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Jack Delvaux is alive!

But…Jack was dead. He’d died in the Washington Massacre.

There’d been a memorial service for him and she’d cried bitterly over the golden boy who was no more.

Summer sat in her cute yellow Prius in front of her apartment in Alexandria, shaking hands still on the steering wheel, mind whirling.

Jack Delvaux, alive.

Most people would shrug the thought off as a figment of their imagination. Most people, knowing Jack had been dead for six months, would have told themselves that they were mistaken.

So anyone else who thought they’d seen a man who’d been dead for six months would have said to themselves— that homeless man really looked like Jack Delvaux, but…nah. He’s dead.

But Summer couldn’t do that because she had irrefutable proof that she’d seen Jack.

Her body. Her body had told her.

The week they’d been lovers at Harvard, her body hadn’t been her own, it had been connected via some magic spell to Jack. Everything about her had changed. Her skin had felt different—too tight. Every time she saw him heat flashed through her, head to toe, an unstoppable blast that made her breath stop in her lungs. Her fingers and toes and breasts tingled and heat blossomed between her legs, as if seeing him threw a switch that made her body change. It had never happened to her before and after he’d dumped her, it had never happened to her again.

And this afternoon, right outside Washington National Cathedral, her body had bloomed alive, like she’d been zapped by something. She’d channeled her 18-year old self.

Her body had recognized Jack before her head did and it freaked her out.

For a second there, outside the National Cathedral, she’d wondered if she was having a stroke. She hadn’t connected the boiling sensations under her skin to the tall homeless vet. And then…then she’d recognized him. First by his effect on her—the only man who’d ever made her feel as if she had an “on” switch and knew how to use it—and then by those intensely blue eyes.

Crazy as it sounded, she believed she really had seen Jack.

So—how could that even be possible? The only way it would be possible would be if he’d survived the Massacre but had been so badly injured in the explosion he was unable even to say who he was.

If he’d been so concussed he couldn’t communicate, if he was disoriented, he’d end up living on the streets.

The thought was disturbing. It was disturbing for anybody, but for Jack Delvaux…he’d been destined by DNA to lead a long, happy, golden life. Isabel too, and yet look at her. She’d been in a coma, had lost her entire family, had quit her food blog. Her life shattered.

Isabel. Isabel had been so nice to her that summer. Then they’d lost touch, of course, as people do. But if Isabel, who’d disappeared from view, thought her brother was dead, and he was alive…

Summer had to tell her. It was a moral obligation, wasn’t it? Except how could she do that unless she were certain? It would be cruel beyond words to tell Isabel that her brother was still alive unless Summer were absolutely certain.

And just because a man made her tingle wasn’t exactly proof of life, was it?

She dragged the groceries out from the back of her Prius. It had been a long sad, startling day. A nice meal at the end of it would put her in a better mood. After eating, she’d tackle the Jack problem, though it was going to be hard to find one homeless man among so many others.

Maybe check video footage at some shelters, to start. Since the Massacre ten new ones had opened for the masses of men and women who had suddenly lost everything in the economic shock. So…shelters. And then?

The security at her door was, as always, reassuring but balky. Keypad and deadbolt, which always meant putting on the floor whatever she had in her hands. What an English friend had called “belt and braces.” It did make her feel safe, though.

Finally, she was through the door and in the calm, fragrant quiet of her apartment. Her refuge. She loved coming home to her pretty apartment, where everything was orderly and clean and sweet-smelling, so unlike the kind of places her parents had lived in. They hadn’t cared that they lived in squalor. Why not? It was a question she still couldn’t answer.

But she wasn’t her parents. In no way was she her parents.

Shaking her head, she put the groceries on the kitchen counter, intending to cook and eat because she knew she’d be awake until morning doing research and would need her strength.

She moved into the living room to switch on a few lights and froze.

A man. A very big man was standing there, unmoving.

Oh God! A nightmare! Somehow someone had gotten past her layers of security. That took knowledge and focus and that meant nothing good.

She kept a loaded gun in a small safe on the opposite wall. The man was standing between her and the safe, so the gun could have been on the dark side of the moon for all the good it did her.

He was huge, shoulders a yard wide in outline, head shaved, enormous hands loose at his sides. With the bookcase lights at his back, his face was in shadow. All she could see were hard planes. She felt, more than saw, the intensity of his gaze. It was like being in a dark beam of light.

