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Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan

Britt cursed when his back tire slipped into a pothole on the unnamed—and barely paved—county road. The crevice was deep enough to cause Haint’s fat back tire to fishtail for three full seconds before he could wrestle the bike back into the center of the crumbling asphalt.

As always, the near miss had the familiar burn of adrenaline sizzling through his veins. Usually, he considered that a welcome sensation.

Not tonight.

Tonight, there were other asses on the line besides his.

He spared a glance over his shoulder to make sure Hew and his brother didn’t suffer a worse fate. The headlights on the bikes behind him were bright enough to blind. But he was relieved when neither suddenly bounced up and down nor veered off the side of the road into the dense trees looming over them.

The countryside was unfathomably dark. It was one of those grim, stygian nights that made men wonder if things like Bigfoot, Mothman, or the Chupacabra might actually exist.

Spec-ops soldiers loved a new moon. Dark deeds were best done in the heart of the deepest nights. But there had been lore inside his Ranger unit about the black moon, the second new moon in a single calendar month.

Despite its portentous-sounding name, his men had been convinced a black moon was a good omen.

Now, just to be clear, Britt wasn’t superstitious by nature. But he did appreciate the power of belief .

He knew the guys under his command would operate as if fate was on their side if they trusted it was so. And just that little bit of extra courage, that additional dose of tenacity, could help them win the day.

He’d planned missions during black moons every chance he got.

There’s a black moon rising tonight , he thought now, having made the connection that morning when he’d idly checked his weather app while sipping his coffee.

Unfortunately, something told him that, despite the moon’s good omen, fate wasn’t on his side. He blamed his doom and gloom on the call he’d received from Boss hours earlier.

“There’s a BOLO out on you. Some local five-oh caught sight of you at your last refueling stop. He’s on your tail now. Lose him,” Boss had advised, pulling out his Navy SEAL commander voice. “And then make sure you aren’t seen again.”

Britt had done his best to do precisely as instructed.

It’d taken some tactical riding and half a dozen turns down tiny roads to shake the cop. And even after he’d assured himself they’d lost their tracker, he hadn’t let up. He’d pushed himself and the other riders harder, choosing an even more obscure route north than the one he’d planned earlier.

It had been a grueling trip. Every muscle in his body ached from the effort of maneuvering Haint along the rough country roads.

Almost there, he assured himself. Almost to Hunter’s cabin.

Hunter was a stickler about keeping the place to himself, so this was the first time Britt had been invited to visit. He’d heard enough about it, though, to know it wasn’t hooked up to the electrical grid. There was no phone line. No gas line. No city water line. Hell, Hunter hadn’t even bought the place in his own name. He’d purchased it through a shell company owned by an LLC, so no one could ever track him there.

Every cell in Britt’s body focused on the miles that lay between him and promised salvation. Then his blood froze, and the air strangled in his lungs because…eyes.

Yellow, glowing eyes that reflected the beam of his headlight. They were close. Too close!

Damnit!

He smashed the levers on his grips with everything he had, and the big bike responded instantly. Haint’s tires gripped the pavement with an earsplitting screech of friction.

Britt managed to control the bike’s momentum for a couple of seconds. Then it became too much. Haint’s rear tire lost traction, swinging around until Britt and the monster motorcycle skidded perpendicular down the road.

“Damnit!” This time, he cursed aloud as he slammed his boot into the pavement and strained to keep Haint from falling sideways and skipping across the top of the roadway like a rock skipping across water.

The friction heated the sole of his boot. His thigh muscles burned from the immense effort it took to fight with physics.

One second stretched into two. Two became three. And just when he thought he might slam into the group of deer standing in the middle of the road, Haint rocked to an awkward stop.

Dust from the slide slipped beneath Britt’s helmet to fill his mouth. The smell of burned rubber and melted asphalt tunneled up his nose. He wasted no time flipping up his visor and staring hard at the animals that had nearly caused his demise.

Haint’s headlight shined into the trees on the side of the road. But the headlights on the two bikes motoring up behind him spotlighted the group of does and the fawns they’d birthed back in the spring.

He counted twelve deer in all, but it was the lead doe whose gaze locked with his. Her huge, dark eyes were unblinking as she chuffed and pawed the pavement.

“Right.” He nodded at the rebuke. “I was speeding. My bad.”

She bobbed her head as if accepting his apology and then leaped across the lane in one graceful bounce. Her crew was tight on her heels…er…hooves, prancing after her in graceful bounds.

