He holds the safety of a whole lot of women in his hands.

Eli McKenzie's tough exterior has been cracked. His latest mission had him in Mexico, deep inside a Spectra IT sex slavery ring gathering intel. Holding back when he wanted to blow the joint sky-high was bad enough but turns out someone in the camp was poisoning him, too. The torture of being unable to act, along with the physical toll of his illness, sent him to Hank Smithson's headquarters to put himself back together.

Eli's sudden departure caused trouble for a Texas PI, Stella Banks, whose movements put her on Spectra's radar. Now Eli's back in camp, just as Spectra's henchmen are debating how best to do away with her. The only way to save her life is to get her to trust that he's there to help. That means revealing his true identity. And Stella needs to trust him because, without him, she has no way of freeing the girls Spectra is holding hostage.

Watching Stella sacrifice to take care of the girls gets to Eli in a big way, and soon they find that spending time in each other's arms is the only way to survive the brutal assignment. But survive they must if they expect to save the innocent young lives in their care. Besides, Eli is not about to let Spectra get away with what they've done to him, to the girls, or to the woman who's salvaged his very broken heart.