As a vulnerable teenager, Eliza Cummings was the target of a predator who cultivated her need for love and approval. Until she found the courage to fight back and help put him away. Years later, she works with Devereaux Security Services and devotes every hour to taking down the very thing that nearly destroyed her. But now the killer has been set free, and Eliza knows it's only a matter of time before he comes for her, and the people she loves.

Wade Sterling never allows anyone close enough to see the man behind the impenetrable mask'but one woman threatens his tightly leashed control. He took a bullet for Eliza and the result was more than a piece of metal embedded in his skin. She was under his skin and nothing he did could rid him of the woman with the heart of a warrior.

But when Wade sees a panicked and haunted Eliza he knows something is very wrong, because the foolish woman has never had the sense to be afraid of anything. So when she tries to draw a monster away, the primal beast barely lurking beneath his deceptively polished facade erupts in a rage. She may not know it, but she belongs to him. This time, Eliza isn't going to play the protector. She was going to be the protected. And as long as Wade breathes, no one will ever hurt what is his.