsible on a global scale. 

 

An irritated twinge snapped the corner of Blaze’s eye, and he rubbed the lid to dispel it. 

 

Acquiring the military supplies and dumping them on Bell’s doorstep to discharge the debt wasn’t an option for Blaze. The guilt and shame would’ve been like his father was in the room and commenting on his homework or Little League game. 

 

Huong tapped the documents on the desk, straightening the edges, and held the sheaf of paper out to him over the desk. “As your lawyer, I would advise you to discuss it with your financial advisors and determine which amount is less. If purchasing an army’s worth of weapons is less than your total net worth, then I would advise you to fulfill the contract. If your net worth is less, liquidate everything, hand it to her, and walk away. You’re young, not even twenty-seven. You have time to recover from this financial setback. Unfortunately, a lawyer can do little after a contract has been signed, particularly a contract as airtight as this one. Those are the rules.” 

 

Blaze’s hands rested gently on the arms of the chair, not clutching, not cramping. His body was at ease, as were his mind and heart. “Rules? What rules are those?” 

 

The lawyer shook his head like he was as exasperated by his uselessness as Blaze was. “Fighting this contract in court would be a waste of your money in lawyers’ fees. The outcome will be the same. Sorry, Mr. Robinson. I don’t make the rules.” 

 

Rules. Fuck rules.

 

Blaze stood and straightened the slacks of the Armani suit he’d worn into the lawyer’s office. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Huong.” 

 

The lawyer rose and extended his hand for a concluding handshake. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help. If you need someone to draw up an NDA or negotiate with White Holdings on your behalf for a payment plan or time for you to liquidate, I can do that. I’m sorry I don’t have better options for you, but the only rational option is conceding.” 

 

Blaze wrapped his much larger hand around the attorney’s and looked down at his lawyer. “A Navy SEAL always has options.” 

 

“Contractually, you don’t. I’m sorry, but there’s no way you can win this fight in court.” 

 

Like hell.

 

Out of sheer force of habit, Blaze recited, “No matter how much it hurts, how dark it gets, or how far I fall, I am never out of the fight.” 

 

Huong jerked his hand out of Blaze’s grip and shuffled back from his desk, presumably out of Blaze’s reach. 

 

Blaze didn’t realize he had growled the common inspirational SEAL quote until he noticed microdroplets of sweat welling from the pores on Huong’s nose and cheekbones and felt the dampness of the lawyer’s hand in his own palm. 

 

Dammit, Blaze hadn’t meant to scare the guy. The lawyer was just doing his job. 

 

Huong stared at his hands splayed on the wood of his desk. “Always a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Robinson.” 

 

Blaze nodded. “Likewise.” 

 

He turned and left the office, walking through the rotating door of the lobby and into the Midwestern summer morning. 

 

Sunlight reflected off the mirrored buildings crowding downtown Chicago, and a cool breeze skidded over Lake Erie and threaded through the grid of streets. A park down by the waterfront was lush with dark green grass and June flowers. 

 

Signing that deal with the Devil seven years ago had been one of the greatest mistakes of Blaze’s life, but he would be damned if he’d go down without a fight. 

 

Rules.

 

In warfare, the larger force dictated the rules of engagement. 

 

US Navy SEALs were always the smaller fighting force, so a Navy SEAL was taught that they must break the rules to win. 

 

Blaze knew how to break the rules. All the rules. Every time. 

 

Mary Varvara Bell had threatened him, so he’d threaten something of hers.