Chapter 1
1
ABBY
P hiladelphia, Pennsylvania
The email that starts it all isn’t marked urgent. No flaming subject line or blinking red flag. Just a boring, polite request from my editor to ‘look into the background of our top-performing author for the upcoming contract renegotiation.’ Which is code for find out who the hell this guy really is, since Jack Stratton doesn’t do interviews, social media, or bios. Hell, even his royalties are paid to a numbered Swiss bank account. His books hit the lists like a missile every time, and yet nobody’s even seen a picture of him.
Not even the head of publishing, which, of course, makes me want to dig.
Military thrillers that read like classified reports? Details too precise to be researched? Language and references only an insider would use? I’ve vetted enough manuscripts to know when someone’s writing from experience instead of imagination. And this guy—this ghost in the system—has seen things.
I pull the file. No photo. No phone number. Just a mailing address linked to a company in Zurich, a wire routing to an anonymous account. Not finding what I want on the internet, I move to the dark web.
The glow from my laptop is the only light in the apartment, casting a faint blue hue across the cluttered desk. The heater’s humming in the corner, but it can’t cut through the chill crawling up my spine. My fingers fly across the keyboard, each keystroke faster than the last, driven by the kind of desperation I promised myself I’d never feel again.
I should’ve stopped hours ago.
The database I cracked is older, but it’s connected to a shadow site—a message board frequented by fixers and freelancers. Men who don’t exist on paper. Names buried in classified files, buried deeper in the dark corners of the government and criminal networks.
I type the pseudonym again.
JACK STRATTON.
Another layer down. I bypass another proxy. Then another.
I find a partial hit—coordinates, encrypted logs from a long-dead site archived in fragments. I scroll through digital ash until something flickers on the edge of the page.
Travis Holt.
The name blinks once. I freeze.
I click.
The screen goes black.
“What the hell?”
I jolt back into the chair, heart hammering.
For two full seconds, the laptop is dead. Then, without warning, white text appears on the dark screen, bold and center:
STOP LOOKING.
Another pause. Then:
NEXT TIME, WE WON’T JUST WARN YOU.
I slam the laptop shut like that alone will keep me safe. The apartment feels different now. Smaller. Watched.
Somewhere out there, someone just saw me peek behind the wrong curtain—and they want me to know it. But I don’t close the file. I don’t delete the notes.
Because Nick wanted me to find Travis Holt—the one man I had always suspected had survived the mission that killed my brother. And now I know the name was never fiction, although his pen name was. Jack Stratton is Travis Holt’s pseudonym. But why doesn’t someone want me to know?
Reading it, I feel as though someone just punched me in the gut. Travis Holt. My dead brother’s CO. The man Nick talked about more than any other. The man he trusted more than our father. The man they called Shadow.
I sit back in my chair, heart thudding too hard. The manuscript in front of me blurs. Because this isn’t just a name. It’s him. This is the man my brother told me to find if anything ever went sideways. The man he made me swear I’d look for—if he didn’t make it back.
My heart seizes in my chest. The fact was, Nick didn’t make it back. They said it was an accident. Some messed up “training error” during a mission that wasn’t officially logged. Five men were dead. One body missing—Nick’s. A grave in a cemetery that holds nothing but an empty coffin.
They never gave me details. Never let me see his personal effects. I was told to grieve and move on. But I never believed it. I never felt like he was just gone. I knew he was dead, but I also knew I didn’t have the whole truth. Nick and the others must have known something, and whatever it was, it had been buried deep.
I look at the computer screen again. Travis Holt. Alive and publishing books under a pen name. It’s almost like he’s daring someone to connect the dots. I don’t know if he’s the hero my brother swore he was—or the reason my brother is dead.
I don’t have time to decide. That night, I wake to the sound of my bedroom window sliding open. For a second, I think I’m dreaming. Then I see him—silhouetted against the light from the alley, broad-shouldered, still as stone, dressed in tactical gear with a long blade in one gloved hand.