“Y’okay?” Knox asked him after he and Hew had growled to a stop behind Britt and cut their engines.

Britt thumbed off Haint’s motor and the forest around them seemed to breathe in the sudden silence. “Yeah. I’m okay. But I think I might’ve shit out my own heart.”

“Pretty fancy riding.” Hew whistled his appreciation. “Thought you were gonna lay her down for sure.”

“Becky will kill me if I wreck this paint job. She mixed about a dozen colors before she got it right.” He patted his tank with its signature color and hand-enameled artwork.

Pulling in a long breath, he blew it out again just as slowly. Then, he repeated the process twice more.

As a spec-ops soldier, he’d learned how helpful breath work could be. From box breathing to resonance breathing, there was science to back up the anecdotal evidence that regulating oxygen intake activated the parasympathetic nervous system and helped to de-escalate and de-stress the body.

It was how he could mountain bike down a seventy-degree incline or go sandboarding in some of the most hostile environments on the planet without breaking a sweat.

Once the rush of blood no longer sounded in his ears, he could hear the distant rumble of thunder. He opened his mouth to tell the others they needed to get back at it to outpace the coming storm. Then he realized it wasn’t thunder and immediately cut his headlight.

“Direction?” Hew pivoted his head as he tried to locate the source of the sound. He, too, killed his bike’s lights.

“Southwest, I think.” Britt yanked off his helmet to get a better bead on the familiar noise. “Yeah.” He nodded once. “Definitely southwest. Flying low and slow. Hey, Knox?” he called to his brother. “You need to go dark.”

Knox switched off the headlight on his production bike, and they were instantly plunged into full-on blackness. The darkness was so complete Britt couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, much less the faces of those with him.

With the light no longer disturbing the peace of the countryside, the night animals resumed their chorus. Small, furry animals rustled the pine needles on the forest floor. A screech owl let loose with an eerie, even-pitched trill. But above it all was the muted womp-womp-womp of blades cutting through the dense air.

“Definitely low and slow,” Hew’s hushed voice came to Britt through the darkness. “It’s a single engine, not a double. So we’re probably talking a Bell 407 or maybe a 412.”

“Load?” Britt asked.

Hew didn’t need him to elaborate. They’d worked together long enough in unfriendly environments to develop a shorthand. “I’d say anywhere between six and ten agents, plus the pilot and copilot.”

“Fuck.”

“Wh-what’s happening?” Sabrina's voice was high with alarm.

“A chopper is hunting us,” Hew answered. “Filled with FBI agents, no doubt.”

Britt’s eyes sightlessly darted back and forth as he calculated their odds and decided they were scantily low on options. Thankfully, being low on options wasn’t always a bad thing. Being low on options meant he didn’t have to waste time deciding what to do next.

Unhooking the carrying case on his belt, he told Hew, “Here. Take the encrypted phone. The GPS is programmed for Hunter’s cabin. You’ll be there in under an hour if you keep up the pace we had going.”

“Wait. What?” Knox demanded, and Britt heard the snick his brother’s helmet made when he slammed up his visor. “What’s happening?”

“I’m going to draw the feds away,” Britt explained, quickly slipping on his helmet and resecuring the chin strap. “Y’all are going to stay here until it’s safe to move, and then you’ll head on to the cabin. Hew? You got a flashlight on you?” He toed out his kickstand and hopped off Haint.

“Copy that,” Hew said, and Britt could hear his teammate climbing off his ride and unhooking the clasps on his tour pack. Ten seconds later, Hew shoved a heavy Maglite into his hand.

“Thanks,” Britt muttered as he quickly pulled his own flashlight out of his left saddlebag along with a roll of duct tape.

Men who relied on their gear to keep them alive knew nothing was better than good old duct tape for quick fixes.

He taped Hew’s Maglite to his rear fender with the bulb end facing the front of the bike. Then he secured his flashlight to his left wrist.

“How far back was that side road?” he asked Hew, his eyes adjusting to the darkness enough to show his companions as gray shadows moving against the black shadows of the forest.

“A mile?” Hew speculated. “Maybe a little more.”

“I’ll try to keep them occupied for as long as possible. When you think it’s safe to move, do it. And don’t look back.” He stared hard at Hew’s massive, gray hulk. “I’m depending on you, man.”

“ Now who’s glad I came along, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Britt straddled Haint and maneuvered the bike until it was alongside the other two motorcycles, facing the direction from which they’d come. “I owe you one.”

