Introduction

I was a desperate ex-Marine, my sister Lily' s life hanging by a thread, her experimental treatment demanding a quarter-million dollars I didn' t have.

My solution? Kidnap tech heiress Clara Hayes, but instead of the terrified victim I expected, she calmly asked, "You're Leo Maxwell, right?"

She then mocked my amateur ransom note, took over raising the demanded five million dollars, and used her own phone, completely exposing my incompetence.

Then, during a storm, her bipolar disorder spiraled into a terrifying depressive episode, forcing me to call her psychiatrist, only to inadvertently attract the real fugitive, "Viper," to our cabin.

Trapped between my unpredictable captive, her compassionate doctor, and a violent armed criminal, my desperate plan to save Lily had become a nightmarish, impossible situation.

Just as Viper prepared to kill me, Clara shielded me, taking a bullet that, along with her emergency SOS, brought the police finally ending the chaos and unexpectedly opening a new, hopeful-and utterly insane-path for us both.