Danger. Warning bells resounded in her ears and when she closed her eyes, she saw flashing red lights, but try as she might, she could not forget Gresso. It was as though his name had been engraved in her memory. Her body was on strike against her. Her heart and mind were in constant battle, even when she had to really focus. From the day her sister’s husband Trojan was released from prison, she’d never been able to forget her encounter with Gresso. She knew deep in her soul that it was wrong. Gresso was a menace, a dangerous man—she was the front row witness to him sneaking in and taking away her first kiss like a thief in the night.Her first kiss. She couldn’t believe that an important milestone in her life that she thought she might share with a true love was stolen by a convicted felon!She bolted up from bed and pulled her own hair in frustration before remembering to exhale. Her pulse thudded like a woodpecker i

“Not enough to level a city block, surely?”  Dr. Jaz queried. “I’ll answer this one,” said Agent Ysiah, who was sitting across from Yrah. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the poison Sarin, which kills in seconds. If you inhale even a bit, you’ll foam at the mouth, fall to the ground, and die. This chip is surrounded by a tiny silicone bag filled with Sarin. The silicone protects the host until it’s game time. After the chip is detonated, the Sarin spreads through the air. Anyone within an eight-foot radius of the victim will get a whiff of it and immediately die.” Yrah swallowed hard and wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt. This was for real. She’d already been trained, and mission briefed. She couldn’t back out now if she wanted. Tomorrow, they’d be flying to Sicily,

“Wiped out.” Ysiah tossed his pen on the table. He blew out his cheeks and rubbed his palms over his face before turning to look at his three colleagues. “We’d suspected this. Every single medical history we have on each inmate was erased and replaced with a fake. The Mossad intel was right. We’ve got nothing, so we must be careful. Just as we have people here, so would the cult. They have to protect their assets, after all.” “Mossad?” Zinc squeaked. “No one said anything about the Mossad being involved.”Ysiah glowered at the young red-haired American who was a junior analyst from the CIA and a fresh recruit. He graduated top of his class in med school from Johns Hopkins, but the kid was as raw as a green tomato. “The Mossad is just anoth

Yrah greeted Gresso with a scowl as he strolled into the clinic as if he owned the place with no handcuffs, the top three buttons of his coveralls unbuttoned, and sporting a smirk that said he’s got her number and there ain’t a thing she could do about it. She’s starting to regret her decision about putting her life on hold just so she could come here to get closure on Gresso. That’s what’s supposed to happen. She shouldn’t have entertained her feverish, teenage-girl-crush thoughts. And now, where was she? Every day, she had to contend with him and battle with what she felt for him. Sometimes he looked like he’d at least combed if not showered, but sometimes, he showed up like this: bleary-eyed, new bruises, a cut on his right cheek. Today he had a laceration on his forehead. 

Yrah was sure she looked like a bedraggled madwoman all day as she’d gone around pulling her hair in frustration. Jaz and Z had asked what was wrong with her, and she only snapped at them. When she apologized, they confessed that the confined surroundings were starting to get to them, too.She’d been tossing and turning on her bed for hours, but sleep eluded her even with the aid of Melatonin, which she always had on hand because sometimes she had trouble sleeping. Gresso. Her body still shivered from the aftershock of this morning’s events, and she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. How could one man affect her like this? That scene in the restroom repeated in her brain in a loop, and she felt nothing but shame over the way she fully surrendered to Gresso, a violent convict with no remorse.She was like a dog who’d been starved for