“One?”

“Fine. Half a dozen.”

“That’s better.” Hew sounded pleased with the prospect.

“Okay.” Britt took one more deep breath. “Everyone has their marching orders. Let’s do this.”

He went to snap on Hew’s Maglite, but Knox stopped him with a hand on his arm. “This isn’t your fight, Britt.” Again with his given name. A lump formed in Britt’s throat. “Maybe we should just?—”

“If the feds catch you or Sabrina, there’s no guarantee you’ll survive the encounter,” Britt interrupted. “Me? I’ve got a better chance.”

“Because of the whole special operations soldier thing?”

“Something like that,” Britt admitted evasively, not mentioning that he had friends in high places if worse came to worst.

Madam President had made it clear she would disavow all knowledge of Black Knights Inc. if the truth about the group ever came to light. But that didn’t mean the leader of the free world wouldn’t step up to help the Knights through back channels and by using surrogate actors when they asked her to.

If Britt managed to get himself caught and held by the bureau, everyone back at Black Knights Inc. would make it their mission not to let the president rest until she found a way to set him free again.

“I fucking hate this,” Knox said.

Britt couldn’t see his brother’s expression. But he could hear Knox’s misgivings vibrating through his voice.

“This is our best chance to get you to safety and clear your name.” Britt covered his brother’s fingers with his gloved hand. “Trust me. I got this.”

Knox’s words were hoarse with emotion when he whispered, “Thank you, brother.”

And there’s that damn lump back in my throat again.

Britt squeezed his brother's fingers one more time. Then, he swung around to tell Hew, “If I don’t end up in cuffs, I’ll meet y’all at the cabin once I know it’s safe.”

“You can get there without the GPS?”

“Studied the route so many times I could find it with my eyes closed.”

“That’s the Britt I know and love.”

“W-were you a Boy Scout or something,” Sabrina asked quietly.

“Nope.” Britt shook his helmeted head. “But I’ve always taken their mantra about being prepared to heart.”

Hew snorted. “Britt’s reckless as hell with his own life, but he’s the most dependable man on the planet when it comes to looking after everyone else.”

“Aw, shucks, Hew. You lookin’ to take me up on that kiss now?”

“Fuck off.”

“Right back atcha.”

“Copy that,” Hew said, and Britt smiled as he clicked on Hew’s Maglite, thumbed on the flashlight taped to his wrist, and cranked over Haint’s engine.

He hoped the flashlights would give the illusion of three headlights. The trees were dense, so he felt confident the deception would work unless the feds used infrared.

Flipping down his visor, he twisted his wrist and was off in a flash of spinning tires and dust-covered chrome.

Haint cut through the humid air as easily as a hot knife through butter, hungrily eating up the crumbling asphalt. Britt kept one eye on the road in case of potholes while the other was trained on the side of the road and the turnoff he’d spied moments before he’d nearly plowed into the herd of deer.

There.

He caught sight of the speed limit sign next to the detour and grimaced. Now that he really looked at it, he could see the road was a little more than a double-wide track topped with gravel. Weeds and saplings grew up along the sides. And there were spots where rain runoff had washed out the center of the route.

Beggars can’t be choosers , he thought as he planted a boot, swung Haint’s backend around, and quickly turned onto the narrow track.

The smell of vegetation and decaying plant matter was strong enough to slip under his visor and fill his nose as he pushed Haint as fast as he dared over the uneven ground. The canopy was lower than it had been on the larger road. It brushed the top of his helmet in spots and made it impossible to see more than a dozen feet in front of him.

He cleared a mile in less than three minutes. A second and third mile slipped by easily. By the time he watched the fourth mile tick over on his odometer, he could hear the womp-womp-womp of the helicopter blades racing to meet him.

Follow the pretty lights through the trees! he thought as he narrowly avoided a large rock that had rolled into the middle of the road.

Haint’s engine growled with impatience at the speed. He didn’t dare push the motorcycle much over thirty mph, or the gravel would take him out.

He couldn’t have that. Not yet. He needed to put more miles between himself and where Hew and his brother sat hidden in the dark.

Just a little bit farther , he thought as his tires bounced over a particularly uneven section of road. It was like someone had carved ski moguls into the track. By the time they smoothed out, he was surprised all his teeth hadn’t rattled out of his head.

Another mile rolled over on his odometer. Then another and another.

