Chapter 1
CODE NAME: KODIAK
Emma
Istood frozen on my front porch, staring at my key. It wouldn’t turn. The deadbolt was already unlocked.
I never left it unlocked. Never.
The October wind whipped through Georgetown’s tree-lined streets, but the chill running down my spine had nothing to do with the weather. My fingers trembled as I pulled my hand back from the door.
Two weeks of warnings. Two weeks of telling myself I could handle it.
The anonymous email had been easy to dismiss—cranks contacted Treasury all the time. My slashed tires last week? Could’ve been random vandalism. The dead roses delivered to my office three days ago had made me nervous, but I’d thrown them out and focused on the NGO fraud I’d uncovered.
But this…my door was unlocked.
I should have called for help right then. Backed away, gotten to my car, and driven straight to Brenna’s. Instead, I pushed the door open with my fingertips.
My living room looked like a tornado had ripped through it. Every piece of furniture had been overturned. The sofa cushions were slashed open, and my financial documents—the ones I’d stupidly brought home—were strewn across the floor.
But it was the wall that made me stop breathing.
FINAL WARNING - STOP OR DIE
The red spray paint someone had used was still dripping in places. The letters were three feet high across my living room wall.
Glass crunched under my heels as I forced myself to step inside. The destruction continued from where the warning had been left, through the dining room and into the kitchen. Cabinets had been emptied, dishes were smashed, and the refrigerator door hung open.
Then I saw my coffeemaker.
Red and black wires ran from the base, connected to what looked like a small metal box with a digital display. The numbers weren’t moving—frozen at 00:00.
My morning routine was pathetically predictable. Alarm at five thirty. Shower. Coffee brewing by six while I checked the overnight market reports. First sip by five after.
My hands shook so hard I could barely hold my phone as I backed out of the kitchen. I pressed the screen on the second contact name, and Brenna answered on the first ring.
“Em! I was just thinking about you. Want to grab lunch—”
“B, I need help.” My voice came out raw. “Someone’s been in my house. It looks like they rigged my coffeemaker with a bomb.”
Silence. Then, “Get out. Get out of the house right now.”
“I’m already outside.” I’d retreated to the sidewalk, unable to stand on my porch, where anyone could have been watching. “Brenna, I don’t know what to do.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Where exactly are you?”
“Front sidewalk. Maybe twenty feet from my door.”
“Get in your car. Lock the doors. Atticus is calling someone right now.” I heard her husband’s voice in the background, already on another phone. “Emma, listen to me. Kodiak is on his way.”
“Kodiak,” I said under my breath.
I hadn’t seen Coleman Emeric—code name Kodiak—since Atticus and Brenna’s wedding two months ago. We’d danced once. Luke, best man to my maid of honor and Brenn’s brother, had watched us from across the room, scowling even though we were just friends.
Kodiak, who’d asked me to dance, held me close, made me laugh, and disappeared before the cake cutting, right after I’d caught the bouquet.
I’d told myself it was better that way. Cleaner.
Safer. Even if our last investigation together had shown we worked well as partners.
Even if the chemistry between us during those intense days had been impossible to ignore.
Even if that one dance had made me feel things I didn’t want to acknowledge.
“No arguments. He’s the best, and you need the best right now. Get in your car.”
She was right. I climbed into my Audi, locked the doors, and watched my violated house while sirens wailed in the distance. They weren’t coming for me—DC sirens were a constant background noise—but I wished they were. I wished this was simple enough for regular police.
This was anything but.
Eight minutes later, a black SUV pulled up behind my car. I watched in my rearview mirror as Kodiak stepped out, all six-feet-three-inches of controlled lethal capability moving toward my car with purpose.
Two months of silence, and now, he was walking toward my car with that same unreadable expression, and my heart rate, which had just started to calm, spiked for an entirely different reason.