After facing the wrong end of an IED, the Army decides they’re
done with me when I fail a mental eval. Like that, twenty-five years of
my life go down the drain. I have no choice but to pull Plan B out of
thin air, so after numerous surgeries, evaluations and assessments, I
find myself back in upstate New York.
While growing up in
Syracuse, I promised myself that if I ever got out I’d never come back.
New York has nothing for me but bitter memories and regret and, as it
turns out, a career with the FBI and something else completely
unexpected: Giulia.
Giulia is a can of nitroglycerine, waiting to
detonate, and she’s everything I’m not: loud, flirtatious, crass,
forward, and extremely comfortable in her own skin. Something about the
combination makes me stupid, because when she’s around I can hardly
remember my own name.
When Giulia’s job and her idiot boss put
her in danger, I make a stupid move: I get personally involved. The last
thing I’m ready for is the woman who swept into my life like a tsunami.
But she’s more than meets the eye, and when I need someone to hold me
up, she’s there without questions or recriminations.
Just when
I’ve begun to understand I might have a chance at a normal life and
actually being happy, I make a critical mistake and Giulia disappears
without a trace. Not only do I know what I’ve lost, but I fear I’ve lost
her to a group of ruthlessly organized individuals, the sort who
require permanent silence. They’re the people she’s known her whole
life: her own family.