He's paid to hunt her. She's the only mark he ever loved.
When killers close in, the truth is the only thing that can save them—or destroy them.

Ex–Army scout and hard-bitten cowboy Colt Ryder rides back into the small towns and backwoods he swore off when a fat contract lands on his desk: bring in Ember Sloane, twenty-nine, stubborn, and wanted for murder. Colt finds her bleeding in the Blue Ridge, swearing she didn't do it—right before silencers flash in the trees. The hunt flips: someone wants Ember dead and Colt buried with her.

On the run from fake badges and real assassins, they follow a trail from dusty Georgia bars to glittering towers and a black-ops secret the government would kill to keep. Every mile tightens the noose and the pull between them—second-chance heat, knife-edge trust, a possessive protector who'll burn the world before he lets her go.

To clear Ember's name they must outwit a kill list, face the sins that tore them apart, and survive the moment a shattering truth about Colt's past collides with the woman he'd die to keep. High heat. High stakes. Small-town grit meets shadow-ops danger in this breathless age-gap romantic suspense.