Rules In Blackmail. Nichole Severn

for Major Barnes’s file, she scanned through the pages, her proximity setting Sullivan’s nerve endings on high alert. She tossed the file on top of Marrok Warren’s and crossed her arms over her chest. “I owe Barnes my life. He tackled me to the ground after an IED exploded in the parking lot outside my office in Afghanistan two months ago. He wouldn’t have done that just to turn around and come after me himself. And he has no motive.”

      “All right. Then we take a tour of your life outside the army. The only other name that stands out to me is Christopher Menas.” Elliot handed the file to Jane, but shifted his gaze to Sullivan before settling back against the desk. Hesitant? “He’s won a few hunting awards, but that’s about all I know aside from his criminal record. I can’t find any employment records, no college degree, no military record, nothing that says he’s changed his name, or a death certificate attached to this guy. Menas simply dropped off the grid after skipping bail, but you two had a complicated past and that’s why I’m pinning him as a suspect.”

      “I can’t believe this.” She stared at the name on the edge of the folder, her eyes panicked and wide. She slipped her index finger between the yellow card stock but didn’t move to open the file. “I haven’t thought about Christopher in years.”

      “Jane?” Warning bells rang in Sullivan’s head as he closed in on her. “What are you thinking?”

      Tearing her attention from the folder, Jane lifted her gaze to his. “It’s him. He’s the one doing this to me.”

      * * *

      CHRISTOPHER MENAS.

      Flashes of his face, of those cold brown eyes and dark skin, lit up the back of her eyelids. Jane bolted upright off the bed, out of breath, surrounded by pure darkness. She’d been in love—outright smitten—with the quarterback of the University of Washington Huskies football team. And it’d all been a lie.

      She couldn’t see anything with the bedroom door shut, but her instincts screamed she wasn’t alone. The silhouette of a man shifted in her peripheral vision. She slipped her hand under her pillow, curling her fingers around the gun Sullivan had lent her when she’d gone to bed.