She’d taken self-defense courses and could hold her own against a normal-sized man but this guy was not only huge but built. Those enormous shoulders tapered down to a lean waist, the neck muscles strong even in shadow.

Summer’s heart hammered as she ran through the options open to her. It went fast because she had none.

The gun was behind him. She had plenty of sharp knives but they were in a butcher block at least ten steps behind her. He could cut her off in a second if she made a dash for the kitchen door. And foolishly, foolishly, her cell wasn’t in her pocket as it usually was. It was in her purse, on the kitchen counter, out of reach.

About the only thing she could do was scream, even knowing that one of the selling points of the condo was noise insulation. Her throat was closed up and she could barely breathe, like those nightmares where you couldn’t scream, couldn’t run.

She took in a deep breath and it froze in her throat.

“Summer,” the man said in an unusually deep voice.

Her hand went to her throat where it felt as if someone had grabbed her, was throttling her. She couldn’t breathe.

He knew her?

This was personal then. Not some random stranger who’d broken into her home.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said and stepped forward.

Something about that voice…

Another step and the light from the kitchen illuminated his face.

Summer gasped.

Jack.

Summer stared, rooted to the spot, heart hammering

Jack. And yet…not Jack. The man standing in front of her had nothing in common with the golden boy she’d known. The man-boy who’d bedded her and then disappeared, a creature too fine to settle to earth.

This man was bigger, bulkier. The Jack she’d known had had a refined, swimmer’s physique. Muscular and lean. This Jack was huge, defined muscles that had been hidden by the homeless man’s baggy uniform now clear under his black sweater. He didn’t have straggling filthy dreadlocks. His head was crudely shorn, like a prisoner’s, uneven and brutal-looking. His long, dirty-blond biker’s beard was gone, too, leaving a bare chiseled chin with the jaw muscles working.

He was staring at her, narrow-eyed.

Summer was really glad he didn’t look anything like the Jack she knew, that he looked so dangerous. If he’d been an older version of the friendly, charming boy, she’d have rushed to embrace him, hugging him tightly, happy he wasn’t dead.

The Jack she knew would have hugged her back, maybe made a crack, pulling away from the hug because you didn’t cling to Jack Delvaux. But he’d have been friendly and utterly harmless. The old Jack wouldn’t have hurt a fly.

But this Jack?

She didn’t know about this one. He could swat her away with one swipe of that huge, powerful hand. This Jack had been on the run, staying under the radar, for six months—which in this age of surveillance she’d have said was impossible. She had no idea why he’d stayed hidden, letting everyone think he was dead, but he had to have powerful reasons. So. Now she’d discovered his secret. How was he going to react?

“Hello, Jack,” she said. “I thought I saw you at Blake’s funeral.” Summer kept her voice steady. Inside she was trembling, but long years of experience as a political journalist, showing absolutely nothing, served her well.

He frightened her, instinctively, but he couldn’t be allowed to know that.

“Hello, Summer,” he said, stepping toward her.

Summer forced herself not to step back. That would show she was intimidated. She was, but damned if she’d show it. He was very close to her, so close she had to tilt her head back slightly to keep her eyes on his face. He’d somehow grown in the past fifteen years. She didn’t remember him being this tall.

Pointless pretending she didn’t know why he was here.

“So I guess the reports of your death were exaggerated?” she said, trying to keep her voice light.

His huge fists closed, then opened. Summer’s mouth went completely dry. Was he going to attack her? No. Besides the closing of his fists, he remained completely and utterly still.

“Yeah. So now you know.” He stared at her unblinkingly.

She swallowed and nodded.

“So, I guess the question is—what are you going to do about it?” Jack’s voice was low and deep and emotionless. But he was watching her keenly, gaze as intent as a blue-eyed hawk’s.

Summer tried to keep it light. “I’m not too sure anyone would believe me if I wrote about it. I imagine the security cameras never caught you? I’m sure you’re in a lot of facial recognition databases, even if you are certified dead.”

“No. Never been caught.”

Washington DC had thousands of security cams. If he’d been here all this time, he’d been extremely clever in avoiding identification.

“Just like my security system didn’t stop you.” Somehow evading the two security guards and the security cams around the perimeter of her complex plus cameras on every floor seemed even more difficult than evading security around the city.

“Your security system is crap,” he said dismissively.

