When James Gearing applied for a job with Hadley and Emerson Detective Agency, its young and beautiful owner interviewed him. She met a red-faced man, who had trouble breathing and talking. "I get this way around beautiful women," he gasped, quickly leaving her office. The receptionist stopped him and handed over a phone. "Can you talk to me this way?" Cori Hadley asked.

He told her he'd been a Navy Seal who'd left the service due to a back injury. He said he couldn't tell her anything else. Cori checked with her sources and learned that he came highly recommended, but not what he'd done in the Seals. Her source also said: "If he's available, snap him up!" So James came to work and reported to a man, Phil Westerling, thereby negating his phobic reaction to his new boss.

His first day on the job, James narrowly escaped a hail of bullets during a daylight mob hit, but stopped the heist of bearer bonds. Assigned to investigate, James becomes the mysterious Man-in-Black, visiting his prey under cover of night. He met his match in Max Roland, bodyguard for a crooked banker who was mixed up with the mob. Soon, Phil, Max, and James were marked by The Commission, a covert group of three men controlling crime across the U.S. Their primary enforcer, Ice, was dispatched to straighten out the mess. James was caught in the middle, but worried more about not being able to talk to his beautiful boss. He liked everything about his new job; if only he wasn't so shy around Cori . . .