He touches the comms unit in his ear. “We may have a problem.” There’s a pause. “No,” he says, flipping the blade in his hand, “it shouldn’t be one for long.”
I don’t think. I don’t scream. I move.
Years of Krav Maga—Krav Maga I barely passed, if I’m being honest—come into play. I roll off the bed, grab the lamp, and hurl it as hard as I can. It connects with a solid crack. The intruder stumbles. That’s all the opening I need.
I bolt barefoot across the room into the attached bath, shove the vanity chair under the doorknob, grab the clothes I had laid out for tomorrow and my go bag from the top shelf. Launching myself through the bathroom window, I race down the fire escape, barely catching the railing before I slip. I hit the alley running, lungs burning, heart hammering like it wants out of my chest.
I don’t stop—not until I’m blocks away, huddled inside a twenty-four-hour laundromat with the go bag my brother had insisted I create containing duplicate keys, burner phone, false identification, credit cards for that ID, a wad of cash that Nick had given me and his field journal.
Before the sun even begins thinking about kissing the sky, I’m on a bus heading west.
Boulder, Colorado
Three days later, I’m standing in the parking lot of a used car dealer outside of Boulder, in a thrift-store parka and hiking boots that don’t quite fit, gripping a backpack like it holds answers or at least a map to them. I pay cash for an old Jeep that seems in good shape—Nick taught me how to make a quick assessment.
The air here smells like pine needles and snowfall. The kind of air that makes your city lungs rethink their life choices. I’m not prepared for the cold, or the altitude, or the sheer quiet of this place. But I follow the note Nick left me. Hand-drawn. Circled coordinates. One name.
Travis Holt.
I have no idea what I’m walking into.
But someone wanted to kill me, and that means someone thinks I know something. I don’t, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Are they looking for Holt? If I’m going to survive long enough to figure this out, I need the man my brother trusted more than anyone else in the world—even if I don’t trust him at all.
I pull up the small town of Misty Mountain on my phone and set my course.
The main street of Misty Mountain looks like a woman who drinks her coffee with cream and chaos designed it. Everything’s cute, rustic, and vaguely suspicious—places with names like Evergreen Books & Trinkets, Rusty Elk Tavern and Misty Mountain General Store . The latter includes a gas station that probably hasn’t changed its prices since before the turn of the century.
There’s only one place that has an open sign glowing like a beacon and a chalkboard sign that reads:
Come in for Coffee. Stay for Gossip.
Or Don’t. We’re Not the Boss of You.
That’s my kind of welcome.
The Pine & Petal Café is warm and smells like cinnamon, butter, and good decisions. A fireplace crackles in the corner, and there’s a bookshelf stacked with paperbacks that look well-loved and probably a little sticky from years of syrupy fingers.
Behind the counter stands a woman who looks like she could run a small army or a successful gossip empire, depending on her mood. She is petite, with curly auburn hair, freckles, bright green eyes, a tattoo sleeve of delicate wildflowers, and the kind of face that says she doesn’t have time for lies unless they’re really entertaining.
I don’t make it three steps in before she clocks me.
“You’re either lost, hunted, or one awkward date away from torching a man’s truck. Which is it?” she asks, eyes sharp as she wipes her hands on a towel.
I blink. “I—uh. Can I vote for all of the above?”
She grins. “Oh, I like you already. You look like you need food and a place to sit before your knees give out.”
“I wouldn’t say no to coffee and maybe something with five hundred carbs.”
“I’m Clara Montgomery. Clara, if you don’t want me to call you ma’am and fuss over your eyebrows.”
“Abby. No fussing, please. I’m hanging on by a thread made of bad caffeine and trauma.”
“Well, good news, Abby.” She moves fast—grabbing a mug, filling it with something strong enough to bring the dead back for one more round and sliding a cinnamon scone the size of my face onto a plate. “We specialize in both.”
I wrap my hands around the mug like it’s a lifeline. “You always this nice to strangers?”
“Nope. You just look like someone who hasn’t slept, hasn’t eaten, and maybe ran here from something worse than an awkward Tinder date.” She tilts her head. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
I don’t answer right away.
