team.
With Delta Force, he knew the why of the missions. And even if some of them turned his stomach, he recognized ultimately, that they were for the greater good—of his country, of any country they were attempting to help.
With Gabriel’s missions, he was never privy to the reasons behind the task, never knew if he was truly helping anyone. Being at the end of someone’s fucking puppet strings like that twisted his horns, made his normally calm demeanor trigger to instant anger.
And then the jobs for Gabriel increased in quantity and grew exponentially trickier. When Cam balked, that’s when he learned the truth, that he would always be under the threat of being sent back to jail and having the life he’d built for himself taken from him.
Gabriel made sure to emphasize that noncompliance would get him thrown back into his life sentences in the blink of an eye.
And so Cam lived in the prison of Gabriel’s making, year after year, praying that his time in hell would soon be done.
They were black ops missions, which meant they didn’t officially exist. If Cam was captured or jailed, no one would come to get him. And in that precarious and frightening world, he learned that he’d never really left prison.
With Delta, he had his team. Led his team. They reported to him, admired him, counted on him—and he was damned good at keeping his men alive and well. Even when the op required him to work alone, his team was always close, surveilling. They would never leave him behind as long as there was breath in their bodies. And still, apart from missions, Cam couldn’t allow himself to get close to any of them on a personal level.
Dylan Scott had gotten in under the wire with his friendship, before Cam realized just how insidious Gabriel’s reach would be. Until he began to suspect that Gabriel had been the reason he’d been framed for murder in the first place.
And now Dylan had proven his loyalty once again by giving Cam the information about Skylar. If he’d met Dylan later than he had, Cam never would’ve trusted the man enough to give him a chance to prove that loyalty. But fate had intervened, and now Cam wasn’t sure what he would’ve done all these years without his friend.
Cam had never spoken about his dad to anyone but Dylan—and even then, he’d glossed over a lot of it, hadn’t let his emotions show through. Had pretended it didn’t matter, when it had, when every choice he made in life was colored by that moment in time he’d been betrayed.
He would never let it happen again—not by Gabriel, or by his daughter.
T he words came. She’d felt the familiar urge hit, a strange sensation Skylar nearly didn’t recognize, and she couldn’t get to the computer fast enough.
With the only light the battery power of her monitor, she typed furiously as the storm turned from snow to sleet, and hail battered the townhouse, the tap-tap of the keys keeping time with the howl of the wind as she raced the storm, as if needing to harness its power.
Her fingers ached when she was done—nearly twenty pages in a short span of time—and her body sagged from mental exhaustion.
Spent, she sat back and took a breath, well aware she’d been holding it on and off as she wrote, the words tumbling out of her. She saved her work on the memory stick as the last of her battery power wore away. Mental note: Charge the damned thing every once in a while, Sky, okay?
She was more than satisfied. So was Violet McCabe, the futuristic bounty hunter and all around kick-ass lead character of Skylar’s latest series.
Violet, who had all the physical strength that Sky herself didn’t. Yet , she told herself fiercely. Soon she’d be back running and lifting weights, the way she had before.
Violet’s words at the end of the scene she’d just written echoed in her head. Don’t count me out. Ever .
But even as her heroine threw out those last, cocky words, Sky doubted herself. Could it really be this easy again? Would
With Delta Force, he knew the why of the missions. And even if some of them turned his stomach, he recognized ultimately, that they were for the greater good—of his country, of any country they were attempting to help.
With Gabriel’s missions, he was never privy to the reasons behind the task, never knew if he was truly helping anyone. Being at the end of someone’s fucking puppet strings like that twisted his horns, made his normally calm demeanor trigger to instant anger.
And then the jobs for Gabriel increased in quantity and grew exponentially trickier. When Cam balked, that’s when he learned the truth, that he would always be under the threat of being sent back to jail and having the life he’d built for himself taken from him.
Gabriel made sure to emphasize that noncompliance would get him thrown back into his life sentences in the blink of an eye.
And so Cam lived in the prison of Gabriel’s making, year after year, praying that his time in hell would soon be done.
They were black ops missions, which meant they didn’t officially exist. If Cam was captured or jailed, no one would come to get him. And in that precarious and frightening world, he learned that he’d never really left prison.
With Delta, he had his team. Led his team. They reported to him, admired him, counted on him—and he was damned good at keeping his men alive and well. Even when the op required him to work alone, his team was always close, surveilling. They would never leave him behind as long as there was breath in their bodies. And still, apart from missions, Cam couldn’t allow himself to get close to any of them on a personal level.
Dylan Scott had gotten in under the wire with his friendship, before Cam realized just how insidious Gabriel’s reach would be. Until he began to suspect that Gabriel had been the reason he’d been framed for murder in the first place.
And now Dylan had proven his loyalty once again by giving Cam the information about Skylar. If he’d met Dylan later than he had, Cam never would’ve trusted the man enough to give him a chance to prove that loyalty. But fate had intervened, and now Cam wasn’t sure what he would’ve done all these years without his friend.
Cam had never spoken about his dad to anyone but Dylan—and even then, he’d glossed over a lot of it, hadn’t let his emotions show through. Had pretended it didn’t matter, when it had, when every choice he made in life was colored by that moment in time he’d been betrayed.
He would never let it happen again—not by Gabriel, or by his daughter.
T he words came. She’d felt the familiar urge hit, a strange sensation Skylar nearly didn’t recognize, and she couldn’t get to the computer fast enough.
With the only light the battery power of her monitor, she typed furiously as the storm turned from snow to sleet, and hail battered the townhouse, the tap-tap of the keys keeping time with the howl of the wind as she raced the storm, as if needing to harness its power.
Her fingers ached when she was done—nearly twenty pages in a short span of time—and her body sagged from mental exhaustion.
Spent, she sat back and took a breath, well aware she’d been holding it on and off as she wrote, the words tumbling out of her. She saved her work on the memory stick as the last of her battery power wore away. Mental note: Charge the damned thing every once in a while, Sky, okay?
She was more than satisfied. So was Violet McCabe, the futuristic bounty hunter and all around kick-ass lead character of Skylar’s latest series.
Violet, who had all the physical strength that Sky herself didn’t. Yet , she told herself fiercely. Soon she’d be back running and lifting weights, the way she had before.
Violet’s words at the end of the scene she’d just written echoed in her head. Don’t count me out. Ever .
But even as her heroine threw out those last, cocky words, Sky doubted herself. Could it really be this easy again? Would
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