Chapter 1

The dry wind of Central Asia whipped sand against Sarah Walker' s face. She ignored it. Her focus was absolute, rifle steady, eyes scanning the moonlit pass. Apex Global Strategies, her employer, wanted this route secured. Three days. Three days until her wedding to Kevin Armstrong. The thought was a distant warmth, a life she' d soon step into, away from this grit and danger.

Her team was elite, handpicked. But tonight, something felt off. A flicker of movement where there should be none. A comms silence too long.

"Viper Actual, this is Viper One. Status?" she whispered into her mic.

Static.

A cold dread seeped through her.

Then, chaos. An explosion ripped through the night, to her left, where Viper Two should have been. Gunfire erupted from unseen positions. Ambush. A well-coordinated, deadly ambush.

"Compromised! All units, fallback, Sector Bravo!" Sarah yelled, returning fire, her movements precise, honed by years in U.S. Army Special Forces.

They were being herded.

Another blast, closer this time. She pushed a rookie operative, Miller, clear. "Move!"

Then, the world vanished in a searing flash of light and unimaginable pain. An IED. Directly beneath her.

She remembered screaming, or trying to. Then darkness.

Sarah woke to the sterile smell of a field hospital. Pain, immense and terrifying, consumed her lower body. A medic leaned over her, face grim.

"Major Walker, can you hear me?"

She tried to nod. Her legs. She couldn't feel her legs.

The journey back to the States was a blur of agony and morphine. Marcus Thorne, CEO of Apex, had been on the tarmac when they landed, his face a mask of concern. He promised the best care.

Kevin was there too, initially. His handsome face pale, his eyes wide with a horror she didn't recognize as sympathy.

The doctors were blunt. Multiple complex fractures. Nerve damage. She might never walk again.

Kevin visited less. His calls became shorter.

Then, a week after the prognosis, his lawyer called her lawyer. Wedding off.

Two weeks later, a gossip site ran a photo: Kevin Armstrong, arm in arm with Jessica Hayes, Sarah's former sorority sister from Georgetown. They were laughing, stepping out of a trendy D.C. restaurant. Jessica, ambitious, always a step ahead. Now, stepping into Sarah's life.

The betrayal was a physical blow, almost as sharp as the memory of the explosion. Her fiancé, her friend. Gone. Replaced. While she lay broken.