Summer drew in an outraged breath—her security system was not crap!—then clamped her jaw shut.

And then it occurred to her…if he thought her security system—which was top of the line, thank you very much—was crap, he was used to breaking into places. Into places with a better security system than hers.

“Listen, Summer,” Jack growled, stepping forward.

Startled, she stumbled, trying to scramble away from him, then at the last minute turned it into a smooth pivot and said the first thing that came to her mind.

“So,” she said crisply. “It’s been a long, lousy day and I haven’t eaten. I’m hungry. Do you want to talk about this over food?”

The surprise in his eyes was genuine. He nodded and followed her into the kitchen. In the bright light of the kitchen Summer got her first good look at him and oh, God.

He was gorgeous. In a totally Prison Break kind of way. How could he possibly be more attractive than he’d been as a boy and a young man? This man didn’t have anything classically handsome. His blond hair was shorn to stubble, the only hint of the color a glints of gold under the overhead lights. His face was filled out, all hard angles and planes, weather-beaten skin showing lines around the mouth and eyes. Cheekbones hard and chiseled, the skin hollowed out under them. He looked older than his thirty-four years, like he’d been a prisoner of war in a far off land.

In all these years, she’d dreamed of encountering Jack again. She’d be polished and successful, courted by many men. He’d look dissipated and puffy, all those years of partying finally catching up. Unrecognizable, paying the price for years of debauchery. She’d squint, saying Hey Jack? Is that you? Nice to see you. And feel absolutely nothing at all.

Not like now, where she felt strong fear and an equally strong attraction to this man she barely recognized.

Summer began preparations for the meal, movements brisk to keep her hands from trembling. She caught glimpses of him out of the corner of her eye as she pulled ingredients from the fridge and the cupboards, the way you catch glimpses of a solar eclipse. Because it hurt to look at it directly.

Disturbingly, Jack came closer to her, leaning his back against her counter, watching her. She could feel his body heat, smell him. He smelled of soap and nothing else. He’d washed the homeless vet off him.

She chopped zucchini and onions fast, put them in a pan to sauté, took out fresh farm eggs from her shopping bag, whisked them with some grated parmesan. Not speaking, aware every single second of Jack watching her.

She pulled out romaine lettuce, shredded it and washed it under the faucet. There were a thousand things she wanted to ask but held off. How would he react to questions? Would he think she was interviewing him for an article?

An article. What a kick ass article it would be, too, headliner stuff. She could almost see it, could write the article in her head.

Jack Delvaux Found Alive Six Months After the Massacre. She’d have a million clicks, be on every talking head show, maybe be nominated for the Pulitzer.

Then again, maybe Jack would kill her before that happened.

“Nice,” Jack said finally.

“What?” Startled, Summer looked him full in the face for the first time since he’d scared the hell out of her. She saw him through the scrim of time, the beautiful boy superimposed over the potent, frightening man, then she blinked and the scrim disappeared and all she saw was this Jack, in the here and the now, powerful and intimidating.

As she stared at him, the corner of his mouth turned up. He wasn’t smiling but the expression lightened up a fraction.

“I said it’s nice, someone cooking for me. That hasn’t happened in six months. Since even before the Massacre, as a matter of fact.”

For a second, the veil ripped away and she saw yet another Jack—weary beyond belief, a man who had lived on the streets for six months. Or at least in hiding. And of course the huge question was—why? Did she dare ask him? This Jack was so formidable she was almost scared of him. But her curiosity was greater than her fear.

How had he remained hidden for six whole months? He belonged to one of the most famous families in America. Had he been in Washington all this time? Had he actually been living on the streets or was that a disguise? And above all— why ? Why let everyone think he was dead?

Was it possible that he was in some way responsible for the Massacre? The instant she thought that, she jerked it right out of her head.

No. The one thing she knew about Jack, over and above anything else, absolutely integral to his personality, was that he loved his family. The idea that he could hurt a family member, cause the death of a family member—no. Simply wasn’t possible.

But killing someone else? This Jack Delvaux looked perfectly capable of that.

Summer had never liked beating about the bush. She put down her knife—she didn’t know whether to be happy or angry that Jack didn’t seem to even notice she had a very sharp knife in her hand—and turned to face him.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you let everyone think you were dead? Why have you been living on the streets these past six months?” And then a horrible thought occurred to her. “Did Isabel think you were dead? Did you let your sister mourn all these months?”

