Page 1 of Girl Lost (The King Legacy #1)

LUNA ROSATI COULD DISAPPEAR into any crowd , any city , any life. Except this one. This life. It had a way of pulling her back. Like a riptide dragging her under.

She stared out the diner’s picture window, her gaze fixed on the empty street, bracing for the moment her carefully constructed life would change.

The morning sun glinted off a passing car, and an elderly couple strolled by. Both moved without any hustle or bustle. Millie Beach was mostly locals. No surprise there. It wasn’t exactly a popular vacation destination. The small beach town had all the crime of Miami and none of the beauty.

Eighteen years ago, she’d walked away from this place and vowed never to return. But vows made in storms weren’t always kept in the calm. Which was why she was sitting in the back corner of the same rundown diner from her childhood, watching the street through the glassy expanse up front.

The dumpy place hadn’t changed a bit. Same faded tan linoleum. Same yellowed Formica tabletops. Same cracked red vinyl chairs. Everywhere she looked, same, same, same. Except the deepened lines etched into the faces of the waitstaff.

Age and a two-pack-a-day habit had not been kind to Marge. The owner frowned from her perch in the kitchen. She’d never liked newcomers. Preferred to keep it to the regulars.

A younger version of Marge appeared at Luna’s table. “What’ll you have?” The square name tag on her grease-stained shirt said her name was Angie.

Wow, this was Marge’s daughter? The woman had aged double time. Strands of gray laced her dark curls. Dark-brown sunspots speckled her weathered face. Indelible kisses from the unrelenting sun reflecting off the ocean in a town where sunblock was for tourists.

Luna picked up her plastic-covered menu, feigned a glance, and dropped it. “Lemonade for now. I’m waiting for a friend.”

Angie narrowed her eyes. “You waitin’ on Stryker?”

“You know him?”

“’Bout the only one who comes in this time a day. Tourists don’t come in for a while yet, and you don’t look like a tourist. I get a feelin’ I seen you somewhere before.”

Luna caught the lie before it slipped out. Years of deception and faking her identity were more natural than truth. But she didn’t need a cover here. Not in the town where she grew up. Here she could be herself. Here she could be Luna Rosati. “Yeah, I’m waiting for—”

The bell over the entrance tinkled when a man pushed the glass door open.

Luna looked up, and something inside her fractured. She could hear it. The sound like stepping on a glass pane. A resounding crack that broke open everything she’d worked so hard to keep bottled up all these years.

“Spoke too soon about the tourists.” Angie knocked her swollen knuckles on the table. “Be right back with that lemonade.”

Angie’s words drifted over her unabsorbed.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the guy she used to know, now standing there all grown up.

Hair shaved into a classic crew cut. A far cry from the boy with the unruly mop of sandy blond hair she’d remembered.

The khaki-colored linen suit hung on his broad shoulders with a confidence that shouted law enforcement.

Funny, the last time she’d seen him in a suit was at his father’s murder trial.

Corbin King removed his sunglasses and scanned the room with intense brown eyes. His Adam’s apple rolled when his eyes met hers.

She didn’t dare move.

With nonchalance, he strolled over and snagged the vacant seat opposite her. His elbows found a comfortable spot on the table, fingers intertwining while still cradling his sunglasses.

Her tongue skimmed her dry lips, primed to seize the conversation first if anything came to mind. There was nothing to say. But also, everything.

His dark eyes penetrated her. “What are you doing here?”

A dozen cutting remarks tumbled through her mind ranging from “How dare you?” to “Please go away so I never have to see you again.” The reflexive restraint honed during her tenure at the CIA barred any of those from slipping past her lips.

Instead, she said, “I’m meeting Stryker.”

Corbin looked over his shoulder at the empty restaurant. “Here?”

She didn’t respond.

Angie set a glass of lemonade on the table with a clink and smiled at Corbin. “Get you anything, doll?”

She hadn’t called Luna a doll.

Corbin dropped his sunglasses on the table and leaned back to look at Angie.

“Coffee. And a few moments of your time, if you don’t mind.

” He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a black wallet.

A deft flip revealed his credentials. Florida Department of Law Enforcement. “I have a few questions for you.”

Impressive. Corbin had done well to work his way into Florida’s version of the FBI.

Angie flicked her eyes between Luna and Corbin, and she coughed a phlegmy laugh. “Am I in trouble, Officer?”

“No, ma’am. Just have a few questions about a missing person. Can we chat in private when I’m done with my friend here?”

“Sure. I guess I ain’t goin’ nowhere.” She sauntered back to the kitchen, shoulders squared and a touch of extra height in her stance.

“What are you doing here, Luna?” The honeyed tone he’d used on the waitress morphed to granite.

“Since when does the FDLE investigate missing persons?”

“Since when do you talk to Stryker? Or any of us, for that matter?”

“Why do you keep answering questions with another question?” Although she knew good and well she’d started it.

The squiggle of a blue vein bulged at Corbin’s temple, and she kind of enjoyed it. “Since we gave our baby up for adoption. Since you cut me out of your life.” His finger stabbed the table to punctuate each sentence. “Since you left town without a word and never looked back.”

Another crack formed. His words knifed her heart.

Images of a teen beggar girl on the streets of Pakistan played through her mind.

