The Network is the world’s most covert organization with underground headquarters in Chicago beneath a front technology company called ETI. Having unchallenged authority and skill to disable and destroy criminals, the Network takes over where regular law enforcement leaves off in the mission for absolute justice. The price for that justice is high, requiring the life of every man and woman who serves. For them, there is no life and no love, only duty.

Oversight Committee: #1 (1st in Command): Chase Giovanni, Head in Washington, D.C.

Level 1 Operatives:
#2 (2nd in Command) Captain Shannon McKee, Liaison between Oversight and the Network
#3 (3rd in Command): Angelo Pluzetti, Head of Operations
#4 (4th in Command): Captain Ron Blair, Master Strategist
#5 (5th in Command): Roan Emory, Head Team Leader/Mission Coordinator (KIA) ^
#5 (5th in Command): Hunter Savage, Head Team Leader/Mission Cooridinator ^^^

Level 2 Lead Operatives:
Jocelyn Dominica, Psychiatrist
Rockwell ‘Vlad’ Vlademar, Weapons Master
Cara ‘Inspector Gadget’ Ross, Technology
Justine Fielding, Comm & Systems Analyst ^^
Dr. Celine Savage, Medical

Level 3 Field Operatives:
Alpha Team:
Kirsten Ulrick, Leader**
Ashton Barnett, 1st Position**

Beta Team:
Noah Harlow, Leader
Rhiannon Murray, 1st Position

Level 4 Field Operatives:
Kyle Vincent, Red Team Leader (MIA)*
Dez Luttino, Green Team Leader
Natalie Francis, 3rd Position, Green Team ***

Level 6 Field Operative:
Reb Porter, 5th Position, Green Team ***
Susana Ortega, 4th Position, Red Team ^^^

* NO ORDINARY LOVE, Book 1 of the Incognito Series
** UNTIL DEATH DO US PART, Book 2 of the Incognito Series
*** BOUNTY ON THE REBEL'S HEART, Book 3 of the Incognito Series
^ DEAD DROP, Book 4 of the Incognito Series
^^ UNDER THE SPELL, Book 5 of the Incognito Series
^^^ RENEGADE'S ROSE, Book 6 of the Incognito Series

The Manning teams had returned an hour ago, successful, no casualties. Master Strategist and 4th in Network Command, Captain Ron Blair, sent the operatives for some well-deserved downtime while the Analysis department evaluated the data they’d retrieved.

Shannon’s been holed up all day—not something she’s ever done in the time I’ve been here. She’s always involved...in every single last thing going on.

Ron shook his head.

Not gonna slip one iota, are you, Princess? You either see yourself as invincible or a failure, nothing in-between.

Taking a deep breath, he glanced around at the few people still up around him. Late as it was, he knew Shannon remained up in the roost, behind darkened glass. He’d been about to head up to his suite on the fifth floor of the skyscraper for some shut-eye himself. But the thought of her still working—hell, she’d been up there when he arrived at the compound at 0800—made him turn around and head in the opposite direction.

At the corner hall leading to her office upstairs, he saw her with her head on her desk, lying in a pool of light from the lamp and computer terminal. A grin spread across his face. Hell no, Shannon ‘Stiletto’ McKee wouldn’t like him or anyone else finding her in a moment of ‘weakness’.

For a long minute, he cocked his hip and shoulder up against the wall and looked at her. Hell and damnation, she was sheet-white and blade-thin. Sure, she was in better shape than a newly-graduated recruit, but he could see the difference between healthy and sickly. She was letting herself go to hell in a handbasket.

Ah, Princess, sometimes even the strongest warrior needs somebody to take care of them.

He moved over to her and kneeled by her chair. Not often that anyone saw the almighty Shannon McKee out of it through and through. But he was determined to protect her from any of her mutts seeing her like this. He knew best that a commander had to remain in top form at all times to continue receiving the respect of his men.

His attempts to wake her met without results. He finally leaned down and scooped her out of the leather chair. Tilting his chest back slightly, he got his arms around her securely. Even then she didn’t wake. He knew about the Head of Operations elevator that would take them directly to the skyscraper—not something Shannon used often because she was adamant about keeping track of how many hours each operative worked, even herself. This elevator wasn’t monitored, nor had any safety protocols, like the one most of them used to ascend the ETI skyscraper. Humping it, Ron used it anyway, stunned at how light she felt in his arms. She’d lost weight. Despite how honed and muscular she looked, barely a hint of curves, he could see the sharpness of her elbows and cheekbones. Even her neck seemed long and gaunt. Her unusual-for-a-woman height of six feet didn’t help hide the gaunt look of her bones.

