“The signal just dropped,” someone says.
No shit.
“There is no reception. None. Not even on a satellite app.”
Can’t be.
“Archer!”
I turn to see Bo, the resort manager, jump off the golf cart and run toward me, a satellite phone in his hand.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
He stabs the phone in my chest. “Secretary Crone.”
Dad? On a resort satellite phone? This is bad news.
I grab it from Bo’s hands and press it to my ear, holding my breath under everyone’s frozen gazes, eyes on me.
“Yeah?” My voice is so low it’s almost a whisper.
“Archer!” Dad’s voice is interrupted by crackling and the sirens in the background.
“Dad, what’s going on?” I frown, realizing they sound like civil defense sirens.
Dad’s next words obliterate anything else that happened in the last hour or the plans we had for the next one or the nearest future. If we have one.
The words that no one ever wants to hear in their lifetime.
His voice is calm but sharp when he says, “The United States just signed a declaration of war. Now, son, I need you to listen to me carefully.”
KATURA ORTIZ
A MONTH AGO / MAINLAND
Wouldit be so bad to screw the man you are sent to spy on?
When he looks like a Greek God.
Built like the Vitruvian Man.
IQ over 170.
The son of the Secretary of Defense.
Forbes 30 Under 30.
A twenty-four-year-old chemistry prodigy.
Former star-quarterback of Deene University.
Single.
The list of achievements—and in my books being single with this outstanding record is a warning sign—is so long that Archer Crone, aka the Chancellor, the king of Zion Island, sounds like a unicorn. With a penetrating gaze, chiseled cheekbones, and a cold demeanor that hides more trauma than the happy life money can buy—a freak accident that killed his mother and younger bother more than ten years ago.
Is it normal to be attracted to a guy you’ve never met?
I calculate the odds of getting on his radar.