The one with dark hair and eyes that mirrored her own.

The girl’s striking resemblance to herself had brought Luna back to the time when she held a tiny life in her arms. The baby girl she’d given up—not because she wanted to, but because she refused to let her child suffer the life she’d had.

The daughter she’d brought into being was somewhere out there in the world, and she needed Stryker to tell her where.

The pang cut deep, but Luna gathered her composure and locked her emotional armor down tight. She wasn’t the only one who’d walked away. “You broke up with me, Corbin. You told me you didn’t want to be a father. You made that choice. I just made sure our daughter had a future.”

The skin around his collar flushed crimson. She could see his neck straining. “I can’t believe you—”

A sharp glint of light flashed through the storefront windows.

Whatever Corbin was saying faded into nothingness.

She watched Stryker emerge from his rusty old Jeep parked across the street.

His hair, a blend of salt and pepper, hung in a knot at the nape of his neck.

Aside from the silver strands, he looked like the same athletic man she’d known when she was a teenager.

Years melted away. She saw the man who’d seen the good in her, even when she was a mess of anger and bad choices.

The man who’d taken a lost and confused girl and forged her into something stronger, something more.

He’d pulled her back from the edge, shown her a different path.

And somehow, against all odds, the rebellious girl who’d once cursed every cop in sight had become a government agent.

He’d challenged her, pushed her, never let her give up on herself. And she hadn’t. Would he still recognize that girl in the woman she’d become?

A black SUV slammed to a halt outside. Doors flew open. Three dark figures jumped out, faces swallowed by masks, bodies muted by black tactical gear.

Guns. They had guns.

Luna was on her feet before she knew what was happening. Her brain put it together on the fly. Outside. Help Stryker.

Corbin’s chair scraped back. Clattered over. He was on her heels.

Stryker wouldn’t go down without a fight. With his reflexes, he could disarm a shooter and break a few bones faster than she could blink. His resistance would buy them the priceless seconds they needed to get outside.

One man pointed a Taser at Stryker and squeezed the trigger.

Two barbed probes shot through the air and embedded into the back of Stryker’s neck, sending fifty thousand volts of electricity screaming through his body.

The other two men caught him under the arms before he hit the sidewalk and hauled his limp body into the back seat.

Luna and Corbin burst outside. Shouts. A woman screamed. But Luna’s eyes were laser focused on the dark vehicle. The doors slammed shut.

Corbin had his gun out. “Police! Stop or I’ll shoot!”

The SUV’s engine roared. The vehicle lurched forward, tires shrieking, grabbing traction. It fishtailed, sideswiping two parked cars. Then it swerved back on course, speeding down the street. It blew through a stop sign and disappeared around the corner.

Bits of red and yellow confetti littered the street and sidewalk. Luna crouched and used her fingernail to scrape up a few of the tiny round dots.

Corbin sprinted half a block chasing after the vehicle before he stopped. Feet set shoulder width apart. Knees flexed. Arms extended and ready to fire.

She marched over and slapped her palm on the muzzle of his gun to shove the barrel down. “Put that away. You can’t shoot into a busy street at a fleeing vehicle.”

He was breathing hard. “No plates. They wore masks. Should be able to get surveillance footage and interview witnesses.” Like her, Corbin was already thinking of the next steps.

She had her phone out, thumb hovering over the screen. The secret code used to send secure cables to the Agency wouldn’t work on this plain smartphone. The only person whose number was stored in this one had just been kidnapped.

Corbin muttered something Luna couldn’t hear.

He had a hand on his waist. The tail of his blazer was pushed back, showing the gun in its holster on his hip.

He rattled his name, badge number, and their location into his phone.

“I’m reporting a confirmed kidnapping in progress.

Requesting immediate backup and notify detectives. ”

With Stryker gone, she had no reason to stay. Time to start searching for him. She did an about-face and went back inside.

Angie was on the phone in hysterics. It’d be a wonder if the dispatcher could make sense of the gibberish behind her sobs. Luna marched to the table and picked up her purse. Paused long enough to drain her lemonade and toss a twenty on the table before heading back outside.

Corbin fell into step beside her, phone still pressed to his ear. “Where are you going?”

She kept walking.

“Hey, you can’t leave a crime scene.” He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

She caught his hand in a wrist lock and rotated his forearm until his knees buckled. “You’ve gotten slow in your old age.” She flashed a thin smile and shoved him, releasing her hold.

Corbin stumbled a few steps. The look on his face was almost worth the agony of seeing him again. She turned and headed for her car.

The last person she’d ever wanted to see was Corbin King. Not here. Not now. Not ever.

“Luna! You can’t just walk away. Luna!”

Stryker was not only her mentor but a father figure.

She wouldn’t stand by and let someone hurt him.

Besides, he was the one who’d arranged the adoption.

Handled everything himself, outside the system when she was too young and emotionally wrecked to question the details.

Back then, she hadn’t wanted to know. Convinced it was better that way. But that had changed.

Now, without Stryker, she had no way to find the only blood relative she had left. And after everything she’d lost in Pakistan, she could not afford to lose anything else.

The weight of it all didn’t matter.

She would save Stryker.

She would find her daughter.

And she would do it without Corbin King.