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You’re being paranoid , Julia scolded herself as the coffee shop’s glass door swung shut behind her and she was swept into the crowd on the busy sidewalk.

She couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching her, but she told herself the sensations were left over from her fifteen minutes of fame.

After she’d uncovered the culprit behind the mass shooting at Senator McClean’s residence—the villain had turned out to be none other than the frickin’ senate minority leader—the press had hailed her as the hero of the hour, and they’d spent weeks hounding her for interviews. She hadn’t been able to leave her house for a while without some over-zealous reporter shoving a microphone in her face.

But since the news cycle was the news cycle and kept spinning, she’d eventually gone from “breaking news” to “human interest story” to…nothing. And yet, she couldn’t shake the sensation she was lined up in someone’s crosshairs.

Paranoia , she silently insisted. It’ll pass.

Scrubbing a hand over the back of her neck, she shoved her disquiet aside and forced herself to take in the day and the city around her.

Chicago…

It was a place of contrasts: both beautiful and gritty, tranquil and chaotic.

A construction site on the corner was noisy, with clanging metal and roaring machinery. But she could also hear an orchestra tuning up in Millenium Park—that green oasis amidst the concrete jungle.

Fall was in the air. The earthy aroma of dying leaves mixed with the fresh, clean scent of the cool breezes that swept down from Canada.

An hour earlier, the sun had peeked its head above the waters of Lake Michigan. Now, it cast its golden glow over the buildings, bathing them in that wonderful half-light that made everything seem magical.

The sidewalk grew less crowded—and more uneven—as she continued south towards the FBI building. The tourists who thronged the streets closer to downtown, standing in line for a bag of Garrett’s Popcorn or snapping pictures of the iconic architecture, had no reason to wander this far past the river and?—

The buzzing of her phone in her pocket wrenched her from her ruminations. Pulling out the device, she frowned at the screen when she saw who was calling.

Dillan Douglas. Her partner.

Also known as the pain that lives in my ass.

Dealing with him required more caffeine than she currently had onboard. Which meant there was only one solution.

Tipping back her coffee, she gulped down as much of the burning beverage as she could manage before she had to come up for air or risk a scalded esophagus.

It wasn’t that Dillan was a bad agent. His interrogation skills were average and his investigative instincts were fair. She’d worked with better agents, and she’d certainly worked with worse.

The problem was he thought he was god’s gift to the bureau.

Which meant he hadn’t taken it well when she had been promoted to lead agent. And even though he’d managed to get over most of his pique in the handful of months since she’d assumed the position, he still didn’t afford her the respect her title deserved.

But what’s new? she thought with a sigh of resignation. She’d spent her whole life having to prove herself worthy of the kind of recognition and regard guys like Dillan—guys like her father and brothers—were given as a matter of course just because they had the hair and the height and the jawlines of comic book heroes.

When her phone buzzed again, she took another quick sip of coffee before thumbing on the device. “Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“Good morning to you too, Agent Douglas.”

“We’ve worked together long enough to skip the pleasantries.” The annoyance in his tone was palpable.

It took everything she had not to squeeze her coffee cup hard enough to pop off the top and have its remaining contents bursting forth in a geyser. But she reminded herself that the coffee was hot, and she didn’t feel like making a trip to Northwestern’s burn unit.

Plus, you know, I still need the caffeine.

“Okay. Consider the pleasantries skipped. What do you want?”

“I want you to haul ass into the office. We just landed a new case, and you’ll never guess who might be involved.”

Her pace quickened at the words “new case,” and she took the steps up to the front door of the FBI field building two at a time .

She and Dillan had been given decidedly low-priority work after the massacre at Senator McClean's mansion. Their supervisor had said they couldn’t effectively work a big case with the press hot on their heels. Then, once the reporters moved on, he’d told them he wanted to give them time to decompress before throwing anything of genuine interest their way.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but she’d been bored off her ass for weeks now.