At the door of her suite, he pushed in his own security access card. A moment later, the door opened and he entered. Kicking it shut again with his foot, he looked around in shock. His own suite had looked exactly like this when he first entered the Network. Stark, just the basics. She’d done absolutely nothing personal with hers. The walls and surfaces were bare.

He moved with her to the sofa, sitting down with her on his lap. Her head went back against the soft arm, then she lay completely immobile.

I remember this face. Remember it just this stark after we escaped that enemy prison. We thought we’d never get the filth off of us, and not for lack of trying. First time I took you was under the hot spray of a shower. Never forget the look on your face when I stepped in there stark-naked with you. Never forget the uncertainty, passion and need counterbalancing it. The amazed look in those tawny eyes the first time we made love for real and you found fulfillment with me inside your body. The way you murmured, “Master Chief, I never had a clue...”.

Ron chuckled out loud at the memory. Hell and damnation, it’d been hard for her to forget that he was her commanding officer.

His mirth halted abruptly at the memory that always followed the good ones: The day she walked out on him.

Remembering...hell, it could drive a man to drink again.

He’d known her father through his own—a relentless, cruel and hardened military officer. The two career officers had been the best of friends. But Tom had been more of a father to Ron than his own ever wanted to be.

It’d never been easy for Tom McKee. Too many regrets, too many memories. The Network had been his idea, and he was quite literally the only man for the job once the idea went through every conceivable appropriation committee before it came to fruition. How could the man win? The rock and a hard place had been between serving the Network—a place that he and the ‘Powers That Be’ believed could stand in front of evil spreading through the world like a plague—and leaving behind his family. He couldn’t have both. The decision had broken him. Ironic as it was, Tom had been one of the most powerful men in the world, yet he’d had few if any personal choices.

Ron would never forget the day Tom asked him to watch out for his daughter. “Take care of her, Ron. Take care of what she can’t face. What would destroy her soul. Shannon takes care of everyone. She always has. She’ll take care of her mother and her brother. She’ll do that. She’s strong, like me.”

Ron hadn’t believed that at first. Not when he saw how Tom broke the rules for her—long-established rules. Shannon entered the Naval Academy when she was eighteen, became a Navy line officer, and took command of a ship. Oh, Ron knew women had been assigned to non-combatant sea duty since 1972 and to all ships since 1994. They served as admirals, commanding officers, command master chiefs, seamen, airmen and everything in between, and Shannon excelled in every situation she entered. But the fact that her daddy made sure she received the same opportunities and decorations that any man in her position would have received goaded Ron more than it should have. Until he saw the warrior behind Daddy’s princess. He became convinced Shannon earned her rank and respect the hard way. She was more than equal to any man the Navy stood her next to. And Shannon was strong—stronger than her mother and her younger brother, John, whom she’d been both sister and mother to. But something had snapped in her when Johnny died. She’d blamed her old man for that, even while he tried to save her from herself in the only way available to him at that time.

Ron had promised her daddy he’d do any dirty work that needed doing. He’d done what he could to watch out for Shannon—he owed it to Tom. But his loyalty to his mentor had little place in his purposes for doing so. He’d grown protective of Shannon almost immediately. He’d met few who matched her relentless tenacity and self-destructive discipline.

Just never expected to fall for her so hard. So irrevocably...

Ron ran a finger, butterfly-soft, over her sharp chin. Her skin hadn’t always been so white or stretched so tight. That month in Algiers, she’d gained weight, filled out beautifully, and her skin had turned a luscious bronze in the sun.

Every inch of her. My every waking and dreaming thought came down to touching her. Not a hell of a lot’s changed since then. Except she used to let me take care of her. And she’s sure as s*&t stopped taking care of herself.

In the years since he’d entered the Network, she’d been a machine. She refused to remember or be reminded of what they shared for so brief a time before her old man was assassinated and she took the reins of the Network. No question why she’d done that. She’d seen her way to proving herself—and exacting the revenge she’d been after for so long, she could probably still taste the metallic tinge of blood on her tongue before her old man put a stop to her vengeance. After all these years in command, she still hasn’t gotten what she wanted more than anything else in the world. She still hadn’t avenged John.