Isabel and Jack shared a special bond. Had he let Isabel grieve the loss of her entire family when her beloved brother was still alive, but in hiding?

Nothing moved on Jack’s face. Nothing. He’d had such a mobile face as a young man, flickering through ten different emotions in so many minutes. That had gone. His face right now could have been carved out of stone.

“She knows now,” he said finally. And said nothing else. If Isabel had recently discovered he was alive after all, surely…surely that must have been an incredibly emotional moment. And yet you wouldn’t know anything of that from Jack’s expression.

“Why?” Summer asked again, everything she was feeling in her voice. “Why disappear?”

Jack didn’t answer. He simply stood there and looked at her. So intensely his eyes were tracing her face as if they were fingers, touching every tiny muscle to trace out her intentions. She stared right back, memorizing this new Jack, with lines in his face and hard blue eyes and a grim mouth.

The entire summer she’d spent with Hector and during the brief whirlwind affair she and Jack had had at Harvard, she had never seen Jack not smiling. Right now, it felt like the face she was looking at had never smiled and never would.

“Are you going to write about this?” he finally said.

“What?”

“Are you going to write about this in Area 8 ? That you saw me, that I’m alive?”

Well of course , she wanted to say, but held her tongue. It was the biggest story imaginable. Jack Delvaux alive.

He tilted his head, studying her. “You’d be crazy not to. Be a big story.”

She said nothing. There was a but coming.

He stared at her, intense blue eyes unblinking. “But I’m going to ask you to wait. An article now would ruin everything, but I can’t say more than that. Don’t run it.”

Summer blinked. This sounded very much like a command. From a very big, rough guy who was undercover. A man she realized now she didn’t know at all.

She swallowed. “Don’t run it or…what?”

An impatient gesture of one of those huge hands. “I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you mean. Jesus, Summer. You know me better than that.”

She slowly let out the breath she’d been holding. “I’m not a fool, Jack. Something big is at stake and it concerns a terrorist attack that claimed over seven hundred lives, including the man—your father—who was supposed to be our next president. Whatever is going on must be very serious if it forced you undercover for six months, and forced you to let your sister think you were dead.”

Those sky blue eyes were intent. “It is. Very serious.”

“And you don’t think people have a right to know?” It was the bedrock philosophy of Area 8 . Area 8 didn’t have a political viewpoint. She was no ideologue. The only philosophy Area 8 followed was that citizens had a right to know what was going on with the people in power. They had a right to know what was being done in their name. And she also believed with all her heart that sunlight disinfected. Shine a light in the darkest corners and it got cleaned up. “This is big stuff. There are a lot of questions surrounding the Massacre. None of what happened made sense to me and I’ve been doing some digging of my own.”

“You have?” Jack passed a big hand over the stubble on his head. “Tell you what, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

Oh God .

He’d meant it in a completely different way but the image that blossomed in Summer’s head was sexual. Him showing her his. That big, tough body, naked. From the powerful shoulders, the broad chest, the long, long legs down to the beautiful feet. She knew what he’d looked like naked fifteen years ago and he’d been dazzling, in a lean male model kind of way. Now, a naked Jack would be pure male power, unadorned and raw. Scarred and tough and mouthwatering.

Heat streaked through her—fast, explosive, unstoppable. The reaction only Jack had ever coaxed from her body. A conflagration from the top of her head to her toes because the truth was—she’d seen his. She remembered it clearly and it had been the source of blinding pleasure. She’d never known anything like that pleasure after him.

God forbid he realize that.

And what business did she have, getting all hot and bothered when he was standing there like a glowering lump of stone, surly and unshaven and he was supposed to be dead for heaven’s sake!

Get yourself under control, Summer.

The thought was unusual, because as a rule, she was nothing but control. She was a highly disciplined investigative journalist who took her work extremely seriously because it had consequences. She was not supposed to be hot-flashing on the man who had turned her on to sex, then disappeared from her life without a word, but not before seducing every female in her immediate vicinity.

He’d broken into her home for a reason. To stop her from writing about him surviving the Massacre, which was major news. He was here to persuade her and it was to his credit he wasn’t using his sex appeal, which had always been off the charts.

Though, to some, maybe now his sex appeal would be a little…faded. Switched off. If you liked youthful good looks and playful male charm, this Jack was not for you.

