Prologue

She couldn’t really remember what had happened before she was tossed on the helicopter, rescued from a mission that went wrong. She knew that for sure, but she didn’t know who the people were or where she was going, but she knew that it couldn’t be somewhere good. They had approached her, and her reaction to them was as if they were the enemy, so of course she fought back. It was five against one and they got her face down in the dust, handcuffing her with sturdy black zip ties. Yanking her off the ground, she fought back against them, but it was no use. She was effectively being kidnapped, and that was the end of that story. She was sure her team would come back for her.

But as more time passed, it didn’t seem like they were trying all that hard to rescue her.

She was caked in blood, having smeared it all over her face during the mission. It was intense and risky, she and the team were in a guns-blazing battle against the Armenian mafia, and it was no joke. Her captors weren’t like the people she was fighting, but they wouldn’t tell her who they were or what they wanted with her. That made her anxious, since she overheard them talking about New York- which is a long way from Hawaii.

Two of the five men were sitting on either side of her. Her arms were tied behind her back, her elbows sticking out and they had laced their arms through hers to ensure she couldn’t run. Two others sat across from her, staring her down, and the fifth was the one leading the mission to get her, and then there was the pilot. She stared the agents down until they got to the mainland where the helicopter descended. The blood was fully dried on her face, coming off in a powder when she moved her face or blinked as it fell off her eyelashes. It was a bloodbath, for sure. Alissa and Shane had each seen combat, but bullets were flying at them from all directions, and she understood then why they thought she was such a threat.

She couldn’t even walk herself to the plane that would take her to New York. The agents that had their arms locked through hers were taller than her short five feet, they lifted her up off the ground and carried her to the military jet. She kicked her legs, since it was against her nature to sit aside and be submissive. She wanted some control, but she was unlikely to get it. It seemed like a governmental operation to extract her from Hawaii and they wouldn’t let her off easy. They followed the same procedure on the plane, staring her down and holding her in place. She was extremely jet lagged, for she refused to let herself sleep and couldn’t even if she tried in the presence of the military men.

That was, until she got to New York and she knew exactly where they were taking her. She was heading straight for the landing for the mainland office for the task force in Manhattan.

The small plane landed on the roof, and she finally got a chance to put her feet on the ground. They held her hands that were still secured behind her, but she walked all on her own to the boss who was waiting at the entrance for her.

“Lieutenant Alissa Montgomery. We’ve been waiting for you.” He spoke. She had only heard about him in stories, she had never met or seen him in real life, but it seemed as if he knew her well.

Staying silent, she continued her march towards him. The security detail followed her until they had maneuvered through the maze that was the tower, and he gave the signal for them to back off. She was standing in the middle of the room, her feet in a strong stance and her chin up high despite being captured.

“What am I doing here?” Alissa asked her boss.

“We’ll talk after we disarm you.” He answered, and a team had entered the room. They had kept their distance from her, analyzing her. She didn’t know why they were, and she didn’t like how it felt to have them stare her down with creased foreheads and questioning eyes. A female agent approached her, beginning to strip her of her weapons and tactical gear. She undid the snaps of Alissa’s tactical vest, letting the Kevlar thud on the white flooring. Alissa was in full tac gear, making the process just a little bit harder for everyone.

A different agent picked up the vest, taking out every weapon and separating the pieces so they were useless. The line of black metal just extended as the woman continued her work on Alissa. She removed her thigh holster next, handing it off to her partner and he unloaded the weapons, it was like clockwork. Alissa, though, wasn’t so sure how much she liked being kidnapped and disarmed. She knew that she was just being restrained by plastic and was able to covertly free herself. She would have gotten away with it too, if the third agent didn’t set up his tactical gear in the same way and knew exactly what she was hiding and what she was doing.

“Natalie, watch out!” He called, jumping out of his seat towards her. Alissa hid a knife against her lower back and had cut herself free, and now that she was able to do some damage, she was even more of a threat. Natalie took her down and pinned her to the floor as the third agent stood above her, his gun drawn and pointed at her, daring her to make another move like that. Natalie flipped her over and cuffed her with metal cuffs instead of the plastic ones Alissa easily escaped.

The third agent put his gun away and lifted her off the floor, so she was standing again, and she was pissed. He did not keep a friendly hand on her shoulder. It was aggressive and holding her in place. Natalie took out knives from her ankle holsters, passing them off to her partner. Even when she had done a full pat down and had taken away around 20 weapons from her person, Natalie still wasn’t sure she had gotten everything. Nodding to the boss, the third agent, James, marched her with a little bit of a push away from the white room and into a conference room.

He sat her down in a chair and stepped back against the wall. Nobody wanted to talk to her, they weren’t even sure what to say to her. She was staring at them from behind a mask of blood, and they weren’t sure how to read her eyes. As if she wasn’t there, Steve, Natalie’s partner, walked into the conference room and slapped a file down on the glass table. Alissa didn’t even flinch at the gesture.

“Lieutenant,” He addressed Alissa. “We have a lot of questions for you.”

“Lieutenant?” Natalie asked.

“Yes. Lieutenant Montgomery is private special forces, working with the Miami task force unit for high profile crimes. Before that, she worked with the Boston PD. She graduated at the top of her class and has 19 confirmed kills from her time in the military. She is currently trained in the most powerful combat techniques.”

“I hate to be the one to point this out, but she’s just over five feet tall.” James asked, gesturing to her.

“And I’ve strangled men with my thighs alone.” Alissa answered.

“I would be careful, James.” Steve spoke.

“So, is anyone going to tell me why I’m here?” Alissa asked. Steve swallowed hard and the eyes of Natasha and James were darting back and forth between him and Alissa, looking at him and waiting for him to deliver the news to her.

“Lieutenant,” He began, his tone becoming softer and he sat at the table across from her. “There is no easy way to say this. You’re not a hostage, you’re not in trouble, in fact we rescued you. You are the only living member of the task force. Everything is gone.”

The words bounced around in Alissa’s head, echoing again and again through her brain. She couldn’t comprehend the news… no, it couldn’t be true. That couldn’t be the ending of their story; she refused to believe that it was over just like that. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, it just seemed impossible that they would all be dead at the hands of the mafia. It felt like a lie to her. It didn’t feel right.

“What about Commander McAndrews? Detective Matthew Daniels?” Alissa asked, her voice cracking in a rare display of vulnerability. Steve looked down at his hands. Alissa held her breath and willed her tear to run back into her eye.

“Oh my god.” She whispered.

“We had our eyes on you for a while and knew your capabilities, and we extracted you from the gunfight before you became a casualty too. You’re the only one left.”

Alissa was absolutely stunned. It just couldn’t be possible. In the span of a little over a year, she had lost her fiancée, Alex, fell in love with someone new, and lost him too. She refused to let it be her reality. And, there was just something in Alissa’s gut telling her that her Commander wasn’t dead like they were telling her.

The second she was out of the cuffs, she was going to find out for herself what the truth really was.