Ron took a shaky breath as he looked at her over him. He and his father had been cut from the same cloth. Hard. Ruthless. Empty. Shannon had been the soft side of him from the moment he met her. He couldn’t let her go, not when it meant he’d be incomplete. But she’d damn well have to put up with him taking care of her now. If he didn’t, she wouldn’t make it much longer. And she had to. No way in hell would she drop on request and ring the shiny, brass bell for all to see. She would gut it out. She had to.

Lifting her again, he got to his feet, then turned to place her back on the sofa alone. Sure she’d sleep during his absence, he slipped up to his suite and gathered groceries from his fridge. He preferred to cook for himself rather than have a plate delivered from the tower for each meal. Back in her suite, he got to work cooking for her. Her kitchen was immaculate, the fridge empty. A part of him believed she’d never used anything in the room in the time she’d been here. Working slowly, figuring she could use the nap, he made his plans. He’d feed her, and she’d tell him what the hell’d been bugging her lately...

The thought of doing that made him chuckle under his breath. Getting Shannon to open up to him in the first place, once upon a time, had required nothing short of the jaws of life. He understood her mind. Any weakness was perceived as failure. She’d learned to do her job unemotionally because someone had to do it. None of the mutts in this organization knew all she kept locked up inside her—not her dark thoughts, not her nightmares, and never her guilt for a responsibility she should have never had to carry.

God Almighty, she’d changed. Physically, she still had the close-cropped, mahogany hair, wide, unsmiling mouth, and those all-knowing tawny eyes. At forty-one, she still fit her SEAL nickname Stiletto. Her ruthless style did nothing for her outside of proving the implication her appearance gave—she’d always do what needed to be done, with little fuss.

Regardless of the cost to her own soul. She hated this place to the exclusion of all else. Daddy was off saving the world while neglecting his own. She’s become harder, colder...unreachable. Even to me.

As he chopped onions and garlic, he wondered if she’d ever given anybody else even half of what she’d given to him. Will I ever stop wanting what she gave? Body, heart and soul. The whole package. When she went, she took all three with her.

He accepted that she’d never willingly give him anything but professional respect again. But the knowledge didn’t save him from wanting to hold to his prior claim for all he was worth.

Cumin, onion and garlic. Algiers. Commanding Officer Ron Blair...

Heavenly scents drew her out of a dream that took a few minutes to dissipate. For a few minutes, she was back in that ramshackle villa in the heart of the old village Kouba, listening to Ron yell at the neighborhood boys to terxef—get lost!—because they were constantly stealing things. Wandering hand-in-hand around the small streets of the casbah, soaking up the medieval atmosphere. Watching the sunset in Draria with her head on his shoulder. Dancing in that little, dingy tavern, barely able to wait for him to finish the kiss he started there...

When the scents didn’t go away with the memories, she stared around her in shock. She recognized her cold suite. Not knowing how she got there brought a terror she hadn’t experienced in years, since she and her commanding officer were captured on what was supposed to be a routine reconnaissance mission and held in a prisoner of war camp in northern Korea.

I was in my office. Jocelyn came in...left... I was going over the briefs of recent sightings of Mareno Ortega or his decoys. I put my head down—

Shannon flew to a sitting position, and a voice murmuring “Easy, Princess,” brought up a sharp gasp into her throat. The years flew back on rewind again. Ron’s voice in the darkness, filling the emptiness in her soul. Hunger, pain, the stench of filth and death—evil. She never believed they would escape that camp. Only Ron’s voice had saved her. Only his touch freed her. Tears stung her eyes at a tenderness she forgot existed inside her. Her entire body ached.

For what I had for such a short time. What I walked away from. What I’ll probably—dammit—never forget as long as I live.

She closed her eyes against the tears, willing them straight back to the hell they’d come from. After several controlled and measured breaths, she could face him. He sat on the sofa opposite the one she occupied.

Watching me sleep. How often did I wake up to find him watching me? Just waiting for the opportunity to touch me. And sometimes he couldn’t wait—

No, dammit, don’t think about it! It’s over. Forever.

“How did I get up here?” she asked under her breath.

“You needed sleep and you needed privacy, Shannon. And you sure as hell need to eat. You get any skinnier and your bones’ll rattle when ya walk.”

The words he used and the way he said them had always turned her inside out. But she was vulnerable now, and it felt like walking from the dead. She’d missed this man’s gruffness. In the beginning, though, when he’d been her Commanding Master Chief, the head trainer in the Navy SEALS, he’d intimidated the crap out of her. He held the power then. But she’d worked hard alongside the men who didn’t believe she could be good enough to succeed. She’d sweat blood every damn day. In the process, she gained her companions’ respect. More than that, she’d earned Ron’s and achieved something she hadn’t understood until he showed her. Thirteen years younger than him, she’d desperately needed his experience and guidance. Hell, she’d needed his lustful gazes, his sexy/sweet orders to ‘take it off’ the few times she put on clothes in their villa. She’d needed those uninhibited kisses and caresses that brought her out of the nun-like existence she’d lived in until that point.