It was an enormous pity that the mature Summer found the mature, beaten down but clearly powerful Jack even more attractive than the golden boy of fifteen years ago.

She turned off the flame and put dinner on the table. The omelet, naan bread, a salad and four French soft cheeses on a wooden board.

“Sit down,” she ordered. “Eat.”

A corner of his hard mouth lifted as he sat. “Yes, ma’am.”

He waited until she had her fork in hand. “Eat,” Summer said again.

Maybe he actually had been homeless because he ate like it was going to disappear from his plate at any moment. Mary Delvaux had hammered manners into her kids and he didn’t spray food and didn’t use his fingers. But he inhaled the food, staring down at his plate and not making eye contact with her.

When he’d used the last bite of naan bread to pick up the last molecule of omelet, she said, “I have some homemade ice cream, if?—”

“Yes,” he said, lifting his eyes to hers. “Please.”

Suppressing a sigh, Summer went to the freezer and took down a big container of homemade peach ice cream. Jack demolished it.

When he put the bowl back on the table, Summer lifted an eyebrow. She’d stopped eating half an hour ago. “We good?”

He wiped his mouth with a napkin and sighed. “Real good. Thanks.”

She sat back, crossed her arms, looked at him. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way…”

“Yeah.” Jack placed the napkin delicately next to the plate, taking his time. Gathering his thoughts. As well he should, because he was going to have to explain why she shouldn’t go with a major story. And while he was at it, explain why he’d been in hiding for six months. And what the deal was with Hector Blake.

A lot of explaining.

Jack flexed his jaw.

“What happened to your beard?” It came out without any thought.

He sighed. “Really? I’m not dead after all, and that’s what you want to know? What’s with my beard?”

Stupid, stupid question. But Summer doubled down. “And the dreadlocks. What happened to those?”

He looked at her for a long moment. “I wear a wig and a false beard when I go out. They’re in that gym bag, as a matter of fact.” He jerked his head to the living room and Summer noticed the gym bag for the first time. Stupid. Usually she was more observant than that. Another sign that having Jack pop up had unsettled her a lot.

“There are security cameras everywhere. And though my face has been removed from official records, I had to be careful. So the wig falls over my face and distorts the faceprint. The beard is fake, too. It would be easier to just grow a beard, but a fake beard doesn’t follow the natural contours of the face and makes facial recog even harder.”

“Someone… removed your image from facial recognition databases?” Summer tried to think how that would be even possible. Whoever did it had to be extremely high up in the security community. Like the director of the CIA or NSA something.

He nodded.

“Sounds like…you’ve done this before. Evaded discovery.”

Silence. “Not quite like this, but yes, I’ve done it before.”

“For?”

More silence.

“That’s classified.” He sighed. “It’s crazy. I’m no longer operational. As a matter of fact, I’m dead. But I took an oath and I took it seriously when I did.”

She digested that, thinking it over. “Okay. Let me tell you what I think. Word had it that you were making money and chasing girls as an investment banker in Singapore. But I’m guessing that’s not what you were doing. If whoever you work for has the power to wipe your photos from official databases, I’m guessing you’re in some intelligence service. But you were never really sharp at analytical courses at Harvard, so I’d say not in the analysis department. You’d be an operator, not an analyst. Not to mention the fact that you cut right through my building’s security and my apartment’s security, which is top of the line whatever you might say. So—not special ops because they don’t operate with official covers. My guess would be CIA. How’m I doing?”

Jack’s face gave nothing away. But he wasn’t saying no.

Summer looked at him, really looked at him. Seeing him as he was now and remembering him when he was a boy and then a young man. She’d been so in love with him she’d made him an object of study. She’d had a PhD in Jackology, though she’d made sure no one knew anything about her obsession.

But she’d known him pretty well back in the day and some things did not change in people.

“Like I said, you’re not particularly analytical. You were smart but it was a gift that you never polished. I’m guessing you got into Harvard as a legacy and because you were a gifted athlete, not because of your grades. Your grades sucked. So I’m ruling out the Directorate of Intelligence. You liked your gadgets but you weren’t a nerd so I’d rule out the Directorate of Science and Technology and I definitely do not see you in the Directorate of Support, fussing about with logistics and supplies. That leaves the National Clandestine Service. And if you’re pretending to be an investment banker that would leave you plenty of time to go on missions.”