She doesn’t press. Just tops off my coffee and adds softly, “You want to tell me why you’re in Misty Mountain? I’ve got time. You don’t? That’s fine too. But just so you know, people around here notice when fresh faces roll in looking like a Lifetime movie heroine on the run.”
I can’t help but grin as I take a sip, slow, and finally say, “I’m looking for someone.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “And?”
“I don’t know if he’s even here. I just… have to try.”
“Name?”
I hesitate, then say it. “Travis Holt.”
The air shifts, just slightly. She leans her hip against the counter, watching me like I’ve said the name of a ghost.
“Well, damn,” she murmurs. “You don’t do things halfway, do you?”
“Do you know him?”
“Everyone around here knows of him. Very few, if anyone, actually know him. He isn’t easy. He doesn’t exactly do pancake breakfasts, dart nights or town fairs, but people respect him. Fear him, a little. He lives up the ridge in the old Holt family cabin, but no one really visits unless they’ve got a death wish or a snowmobile with a full tank.”
I laugh, but it’s short-lived. “I have my Jeep outside with half a tank and tires that look like they gave up on life three towns ago.”
Clara snorts. “Then God help you.”
I drop my voice. “He knew my brother. Nick Westwood.”
Her eyes soften instantly. “I think I remember that name. He was one of the ones who didn’t come back, right?”
I nod. “I was told it was a training accident. But Nick didn’t believe in accidents—neither do I. He left me a note. Said if something ever happened to him or me, I should find Holt.”
“Then you’re doing the right thing,” she says, voice low. “But fair warning—Travis doesn’t like visitors. Especially surprise ones.”
“I don’t like assassins breaking into my apartment either, but here we are.”
She blinks. “Wait. Assassins?”
“I’m not being metaphorical, although assassins might be a bit exaggerated. Someone broke into my apartment two nights ago. Mask. Blade. No warning. I barely got out.”
Clara whistles and leans in. “Okay, now you’re definitely in Lifetime movie territory. Maybe even premium cable. You sure you don’t want me to call the sheriff?”
“No. Philadelphia is a long way from Misty Mountain, and I need to find Travis first.” I stand, tossing a few bills onto the counter. “Thanks for the coffee. And the honesty.”
She watches me go with that same curious glint in her eye. “If you survive the mountain man, come back and tell me how it ends.”
The drive up to the ridge is worse than I expect. The road narrows fast, lined with jagged trees and banks of snow that creep higher the farther I climb. My Jeep groans like it’s seconds from giving up. No cell phone signal. No street signs. Just a vague, gut-deep feeling that I’m either headed toward safety… or something a lot darker.
When the road finally ends, it’s at a gate made of thick timber and chain, dusted with snow and flanked by silence. A hand-painted sign reads: Private Property. No Trespassing. No Kidding.
I kill the engine, heart pounding. There’s a narrow footpath winding up past the gate, nearly invisible beneath the snowfall. I get out of my Jeep, grab my backpack and begin to hike it on foot, boots slipping on the incline, the wind slicing through my coat like a hot knife through butter.
The cabin appears like it was born from the mountain itself—stone and timber, wide and solid, smoke curling from the chimney. It’s not just a home. It’s a fortress.
I make it to the porch and lift my hand to knock, but the door opens before I touch it. And there he is… Travis Holt.
All of six foot six and built like someone carved him from stone and dared him to flinch. He fills the doorway, broad and still, eyes sharp and unreadable under a furrowed brow. He keeps his beard trimmed close, and his jaw is tighter than the muscles flexing beneath his flannel shirt.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t blink. Just waits and watches.
I clear my throat. “Hi. Um. My name is Abby Westwood.”
His eyes narrow, but he still doesn’t move.
“You knew my brother,” I add. “Nick. Nick Westwood.”
He steps forward before I can finish the sentence, grabbing my upper arm. “Inside. Now.” His voice is like gravel and full of command.
I don’t argue. I step over the threshold, and the door slams shut behind me.