Chapter 1 - SAFE HARBOR
Ava Monroe always believed her emergency plan was perfect.
Five clicks on the side button.
SOS alert.
Medical ID.
GPS location.
Audio recording.
Camera bursts.
Three contacts.
Captain Elena Ross.
NCIS Agent Malik Hayes.
Admiral Thomas Pierce.
The plan had been created after her first classified mission went wrong.
Pierce himself had told her, “If you ever feel hunted, Ava, don’t wait to be brave. Signal first.”
Now she lay bleeding on her kitchen floor, wondering if the man who taught her that rule had sent someone to silence her.
The intruder stood above her in a black hood, holding the yellow envelope she had stolen from Pierce’s office.
She could barely breathe.
Her shoulder burned.
Her uniform jacket was torn.
Rain rattled the apartment windows like fingers tapping glass.
“You’re making powerful people nervous,” the man said.
Ava reached slowly toward her phone.
He noticed too late.
Five clicks.
The screen turned red.
SOS ACTIVE.
SAFE HARBOR ACTIVATED.
The man cursed and tried to cancel it, but the alert had already gone out.
Then the phone flashed.
A camera burst.
His hood slipped.
Ava saw the scar under his eye.
“Ethan,” she whispered.
Commander Ethan Shaw pulled off the hood.
He looked older than he had six months ago.
Harder.
Haunted.
“I tried to keep you out of this.”
“You attacked me.”
“I stopped the other man from finishing the job.”
Ava froze.
“What other man?”
Before Ethan could answer, the phone rang.
Admiral Pierce.
Emergency mode answered automatically.
“Ava, are you injured?”
Ava stared at Ethan.
“He’s here.”
Pierce’s voice changed.
“Ethan?”
Ethan grabbed the phone.
“You were supposed to protect her.”
Pierce said nothing for one long second.
Then he asked, “Who compromised the route?”
Ethan looked at Ava, and for the first time, she saw guilt instead of anger.
“The same person who gave Ava the envelope.”
Ava whispered, “I stole it.”
“No,” Ethan said. “You were allowed to steal it.”
Outside, sirens grew louder.
Ethan knelt beside her, lowering his voice.
“Pierce’s office was bait. The files were bait. Even the photo was bait. Someone wanted you to accuse him publicly, so the real leak could disappear.”
Ava’s mind raced.
“Who?”
Ethan placed something in her hand.
A small brass compass.
Her father’s compass.
Ava went cold.
It should have been locked inside the base chapel.
“How did you get this?”
Ethan’s voice broke.
“Caleb gave it to me.”
Ava shook her head.
“My brother?”
The front door crashed open.
NCIS Agent Malik Hayes shouted, “Hands where I can see them!”
Ethan raised his hands.
But Ava could not stop staring at the compass.
Inside the cracked lid was a hidden drive.
And etched into the metal were three words she had never seen before.
PIERCE KNOWS EVERYTHING.
Malik moved fast.
Two agents secured Ethan.
Another knelt beside Ava, pressing gauze to her shoulder.
“Ava, stay with me.”
She heard Malik’s voice through water and thunder.
“Who did this?”
Ava looked at Ethan.
Then at the compass.
Then at the yellow envelope lying open on the floor.
Inside were photographs, route maps, and a single redacted payment ledger that seemed to implicate Admiral Pierce in the ambush that had killed her father six years earlier.
Ava should have said Pierce.
That was what the envelope wanted her to say.
Instead, she whispered, “I don’t know yet.”
May you like
Ethan closed his eyes.
For some reason, he looked relieved.