I needed to dance with him in that dark, smoky tavern, slow and sensual, until all I could think about were the things he’d do to me when we were alone.

“How did I get up here?” she repeated, her gaze level with his.

Much as she’d intended to issue the question as a demand, it came out husky and she couldn’t continue looking at him. But his silence drew her back after a moment. The answer spoke from the depths of his heather-gray eyes. She knew he’d carried her up here, the same way he’d carried her to bed during that short month they were lovers who wanted nothing else in the world but each other. No more missions, no more duty, no more revenge. All that existed then was their freedom, together.

“Don’t worry. I used the elevator in the roost. We weren’t seen.”

Facing forward, she pushed herself up and drew her knees against her chest. He should go. Why don’t I wanna tell him to?

“I heard about Hunter and Susana,” Ron murmured.

Startled, she whipped her head up to face him. “That’s top secret.”

“And I’m on top, Princess.”

She glared at him, a silent warning for him not to dare calling her that again. Even here, alone, she couldn’t let herself slip the way she had back then. She knew only too well what happened to someone with power who gave that authority to another in a moment of weakness. Ironically, she’d convinced herself she couldn’t trust anyone, not even the only person who’d ever made her feel safe.

“What’re you gonna do about that situation?” he asked.

Shannon swallowed the bitter lump in her throat. “I haven’t decided.”

“That’s why you’ve been laying low today.”

“I’ve been doing my job,” she corrected haughtily. But Ron was a man who’d been born old, born wise. She could use a little of it in this situation. “What do you think I should do?”

“Depends.”

He was sprawled in the middle of the other sofa, his body long, lean and hard. She’d always thought he looked like he belonged in the Australian outback with the scorpions and snakes and kangaroos. His skin was deeply tanned with entrenched lines all over his gruff, handsome face. His wore his ginger-brown hair, just beginning to silver, a shade longer than military regulations.

Hell, he’d be comfortable anywhere. It was something I always wanted to learn, but never have.

“What does it depend on?” she demanded, irritated with her own inability to be unaware of him tonight.

“Seems clear to me that it depends on whether you wanna redeem your soul...or lose it.”

Shannon swore out loud at his answer, swinging her legs off to the floor and resting elbows on knees, chin on steepled hands. “Don’t turn this into something spiritual, Ron. This situation could compromise the Network. Again.”

“Could,” he agreed. “But it doesn’t have to. I know about the situation with Rosalia and Andy Sheppard long ago. We could have had it well in hand if they’d come out in the open with it from the start. Hunter and Susana are willing to work with us if we’re willing to work with them.”

“We should never have been put in this position to begin with. If Angelo had done his job. If he didn’t always let emotions overrule his better judgment.”

“Is that what you believe?” Ron asked softly.

The penetrating look in his eyes bothered her. She didn’t like remembering that he’d once said the same to her about himself. His emotions overruled his better judgment the first time he touched her. He’d been her commanding officer then. And he’d asked her to forget that fact. She hadn’t wanted to let him know she felt anything for him beyond the need to please him and gain his respect as the best mutt he’d ever trained.

Even back then, young as he’d been—hell, young as she’d been—he looked like he’d been everywhere, seen everything, experienced all life had to offer—the good, the bad, and the in-between. He’d been so focused and driven. She’d known few men she respected, but her awe of him went right to the hilt, far above any other.

That attracted her. His hard appearance—all muscle, sinew, man—attracted her to the point of making her embarrassed every single time she was with him. SEAL training had kept her focus off that attraction. Two years she’d endured to become combat-ready. She’d already had thirteen years of military service preceding that. While she had no doubt her father had seen to it personally that she encountered no obstacles in gaining the operational skills required to advance to the rank of captain during that time, her heart’s desire had been to become a Navy SEAL. She’d met roadblock after roadblock in that quest until Johnny died and her father came to her under cover of night, begging her to stop her bloody battle against the Ortega cartel. She agreed—only if he pulled the last string to get her into the SEALS.

Ron had been called back into active duty by her father, leaving behind his training rank of Master Chief, just after she committed to her six-year hitch as a brand new SEAL. She didn’t believe it was coincidence that Ron became her commanding officer once again. No, her father had arranged that from the shadows, too.

