Page 1 of Rescuing You

CHAPTER ONE

The woman Michael Wright had given his heart to was gone. Just…gone.

Maybe he should’ve told his family, but considering he hadn’t even told them he was dating someone, it felt a little awkward.

Plus, it wasn’t exactly the best day to share tragic news. His parents were celebrating their anniversary. Fifty years, and still so in love.

He’d made the mistake of letting himself believe he could someday have what they had.

Until two weeks before, when Leila had been snatched off the street in Munich by masked men. The van she’d been forced into was later found deserted and burned, all evidence destroyed.

Years of CIA training, years of uncovering the evil deeds of evil men, and Michael had no idea how to find her.

It was a clear, chilly day on the coast of Maine. The sun shone in a royal blue sky, the bright red and yellow leaves shivering in the breeze. Far below his brother Sam’s house, boats bobbed on the choppy water of the Atlantic in Shadow Cove as if all were right with the world.

As if Michael hadn’t gotten the woman he’d come to care for killed.

Bryan caught his eye from the far side of the seating area on the oversize deck where the family talked and laughed. The second-to-youngest Wright brother was eight years Michael’s junior and the most perceptive of the brothers.

Michael wasn’t ready to answer Bryan’s questions. Even if he wanted to talk about it, he had to keep his mouth shut. He wasn’t sorry when his phone vibrated in his pocket.

The name on the screen made his stomach tighten. It was Stone.

Michael had been waiting for this call—and dreading it. Confirmation of what he already knew.

Leila was dead.

Crossing the deck away from the party, he answered. “Wrong here.”

“Wrong” because the people on his elite team of CIA agents assigned to the White House for special projects used call signs to protect their identities, and Michael’s had gone from Wright to Mr. Wright to Mr. Wrong in about five seconds. Now, he was simply known as Wrong—or sometimes, because his teammates thought they were so clever, Always Wrong.

Michael used to think it was funny, but it was a little too on-the-nose these days.

“You’re at Sam’s?” Stone asked.

Michael had kept his team apprised of his activities. “Yeah.” He hurried down the wooden steps toward the yard. “What’d you learn?”

“Meet me out front.”

“You’re here?” What was Stone doing in Maine? Michael had known the news would be bad, but if Stone made the trip to tell him in person…

His feet hit soft grass. He ran to the road that snaked down the hill toward the rocky shore.

Peter Mason, aka Stone, pushed off from the hood of a red sedan.

“What is it?” Michael called from a few yards off, shoving the phone in his pocket. “Why are you here?”

“Leila’s alive.”

Michael’s steps faltered.

She was alive. Alive. Thank God.

Hope crashed like a tidal wave of relief and elation. Maybe he hadn’t gotten his girlfriend killed after all.

Maybe he could still keep her safe, protect her from his dangerous life.

But Stone added, “Or she was a few days ago.”