He realized he was smiling triumphantly when dust from the road made his teeth feel gritty.

Go, Hew! He willed his silent thoughts through the night. Now’s your chance!

He didn’t need to glance overhead to know the FBI had located him. The womp-womp-womp of the rotor blades was loud enough to drown out Haint’s engine noise. The trees in front of him swayed in the downdraft. And a spotlight swung back and forth, occasionally piercing the canopy to light up the roadway like the midday sun.

And then it happened. He should’ve known it would. He was deep in the forest on a road mankind rarely used.

“Fucking hell!” He slammed on his brakes and clenched his teeth when an entire section of the track disappeared in front of him. A recent storm had washed it away, leaving nothing but a three-foot drop into loamy soil behind.

Haint slipped into a skid and the gravel made it impossible for Britt to keep the bike on the road. The most he could hope for was a controlled crash.

His biker boot dragged across the rocky surface as man and motorcycle skated off the roadside and down the steep embankment. Then, there was no keeping his feet under him or keeping the bike up.

He kicked away from the falling motorcycle so it didn’t come down on his leg. Then he barrel rolled down the hillside, keeping pace with his motorcycle as it crashed onto its side and skidded to a sudden stop a hair’s breadth from the trunk of a thick pine tree.

He banged into the rear wheel and came to rest on his back, staring sightlessly up at the canopy as pine needles fell from the sky like spiky, green snowflakes.

Thump-thump-thump went his heart.

Tick-tick-tick went Haint’s cooling engine.

Womp-womp-womp went the chopper’s rotor as the big bird executed a quick one-eighty.

He’d have liked to lay there and catch his breath. But there was no time.

Working on instinct as much as anything else, he quickly flicked off the flashlights and Haint’s headlight. He was immediately plunged into a world of darkness, and despite feeling every second ticking by like it was a physical force, he had to take a moment to let his eyes adjust.

He’d been taught that staring into the blackness wouldn’t magically enlarge his pupils. The trick was to move his eyes and focus, really focus on attempting to see the landscape around him.

It took longer than he would’ve liked. But eventually, the stygian blackness lightened into deep shades of blue and gray. It wasn’t enough to see by. But it was enough to allow him to get his bearings.

First things first, he thought. Get as far away from the scene of the crash as possible.

He had to zigzag around trees, crash through the underbrush, and avoid taking low limbs to the eyes. He figured he’d run another quarter mile when, suddenly, he could hear the chopper hovering somewhere behind him. The feds had probably spotlighted Haint’s chrome and were fast-roping in.

Fast-roping involved attaching a thick, braided rope to a mount on the side of a helicopter. Tactical teams could then slide down the rope without using a harness or a descender—it was all about individual strength and the personal perseverance required to hang on tight enough to keep from hitting the ground at a speed fast enough to shatter a leg but yet loose enough to allow for a quick drop-in before the guy on the rope above came down on your head.

It was a risky maneuver, especially when trees obstructed the drop zone and a guy was loaded down with eighty pounds of combat equipment. But Britt figured the feds weren’t nearly as geared up as he and the Knights usually were. This meant they’d not only be able to make the insertion easy-peasy, but they’d all be quick on their feet in pursuit.

He turned on the afterburners.

He was in superb condition. He had to be—it was in his job description. But the effort it took not to plow into obstacles because he was running near-blind had his heart banging against the cage of his ribs and his lungs working like bellows.

The chopper gained altitude—the rhythmic chuff of the blades wasn’t as loud as it’d been only minutes before. And just as he’d feared, he could now hear the crunch of heavy boots in the forest behind him.

Three pursuers, he decided. Maybe four.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed. When evading an enemy, the ticking clock seemed to speed up and slow down simultaneously. So it could have been mere seconds or many minutes later when he burst out of the forest into a clearing.

The lack of underbrush and trees was disorienting, but what was most shocking was that he could see. Like, actually see .

A hundred yards away, a small farmhouse with peeling white paint and a wraparound porch stood. The porch light was on. Because it was a black moon and because the overhead clouds blotted out the twinkle of starlight, the little yellow glow from the single fixture beside the front door was enough to light up the entire property.

A rusting but well-loved John Deere tractor crouched in the field in front of him. A shiny tricycle lay on its side beside an overgrown flowerbed. But the driveway was empty. And the fact that not a single light inside flipped on despite the roar of the helicopter circling overhead indicated to Britt that no one was home.

