JACK

It’s hard to find an employer who doesn’t ask too many questions about my past. So I thank my lucky stars that the Garricks miraculously give me a job, cleaning their stunning penthouse with views across the city and preparing fancy meals in their shiny kitchen. I can work here for a while, stay quiet until I get what I want.

Lewis Madigan is young, gay, out of work, and getting antsy when he’s roped into providing end-of-life care for his insufferable homophobic neighbor, Chester Wheeler. Lewis doesn’t need the aggravation, just the money. The only requirements: run errands, be on call, and put up with a miserable old churl no one else in Buffalo can bear. After exchanging barbs, bickering, baiting, and pushing buttons, Chester hits Lewis with the big ask. Lewis can’t say no to a dying wish.

Tyler Rexall never considered being anything besides a Navy SEAL. But a mission-gone-wrong has ended his career in the Teams, leaving Tyler handicapped, his self-identity obliterated. Returning to his hometown of Louisa, Virginia, Tyler wallows in despair. He has no idea that the young woman showing up on his doorstep with a dog holds his future in the palms of her hands.

When the Patuxent River prisoner-reintegration program-known as "Gateway"-falls under suspicion as a terrorist training ground, FBI Special Agent Jackson Maddox is sent in to investigate. Adopting the name Abdul, Jackson fits right in, until his cover is threatened by a sexy bombshell taking his picture. An accomplished crime journalist, Lena Alexandra is on her own under-cover mission. Determined to send the man who raped and murdered her 15-year-old sister back to prison, Lena is interviewing Gateway's former-felons for a prison conversions book she's allegedly authoring. And not even the gorgeous ex-con named Abdul can derail her. Until he gets in her way by acting as her guardian. About to expose a home-grown terrorist plot reaching deep into the nation's capital, Jackson knows that he and Lena face a choice: figure out how to trust each other with their secrets and their lives. Or die in silence.