In all those years, not once did Ron let on that he was attracted to her, too. Until that mission in Korea. For the first time, they were both convinced their training wouldn’t help them. Both believed they’d die in that camp. So they’d chosen life, even the few moments of it they were allowed, and he touched her. Touched her and renewed her urgency to live.

Angelo had said she’d never been on the edge. But he was wrong. She’d been there. And Ron had been the man to save her.

Disgusted by her vulnerability, she shot to her feet. Time to stop remembering what was dead and gone. “I need to get back—”

Ron came to his feet, leisurely unfolding like a panther that smelled prey. He was suddenly too close for comfort. He smelled like garlic and onions. He smelled like sexy man. And that was the last thing she needed to remember.

“Not so fast, Princess. You need to eat. And it’s all ready.”

“You call me ‘Princess’ again, and I’ll dock your authority, Blair.”

That irresistible rebel grin of his she used to live to see rose on his hard mouth. “You go ahead and do that, Shannon, and I’ll enjoy hearing you explain why I’m being docked.”

“Bastard.”

Chuckling, he took her arm and steered her into the dining room she’d never used before. While in her suite, she either wolfed her meals in front of the computer terminal in the corner of the living room, or she stood at the counter in the kitchen and got the chore over with as fast as she could.

The table was laid with dishes and burning candles she didn’t recognize—had he brought them down from his suite? She cringed at the romantic setting she remembered all too well from those months he fattened her up...and kept her constantly active.

Stinging from the memories, she nevertheless didn’t protest when he urged her into a chair. Then he disappeared into the kitchen, and the aromatic scent of the Algerian Chicken Couscous they’d loved so much long ago filled her with a raging hunger. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this hollow. She could have easily fainted as salivated when he carried out the dishes. He served them and poured her a glass of the wine. She made a point of not glancing at his wine glass, no doubt filled with water.

Only after he sat and picked up his fork did she dig into her food. Heaven. Her taste buds exploded, and she almost closed her eyes in ecstasy.

“I assume you’ve run the scenarios,” Ron said while she took a bite...then another. “You do nothing, Hunter and Susana raise the child with the other two, and they all stay in the Network, where we can keep them safe and maintain our internal integrity.”

“Or we do nothing, and our other operatives think they can live their lives like they’re in a country club. Some enemy gets wind of our newly-domesticated organization and targets Hunter and Susana, possibly the children. We lose our best field operative, and the Network is screwed to hell.”

She shoveled another bite into her mouth, annoyed when Ron shook his head across the table from her. “What’re you so afraid of, Shannon? Hunter and Susana are performing at their peak, and the kids—”

“I’ve already heard the glowing reports from Angelo. I don’t need a repeat.”

The more she ate, the hungrier she seemed to feel. She could no longer remember the last time she enjoyed food. It’d become fuel. Eating, a necessary evil.

Ron got up and filled her plate again. She said nothing, withdrawing into herself to savor the meal.

“Maybe you don’t wanna allow them to be free, to be happy, because you won’t allow yourself to be, either.”

“An operative with divided loyalties is compromised. Given a choice between giving up Network secrets or a lover, they’ll choose a lover in every scenario.”

Ron snorted in disbelief. “You keep saying that, McKee, but it’s never borne out. We’ve got the best warriors in the world here. They’re able to keep their personal lives contained and still do their jobs at the top of their game. Not along ago, Harlow and Murray were in just that situation, and they stayed intact. You give the ops a little freedom to find their own contentment after hours, and they’ll never betray you. You’re letting your own insecurities rule this place.”

Her 3rd in Command’s mirror words had stung. Ron’s cut her so deep, she could hardly manage to shoot back her response. “You and Angelo are one and the same.”

She’d get no help from Ron in keeping the operatives on the straight and narrow. Somehow this betrayal hurt worse than Angelo’s ever could. Only she could maintain order here. And that meant keeping a day and night vigil within the compound to make sure the rules were enforced.

“You haven’t done anything about Hunter and Susana’s situation. That’s not like you. You get out the hatchet the second deadwood needs pruning. What’s got you off that focus?”

Everything. Innocence. You.

God, how she hated—once loved—the way he seemed to see right inside her. How could he know she didn’t want to make a decision here, and so she’d thrust her energies in any other direction? When she’d served under him, he always seemed to know just where to stick the blade, her most vulnerable spot, to get what he needed from her...

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