For a brief moment, he thought about taking refuge inside. But that’s what the feds would expect him to do.

SERE training, don’t let me down! he thought as he turned a quick three-sixty to assess all his options.

SERE stood for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. He needed the evasion portion to throw his pursuers off his trail.

Reluctantly, he faced the forest again. It was human nature not to seek the darkness once you’d found the light. But heading back into the dense trees was his best bet.

He didn’t retrace his steps. If the feds were any good, they were following the path he’d left behind. But he still headed back in the same general direction until he came upon a length of muddy ground.

Stepping into it, he picked up the pace even as the thick mud clung to the soles of his boots, trying to slow him down. The wet, sucking sound his steps made kept time with the loud thump of his heart. And he trained his near-blind eyes on the three feet in front of him at all times lest he plow into a tree or run into another wild animal.

He wasn’t sure how far he’d gone when the shallow depression leveled out and the ground beneath him turned dry and crunchy with the usual detritus found on a forest floor.

Slipping his helmet off his head, he felt the cool fingers of the night air tunnel into his sweaty hair. The helicopter was farther off, somewhere to his right. But behind him, in the direction of the overgrown track, were the sounds of the feds. Their radios scratched and squawked as they relayed information to their superiors and each other.

They were close. Following the muddy footprints he’d left behind like Hansel and Gretel followed the trail of breadcrumbs.

Perfect.

He hated to do it. But the final breadcrumb would be his helmet. The helmet Becky had painted to match Haint’s tank. The helmet he’d personally retrofitted with an internal sun visor and pin-lock anti-fog main visor.

Sometimes subterfuge demanded sacrifice.

He heaved the helmet as far as he could and listened to it crash into the undergrowth. Then he broke off a low-hanging pine branch, hooked the wooden end into his back belt loop so that the smaller, thickly needled branches fanned out against the ground behind him, and cut a ninety-degree path away from the one he’d been running and away from the direction he’d tossed his helmet.

The pine branch effectively brushed away his footprints. And when he figured he’d gone far enough to avoid the agents following his trail, he turned back toward the farmhouse.

He was in the clearing in less than five minutes. Emerging from the trees at the back of the property, he noticed a small, dilapidated barn with rakes, shovels, and hoes leaning against its side. But, most importantly, inside the open door, he saw the outline of an old truck.

From that distance, he couldn’t make out what kind of shape it was in. Couldn’t tell if it looked like it was drivable or not.

There’s only one way to find out , he thought.

He stepped toward the structure but quickly darted back into the shadow of the trees when he heard the approaching helicopter. Fifteen seconds later, the bird appeared in the sky overhead, hovered for a moment, and then started to descend.

Shit.

With his escape route effectively cut off, he was stuck back in the evasion phase of his SERE training.

He looked around for a hiding spot and spied a large, fallen tree. It’s been toppled some time back. And its death had heralded new life. Fungus and moss grew over its decaying carcass. Soon, nothing would be left of it but the countless lives it’d nurtured and sustained. In the meantime, though, it afforded him the perfect camouflage.

He wasted no time shimmying himself into the hollowed-out trunk. Dirt and debris fell into his face and hair—probably a few bugs, too—but he didn’t bother brushing any of it off.

He’d hidden in worse environments. The crocodile-infested waters in the Nile Basin came to mind. So did the rural areas outside of Aleppo, Syria, where he’d been eaten alive by sandflies.

Carefully pulling over his hiding spot the bushes that had grown up around the fallen tree, he reckoned he was as concealed as he could make himself. Then, peering through the foliage, he watched as the helicopter’s landing skids touched down in the open field.

The trees around the clearing bent and swayed in the wash from the rotors. And when the pilot cut the engine, the bird's loud roar became a dull swish-swish as the slowing blades lazily cut through the air.

Two men in suits hopped out of the aircraft, crouching low as they trotted into the open field. Then came Agent Dillan Douglas. He was followed closely by Agent O’Toole.

Julia.

Britt’s heart ratcheted up a notch because…she looked absolutely beautiful. And fierce .

Her hair had come loose from its bun. It blew wildly around her heart-shaped face while her suit jacket flapped, revealing her shoulder holster and duty weapon.

What is it about a woman packing heat? he wondered, feeling a measure of chagrin when his body responded to the mere sight of her.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t so much about a woman packing heat as it was Julia packing heat. Everything that woman did was sexy.

Including , he thought, running me down like a rabid dog.