The silence stretched for a full minute.

Jack stirred. Blew out a breath. “I got decent grades,” he said mildly.

Bingo. She smiled.

“Any good grades you got were strictly because you charmed the teachers. I never saw you open a book all that summer I came back to the US. And not once while we were?—”

She stopped. Fought a blush. She was about to say he’d never cracked a book while they were dating but they’d “dated” for about a week. Enough to stoke her infatuation and introduce her to world-altering sex before he disappeared.

So dating wasn’t strictly the right term.

And this walk down memory lane had had the unfortunate effect of reminding her that they’d essentially spent that one week in bed, having sex so incredible it should have been classified as a controlled substance.

“You’re blushing,” Jack said.

“Am not,” she answered sharply. And then, because she’d sounded like a child, she said, “So—how close did I get?”

“Nailed it. Except I’m not CIA anymore.”

“No. Because you’re dead. So let’s hear this story and I need to know why it has to remain secret because there’s been more than enough secrecy around the Washington Massacre. I’ll hold off if there’s a really good reason, but not for long and you’d better be pretty convincing.”

Jack drew in a deep breath and for a moment she was startled at how wide it made his chest. Focus, Summer! She told herself. This was important and she couldn’t be distracted by a gorgeous male chest. She wasn’t eighteen anymore.

Jack leaned forward, shifting away the plates with one strong forearm. “Why were you at Hector Blake’s funeral?”

He wanted to ask questions first? Okay. “Well, he was sort of a relative. For a little while, anyway. Remember? But mainly because the whole thing stinks to high heaven.”

His face gave away nothing, but his fingers curled up in a gimme gesture.

She sighed. “First of all, the reports state that he drowned in the Potomac but everyone is real vague on exactly where in the Potomac. And it is unclear whether he was in a vehicle or just sort of fell in. Like you’d trip and fall into a pond. It’s really hard to do that. Either he committed suicide, diving in from a bridge, or it was homicide and he was thrown in, or it was an accident and he drove off the road into the river. The coroner’s report is unavailable, which is the first time that’s happened to me. The authorities didn’t exactly invoke the Patriot Act, but they might as well have. I applied for a copy of the report and got a sharp email from the coroner’s office. The office, not the coroner herself. She’s on indefinite leave. Starting yesterday. And no one has been appointed to replace her. And the DC morgue itself has been closed for ‘scheduled repairs’ though no such schedule has ever been published. I can’t figure out what happened to Hector but something did and it wasn’t what the reports say.”

Jack held her eyes. “Hector Blake drowned in the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon four days ago. I know because I was there.”

He dropped that bombshell and watched her reaction. She kept her face without expression, but her hands itched for the iPad, because this was the story of a lifetime. What were you doing there in Portland? What was Hector Blake doing there? How did it happen? The questions bubbled up inside her.

When she felt a story start to happen, it was like a fisherman feeling a big tug, knowing he had a whopper at the other end of the line. That was exactly what she was feeling right now. A huge tug from a momentous story.

“You’re going to have to explain that to me,” she said steadily.

Jack nodded sharply, as if happy at her cool reaction. “Well, the short version is that Hector kidnapped Isabel, who had moved to Portland. I was there and, together with three other men, we followed him. Isabel says he told her the plan was to fake her suicide in a motel, because she’d called him to tell him she knew something. Knew he’d been involved in the Massacre. That scared him enough to come out to Portland and kidnap her. She fought back and the driver of the van drove off a bridge and one of the members of my team, a former Navy SEAL, dove in and rescued Isabel. Hector was dead.”

“Is the long version available?” Her mind was furiously trying to shape a picture from these small pieces of the puzzle but it wasn’t working. Too many pieces were missing. Kidnapping Isabel ? She was a lovely woman who was a gifted food blogger, nothing political about her. “Why on earth would Hector Blake try to kidnap Isabel? And why were you in Portland? None of this makes any sense.”

Jack rubbed a hand over the stubble on his head. “Hard to know where to begin.”

“At the beginning, where else?” she said and rolled her eyes.

He huffed out a breath. “Okay. I was running an informant in the Chinese PLA, who worked in their Fourth Directorate. He was found dead after passing some intel on to me.”

“Fourth Directorate,” Summer murmured. “Cyberwarfare.”

“That’s right.” Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “How’d you know that?”