As she loaded my soaked, shivering body into her car, my consciousness began to slip. The last thing I saw was the warm yellow light of my own living room, and the silhouette of the man who’d just tried to kill me and our daughter.

Chapter 2 — The Ambush

I woke to the beep of hospital machinery and the sharp smell of iodine. A warm, tiny weight rested on my chest. I blinked against the fluorescent lights and saw my daughter, Evelyn Rose, asleep.

She was perfect. I’d survived an emergency C-section. We both had.

My relief was short-lived.

Less than twelve hours after surgery, the door to my private military hospital room swung open. Grant walked in, in a tailored charcoal suit, looking as though he’d stepped out of a celebratory lunch.

Beside him stood a woman I recognized at once, though she was out of uniform in a designer cream dress.