He comes back over to me. “Don’t look so surprised.” His hand rests on the back of my chair and he leans into my face. “I know everything Elizabeth does. Everything. I hope you enjoyed sampling what’s mine, because it’ll be the last time you ever touch her again. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Fuck you.” I pull at the rope tied around my wrists needing to get up and strangle this asshole.

“No, thanks. That’s what I have Elizabeth for.” A sadistic smile takes over his face.

I buck wildly at the thought of him touching her. “I will kill you, motherfucker!”

He throws his head back, his cold chuckle cutting through my rage. “You’re not in any position to make threats, Mr. Matthews.” With that, he walks out.

My blood boils just beneath the surface of my skin and I know if I don’t get my shit together quickly, this will get bad, and that ultimately puts Elizabeth in danger. After several seconds, I let out a slow breath and some of the tension coiled tightly in my body with it.

This is definitely not an ideal situation; I just hope I can get enough space to accomplish what I need to without blowing my cover. So far, it looks like he has no idea I’m an agent and I need to keep it that way. If he finds out, I know for sure my ass is done, and Elizabeth will likely die too. The thought of her hurt turns my stomach.

So many things start running through my head as I try to formulate some kind of plan quickly. I’ll need to find a way to contact my boss as soon as possible to let him know what’s going on. While living at the Fitzgerald residence, I would send a short text every night letting him know what I was finding out. Luckily, Cal was gone a lot, giving me the opportunity to search his office here and there. I’ll give him credit though, the bastard is careful. I wasn’t able to find anything concrete to link him to the charges we were going after.

“Bruce, you grab him while I pull the car around,” one of the big guys says. I don’t recognize the name and make a mental note to report it later. Bruce walks over and starts to untie me from the chair.

Before he finishes, he looks at me and says, “You try anything and you’re a dead man. Understand?”

“Yep,” I reply. Once my hands are free I bring them around to my lap and rub my sore wrists. They’re really red and raw from the friction of the rope, and my fingers start to tingle as the blood returns to them. Bruce yanks me up by my arm, which causes me to stumble a little since my body is so stiff from sitting in one spot for so damn long. “Where are we going?” I ask once we’re outside and they’re shoving me into the backseat of a black car with windows that are just as dark.

“We’re taking you to the apartment where you’ll get started,” the other guy says.

THE NEXT DAY I’m absently searching for general information on Bill Hutchison in this dingy ass apartment they’ve got me staying at. On the way here yesterday, I had convinced Bruce and Rodney—the other guy watching me—I needed a computer to research my target. They’re dumber than shit, so it didn’t take a whole lot of effort on my part to get my way. I sent a quick, coded message to Turner, and made it look like I was actually working on a plan to assassinate Hutchison.

Bill Hutchison is the complete opposite of Cal. Where Cal comes from a lot of money, Hutchison is a self-made man. He’s relatable and likable, something Cal has always struggled with. As I sit here, my mind replays all of the events from yesterday to try to piece together any extra clues. Cal said I’d be perfect for the job given my skill set in the military. I can only assume he’s referring to my sniper qualification I received while serving. While I’m doing some digging, I come across a video of Cal at his most recent campaign stop from this morning. I click on it and once it starts, my heart drops to the pit of my stomach.

It’s not what Cal is saying that causes this reaction; I couldn’t give two fucks about him. It’s my beautiful girl sitting off to the side who makes me feel like I’m breaking in a million pieces. She’s always put up this fake front in the public eye, and that used to piss me off. But I’d much rather see that than what I’m staring at now. She’s looking straight ahead with a blank look on her face. There’s no smile, no clapping.

No life.

Her face is void of any emotion and it’s killing me. God, what is he doing to you? Throughout her obvious misery, she still had a light, an inner fight about her. Now it’s gone.

I jot down a few of the campaign stops Hutchison is planning to make in the next week or so and decide this is a good place to start. The sooner things get started, the sooner I can end all of this and get to Elizabeth. Judging from this video, she needs to get the hell away from Cal quickly before she becomes this empty shell forever.

“Tell the boss to get his jet ready,” I say. “We need to go to Iowa next week.”

“Prepare for landing,” the pilot says over the intercom. I was hoping we’d be on Cal’s private jet to connect him to all of this, but no such luck. I tried to remember the wing number as we were boarding to pass it on to my boss so he can find out who owns this. Maybe that’ll be our link to Cal.

The plane touches down on a runway in Iowa and finally comes to a stop. Once we unload, I’m immediately ushered into a car that will take us to the location I specified last week.

Anything can happen on the job, and you try to expect the unexpected. From the very beginning I’ve been thrown into situations I didn’t plan for. It all started when I looked into big green eyes. One look at Elizabeth and I knew I was fucked. There was no way I was going to be able to resist her. She caught my attention with her gorgeous looks and quiet intelligence, but I was a gonner when I found out what a selfless person she was. Once she told me about her mom, I fell for her, and I fell hard. I knew she wouldn’t leave Cal to be with me, and I wasn’t going to ask her to make that decision. Not when her mother’s health was on the line. When she said she was leaving him, I’ve never felt so damn happy in my whole life. That was short lived. The thought of what could have been eats at me, and I constantly think about what we would be doing right now if we were together instead of in this fucked up situation. A situation where she doesn’t even know I’m alive.

My motivation has always been the job. In the military my sole focus was bringing down terrorists. When I got out and joined the FBI, it was the same. Until I met Elizabeth. Now, she’s what’s most important, and I’ll do anything and everything to get her out of there.

We stop a few blocks away from where the event is being held. It’s not starting for another three hours, but I wanted to see what kind of holes are in the security to see how easy it would be to set up in advance. At least that’s what I told the guys. When I went over my plans for this trip, I told them it was a bad idea to send Rodney with me, but they wouldn’t listen, insisting I needed one of them with me so I “didn’t do anything stupid.” What they don’t know is I’m setting them up. I need them off my ass so I can move around with a little freedom.

“Just follow my lead,” I tell him after explaining our goal is to run to the stage and take out one of the security guards on the front corner. He’s hesitant at first, and he should be. This is the stupidest idea ever. But he finally agrees when I offer to leave him behind.

“Don’t forget, you try to pull anything, and you can say good-bye to your girl, understand?” Rodney asks right before we take off. Why he feels the need to say this every time is beyond me. I know what’s at stake here. It’s all I can think about. I don’t need a daily reminder.