Chapter 1 The Encounter

"That bitch Valerie called the cops and slit her wrist-she's a real piece of work. You're positive the Todd family won't come after me if I take her to bed? Even if things get rough?"

A man's voice slid through the line, dripping with filth.

A woman on the other end let out a cold, delighted laugh. "Take it easy. So what if she ends up dead? Nobody cares. The Todds don't give a damn about her."

Heat flared through Valerie's wrist as consciousness clawed its way back. That woman's poisonous voice was the first thing she heard-followed by a rush of memories slamming into her like a broken dam. Three lost years snapped back into place.

She had once ruled the underworld as the most terrifying assassin alive, the ruthless commander of an elite mercenary corps. To the world, she had been known as Phantom.

Three years earlier, she had buried that identity and joined the Todd family as their long-lost daughter-a country girl they treated as worthless, disposable.

Then an accident had wiped her memories clean.

Fooled into believing she was the useless trash they all despised, Valerie had swallowed three years of cruelty, bowing beneath Paulina Todd, whom the Todd couple had thought was their biological daughter but turned out not to be.

However, that ended tonight.

Paulina had lured her to a hotel suite, slipped an aphrodisiac into her drink, and offered her to some aging businessman in exchange for a multimillion-dollar deal.

Shame and cruelty had pushed Valerie to the edge, and the moment the knife sliced across her wrist, the shock of her own blood had snapped her real self awake.

Her lashes dipped as she took in her state-clothes ripped apart, wrists and ankles clamped in cold metal, a thin line of blood sliding from the gash along her wrist.

Most people in this position would've curled up and waited for death to claim them. But Valerie wasn't one of them.

She had once commanded the deadliest mercenary force on the planet-surviving firefights that turned whole valleys crimson, trekking across barren wastelands that swallowed weaker souls, and walking out of missions the world labeled untouchable.

For a woman like Valerie, even the worst nightmare was just one more wall to break through.

With a violent flick of her aching wrist, the cuffs snapped apart.

She snatched the lamp from the nightstand and brought it down on the man before he even sensed movement. He crumpled to the carpet in an instant, his limbs slack as consciousness fled.

She stepped over him, her face carved into a blank mask, and swung the lamp again-this time driving it straight into his groin with ruthless force.

The brutal clang of metal meeting flesh echoed through the room; blood sprayed across the tiles, yet Valerie didn't even blink.

Once his lower body had been reduced to a grotesque ruin, she finally released the lamp and rose to her feet, a thin curl of disgust tugging at her mouth.

Out of nowhere, a hard knock cracked through the quiet suite. "Sir? The toys you requested just arrived. Do you want me to bring them in?"

Her eyes went ice-cold. With a fierce burst of movement, she vaulted onto the window ledge, caught the curtain in one hand for balance, and swung herself into the night just as the door eased open.

Downstairs, in a different room, President Leland Harper, the man the entire nation idolized, stood rigid, a faint, uncharacteristic flush warming his otherwise stone-cold features. "Mom, open this door. Now! You do understand you're committing a crime by locking up the President, don't you?"

From outside came Sarah Harper's smug voice. "If forcing you to finally give this family an heir gets me arrested, then so be it. Relax, the drug I used won't hurt you. Once you sleep with the woman I picked, I'll unlock the door."

A sharp metallic click sealed the lock.

Leland yanked out his sidearm, jaw tight. "One shot and this door is gone. You can't trap me in here."

Sarah's scoff carried through the wood. "I'm standing right outside. Pull that trigger and you'll shoot your own mother. Imagine the fallout when every headline brands you a monster. Is that really what you want?"

A pulse of fury throbbed behind his eyes as Leland pressed his fingers to his temples.

With a low curse, he slid the weapon back into its holster and strode toward the bathroom, hoping icy water might smother the heat flooding his veins.

When he returned to the bedroom, a sudden warmth slammed into him-a woman's body, soft and feverish, brushing against him with a faint, intoxicating scent.