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PROLOGUE

She had to leave

Summer Calhoun, the woh to know that this phase of her life was over And though she wasn’t nornore the fact that she simply couldn’t do this anymore

Teeth clenched, battling tears and anger, Summer threw an ar open on the bed Ja of the wrinkles and years of careful packing habits, she added irlythe the back with short, jerky movements

She pro to cry

Tears didn’t help They had never helped in the past and they damned sure wouldn’t help now

Nothing would help but getting away and running from the pain Like serrated blades, the memories of the past few days sliced into her, tore at her

God, how naïve she had been

Four years with the CIA, tith various other agencies, and twoher ass in the private sector should have killed any naiveté she o Hell, she was certain it had done just that

And how very wrong she’d been So wrong that for eight years she’d believed an enemy was a friend, and that insults were just a brasher attitude than those Summer was used to in the South

And because she’d let herself be fooled, she’d just spent three of thethe funeral and burial of the very woman whose deceit and black heart had nearly destroyed far too many people Summer loved

Easing to the padded bench at the botto her face in her hands as she rested her elbows on her knees, she tried to tell herself it was the price of ignorance Of not seeing the true nature of the woman she’d known most of her life

The woman Summer had killed

The funeral had been so, and subtly beautiful Cascades of flowers, over a hundred friends and fa testimonials for a woman no one had known for a traitor and a murderer

Sus she’d been forced to attend She’d watched, listened, and taken her turn at the glea cherrywood casket where she stared into the pretty, silent features of the woman she’d been forced to kill A woreed had destroyed so many over the years

Su the burial, her head lowered, soit hidden was next to impossible However, she had no other choice Because she’d killed the wo to rest Because it was her bullet, not an enemy’s, that had slammed into Gia Barrett’s black heart And God forbid that the world should learn about the woman’s crimes, crimes that would shame her way too influential family

Questions would be asked if Summer and the man Gia had turned her weapon on hadn’t been there for the partner the world believed was so kind and warm of spirit

Money talked, and the Barrett fah to ensure that the world would never know the true reason their daughter was dead

She could have refused to be there, Summer knew She could have found a quiet place to nurse the wounds gouged inside her heart if it weren’t for theto murder when she was killed, and the man he called his brother

Esteban Falcone, known as “Falcon,” was the wild, Spanish bad boy whose pale blue eyes could burn with laughter and fun or turn icy with danger or disapproval The partner whoside for two years Playful, sometimes dramatic, always protective and loyal So protective, he’d had Sued from the chapel seconds before security arrived to find Gia’s body sprawled on the floor and Falcon holding the weapon that had killed her

His half brother, John Raeg, had arrived with security The half brother was nothing like his sibling Older by only a feeeks, harder, colder, he’d handled everything and ensured the truth was buried so deep it never saw the light of day

The truth that for eight years Gia had betrayed all of them Friends and family alike

Even more, she’d betrayed the friend Suo A vow that had been broken when she’d failed to keep Gia and those she was helping fro Alyssa’s life

Because Suns, Alyssa had lost the two men she loved so much, and the unborn child she’d loved more than life Because Summer had blinked and had refused to see Gia for the monster she had become