Chapter One
“You’re making a mistake!” Dr. Tina Jamison shouted as she was hauled out of the nondescript brown van and pushed into the dimly lit parking garage.
But the four men—all wearing black ski masks—didn’t seem to care that they’d grabbed the wrong woman.
And they had gotten the wrong person. They must have made some kind of mistake. There was no way these armed gunmen could actually want her.
The man on the right jabbed his gun into her back. “Move!”
When someone shoved a gun at her, Tina knew exactly what to do. Move. Just as the man had ordered. But Tina was scared and she stumbled, nearly slamming face-first into the cement as she hurried to follow the guy’s order.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
She’d been safe in her hotel room less than an hour ago. Sleeping. Minding her business.
She’d woken to find a man leaning over her. His hand had flattened over her mouth before she could scream. Then he’d put a gun to her head and told her that if she wanted to live, she’d follow his orders.
Tina wanted to keep living.
One of the men pushed open the stairwell door. Then the gun was poking into her back once more. Tina got the message loud and clear, and she started double-timing it up those concrete stairs.
Why? Why have they taken me? “Look, you’ve got the wrong girl.” She tried telling them this fact for what had to be the fiftieth time. They needed to see reason and listen to her. “I’m a doctor, okay? Just a doctor who—”
“We know exactly who you are,” the man with the gun replied in a hard, lethal voice. “And we know just what Mercer will pay to get you back.”
Her blood iced as Tina grabbed for the stair railing. Mercer. Oh, no. With the mention of Bruce Mercer’s name, the situation went from bad to unbelievably, terribly worse. Because Bruce Mercer was the director of a covert group of agents who conducted secret missions for the United States’ government. Bruce Mercer operated the EOD, the Elite Operations Division.
Bruce Mercer was also her boss.
But I’m not an agent! I’m a doctor! The one who patches up the wounded after a battle.
Because Tina had learned long ago that she didn’t mix so well with danger.
Her heart was about to gallop out of her chest right then and, taking a breath— Oh, yes, it was hard. Painful. She was very afraid that she might be about to hyperventilate. Her breath sure seemed to be wheezing out with each frantic exhale.
“Can you...” Tina huffed. “Move the gun?” If the guy stumbled, that gun could accidentally discharge. She knew firsthand the kind of severe damage a shot to the spine would do to a victim.
“No, I can’t.” The gun jabbed harder into her.
“Look, I—I...” She tried to suck in air. Don’t panic. Don’t. “I’m not who you think I am!” She wasn’t an EOD agent. If these men were taking her because they mistakenly thought that she had some kind of classified information she could give to them, they were dead wrong. She didn’t have the clearance level needed to access that sort of intel.
“We know you’re not an agent,” the man snapped. “Now keep climbing. Faster.”
She climbed until her legs burned. Flight after flight. Finally a door opened above her. The scent of fresh air and the mighty Mississippi River teased her nose as Tina was led outside.
Stars glittered overhead. Glancing around, she realized they were on a rooftop. And...and she could hear the whoop-whoop-whoop of an approaching helicopter.
This is so not good. As if masked men with guns could be good. But any group that came equipped with their own helicopter sure equaled a whole world of trouble in her book.
Fear had Tina shaking, but she made herself turn to face the gunman. “I-if you know I’m not an agent...” She had to raise her voice, nearly shouting, to be heard over the helicopter’s approach. The wind from its blades blew against her, and she trembled. “If you know that, then let me go! I’m of no use to you.”
The masked man—the fellow had to be the leader because no one else had done any talking—shook his head. “Mercer’s daughter is going to be plenty of use to us.”
Mercer’s daughter? Tina’s eyes widened. Definitely the wrong person. “I’m not his daughter!”
A rough, twisted bark of laughter escaped from the gunman. “Sure you aren’t, sweetheart.” A Texas accent. She could just hear it slip around his words. “That’s why Mercer pays for your apartment in D.C. and why he sprung for the fancy hotel here in New Orleans. Why he’s been paying your bills for years.” More laughter. “At first, I thought you might be his lover, and that connection would have been just as useful to me.”
The helicopter circled around to land. Her abductors had given her time to dress—a humiliating task since they’d watched her every move. The wind from the landing helicopter made her T-shirt cling tightly to her chest and it tossed her hair wildly around her face.
“Then I got intel that revealed your true identity.” He let the gun trail over her cheek. If she had been an agent, Tina would have done something incredibly cool right then. Such as wrestle the gun from him or give him a sharp right hook.
Then take all of these jerks out.
But she wasn’t an agent. She knew how to heal, not how to hurt.
“You’ve been the one constant in Mercer’s life since you got out of med school. You’re that constant because you’re Bruce Mercer’s daughter. The daughter he tried to hide after your mother was killed in that attack in France.”
She swallowed. The fact that she’d been born in France was really going to work against her here.
“Of course, if you’re not his daughter, you can just prove that to me.”
The gun was still at her cheek.
The helicopter’s blades had stopped.
“Prove who you really are,” the man in the mask murmured. There were slits over his eyes so that he could see out, but the rest of his face was concealed. All she knew was that the guy was big, with narrow shoulders and hips, and that his words carried a slight Texas accent. She couldn’t physically identify any of the men who had taken her.
“Are we ready?” another voice called out as heavy footsteps approached from behind her. This voice didn’t hold a Texas accent. This one just sounded bored.
It also sounded familiar.
Tina felt her cheeks turn ice-cold, then they burned red hot.