“I’ll bite,” she said as she ran her security badge through the checkpoint and nodded to the guard manning the front desk. “Who might be involved?”

“None other than those custom motorcycle builders over on Goose Island. Small world, huh?”

She didn’t bother answering as she stopped in front of the bank of elevators because, one, it was a rhetorical question. Two, she hadn’t exactly heard it since the moment Dillan had alluded to Black Knights Inc., her mind had tuned out what he was saying so it could fill itself with images of one particular man.

Army Ranger turned motorcycle mechanic, Britt Rollins had become…well…a bit of an obsession. She’d spent many an hour after work—and usually after a glass or two of wine—remembering how absolutely delicious he’d looked in his jeans, biceps-hugging T-shirts, and biker boots.

He wasn’t as drop-dead gorgeous as his coworker Fisher Wakefield, or as big and built as the Black Knight who’d introduced himself to her as Hewitt Birch. But there was just… something about Sergeant Rollins.

Maybe it was the way the jagged scar across his temple turned his otherwise comfortably handsome face into a visage that was as compelling as it was intimidating. Maybe it was the unique sound of his accent. It wasn’t the slow drawl so many associated with the South, but something softer. Something rounder. He avoided the final and middle R sounds in words so that the English language hit the ear the same way tupelo honey hit the tongue.

She’d done some digging on him.

Yes, I used my position within the FBI to pull his records. So sue me.

There had been frustratingly little to discover, however. She’d found out he’d been born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, which explained the accent since the city's language had been affected by the local African-American Gullah dialect as well as different European influences.

Yes, I looked that up too.

She’d discovered he’d lost both of his parents when he’d been too young to experience such tragedy. And she’d unearthed that his brother was a bit of a ne’er-do-well.

But when it came to his military service? When it came to figuring out what had put that hard glint in his crystal-blue eyes or that tough cant to his jaw?

Nada. Zero. Zilch.

His file had been redacted six ways from Sunday. Which actually told her all she needed to know.

He’d seen action. The hard kind. The bloody kind.

For whatever reason, that just made him even more fantasy-worthy.

And boy-oh-boy, had she fantasized. In fact, she should go ahead and name her vibrator Sergeant Rollins since he’d been the sole inspiration behind the tool’s use for the past few months.

“Are you still there?”

Dillan’s voice pulled her from her reverie. She realized she’d missed the elevator and had to re-push the button.

“Still here. Headed up. See you in sixty seconds.” She hung up without signing off and then took three slow breaths to calm her racing heart before stepping into the elevator.

Her reaction to the idea of seeing Britt Rollins again was silly. He was just a man. She’d grown up in a house full of men. She worked in a field that was predominantly populated by men.

They’re not all that.

Except…something told her the sergeant was different.

“Yo!” Dillan said as soon as the silver door slid open onto their floor. He had his tablet in hand. The screen shined into his face and highlighted the eager glint in his eye. “This is a good one. A real Harrison Ford-type deal.”

She blinked, wondering what Han Solo had to do with the Black Knights and their new case.

When Dillan saw her confusion, he rolled his eyes. “As in The Fugitive .”

“Oh.” She nodded, reminding herself that Harrison Ford was famous for roles outside the Star Wars universe.

With a practiced ease, she made her way through the maze of cubicles to the corner cubby she shared with Dillan. The movies made it look like FBI agents had private offices and wide wooden desks. But the reality was that America was a big business and treated its federal police force like most corporations treated their employees. They were packed in like sardines to optimize the workspace and minimize the overhead.

Sinking into her rolling chair, she absently tossed her fanny pack into the side drawer of her plain, metal desk—she’d never understood the appeal of a purse—and looked expectantly at Dillan as he took his place at the opposite desk.

Most days, she wasn’t hyped about the idea of staring at his too-handsome face for eight to ten hours straight. But today, his excitement was contagious. She found herself leaning toward him eagerly. “Okay. Give it to me. What are we dealing with?”