I clipped a shiny, new FBI badge to my belt, thinking I could save the world. Four years later, the shield’s got some dents, along with my idealism. And there’s one cold case that’s come back to haunt me.

Brady Hewitt was all too familiar with the horrors of war. They clung to him, or maybe he clung to them, using the nightmares as an excuse to keep others at bay—especially his boss’ daughter, Hadley Walker. Beautiful, sexy, ambitious, and forbidden. Not just because the former Special Forces soldier respected her father and liked his job, she was too good for him—all sunshine and smiles while he was darkness and filth.

I’m not looking for a hero, and definitely not a fake relationship with my new boss, nightclub owner Dante Fury—over six feet of dark, hot, and dangerous. But he isn’t taking no for an answer. The plan was to run, live under the radar, survive. My life’s been destroyed by some very bad people and everything I know is gone—career, friends, family. I thought I could hide as a bartender at New Orleans’ hottest new club, Ember.

Former Navy SEAL Nixon Swagger is home. After 12 years of service and twice as many deployments, all Nix wanted was quiet. He’d sought the solace of the land he’d grown up on and found the peace he needed to silence the noise and figure out his next move. Nixon’s stay was supposed to be temporary.

Bo “Safe” Cyders was born to protect. He loves his job as a Navy SEAL and takes his oath to protect his country and the men on his team seriously. So when a woman literally stumbles into his arms at Aces Bar and Grill, begging for help, he doesn’t hesitate to act. Wren Defranco’s online date went south quickly, and when she wakes up in a strange bed, in a room she doesn’t recognize, she’s certain she’ll end up a statistic on some random crime show. Instead, she’s somehow found not only one of the world’s rare good guys, but someone she can rely on…and easily fall for.

This may be my toughest mission yet. None of my SEAL training or my time in the CIA has prepared me for this: a prickly, five-foot-nothing hellcat Jasmin Smith. She was mine. She can fight it all she wanted, but in the end, I would have her every way a man can have his woman. She was a sassy little thing, making me work to bend her to my demands. But I will! I will bend her and tie her to me so tight she would never be able to get free. Only problem is I had to break her first. I had secrets that she needed to know.

Tatiana Jones is no stranger to the battlefield. One look at her scarred flesh tells the tales of her time in captivity. But it’s not only her skin that bears the marks of her failures; doubt and a healthy dose of cynicism now cloud her vision. She has also mastered the fine art of deception. In her line of work it is a necessity.

Daxton Chambers loved being a part of the oldest and most distinguished law enforcement agency in the state of Texas: the Texas Rangers. But the person who was burying women alive in his city of San Antonio was always two steps ahead of him...and he hated it.

There wasn’t a lot that surprised me. My years in the Navy taught me a lot, my years hunting human traffickers taught me the rest. Meeting a beautiful woman in a bar and spending the night with her should’ve been a blip on my radar. Instead, I spent years trying to forget her. In the middle of a rescue operation, fate dropped her back into my life, but there was a twist—she wasn’t alone.

Ethan “Chaos” Watson is the unofficial leader of Fallport, Virginia’s Search and Rescue team. The former Navy SEAL has found a lot of different people in the forest in the last five years since he arrived in the small town - escaped convicts, lost kids, hikers who went missing, runaway teenagers, and even a lost pet or two. But this is the first time he’s been asked to look for Bigfoot.