CHAPTERONE
Seven years later
Grand Harbour Malta
Late-afternoon sun bled across the Mediterranean as Elijah Steel leaned over the rail of his superyacht, theSeraphim.Beyond the marina, the ancient walls of Valletta rose in golden splendor, silent and implacable, a reminder of everything the small island had given him.
As well as the things it had taken.
He shouldn’t have come back.Yet he had.All because of Sable Alexandrovna No one else could lure him halfway across the world.
Who wouldn’t answer the call of a woman supposedly dead?
Woman?She’d been his partner, lover, and his most trusted colleague.Now he wasn’t even sure she’d show.
If Sable had returned from the dead, he wasn’t sure what he felt.Fury?Hope?
Hope of what?Any chance of reigniting their relationship was as dead as she was supposed to be.
Suspicion, then.
There was plenty of that.
Trust was a rare commodity for him.Sable had once been the exception.Until she vanished without a word.
If she was back, it had to be one hell of a mission she had in mind.In the world of undercover warfare, no one could match his firepower.That could be the only reason she’d decided to come back.
Money, power, success.He had it all.His yacht dominated the harbor.Eighty-five meters of sleek supertech that made other vessels look like outdated toys bobbing in its wake.
He’d built his wealth on military technology so advanced that governments across the world bent to acquire it.Contracts that came his way carried more zeros and more danger than any other team could handle.Only Blood and Thunder had the men, the leadership, the sheer willpower and ability to keep evil at bay.
Which was why, when he was invited to join their elite mercenary family, hidden beneath the facade of an international polo team, he hadn’t hesitated.Their moral code appealed to him the way Sable once had.
Success?Yes.Professional satisfaction?Definitely.But something was missing.
He craved action and danger as other men craved a safe, comfortable life, but sometimes late at night, he missed the laughter, the softness—and, okay, the great sex—that had vanished with the woman he was supposed to meet today.
“Sir.”His steward’s voice snapped him back to the moment.“This came through the private satellite line.Same icon.Several repeats.”
“Thank you.”Elijah took the encrypted handset and went still as he read the message.Only one individual signed off with the icon of a predator with bared fangs.Not some cute emoji, but a warning, a promise, a brand: the face of a black panther, sleek, silent, controlled violence, wrapped in an elegant package.
Sable’s brand.
His lover.His partner.His ghost.You owe me.Come to Valletta.
Who else could bait him across the Mediterranean with six words and resurrect every emotion he’d successfully buried with a single digital ghost?
Sable had disappeared off the face of the earth seven years ago.Recently, she’d been officially declared dead.No one was surprised.She had always run into the fire instead of around it.He’d never stopped looking for her.Now he faced the possibility that she had clawed her way back from the grave.
He curled his fist around cold metal hanging beneath his shirt.If she was alive, why had she chosen to stay gone, leaving him with a gold ring on a chain?A wedding band without a bride.A promise turned into a weapon.And now this message from the grave.
Returning to his stateroom, he poured a scotch large enough to make the burn hit hard.
Not hard enough.The possibility that Sable was nearby made his senses scream with awareness.There was nothing he wanted more than to drag her close and demand the truth she owed him.
The thought of touching her again?—
A knock on the door forced him to refocus.“Come.”
