One

      Elliot Starc had faced danger his whole life. First at the hands of his heavy-fisted father. Later as a Formula One race car driver who used his world travels to feed information to Interpol.

      But he’d never expected to be kidnapped. Especially not in the middle of his best friend’s bachelor party.

      Mad as hell, Elliot struggled back to consciousness, only to realize his wrists were cuffed. Numb. He struggled against the restraints while trying to get his bearings, but his brain was still disoriented. Last he remembered, he’d been in Atlanta, Georgia, at a bachelor party and now he was cuffed and blindfolded, for God’s sake. What the hell? He only knew that he was in the back of a vehicle that smelled of leather and luxury. Noise offered him little to go on. Just the purr of a finely tuned engine. The pop of an opening soda can. A low hum of music so faint it must be on a headset.

      “He’s awake,” a deep voice whispered softly, too softly to be identified.

      “Damn it,” another voice hissed.

      “Hey,” Elliot shouted, except it wasn’t a shout. More of a hoarse croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Whatever the hell is going on here, we can talk ransom—”

      A long buzz sounded. Unmistakable. The closing of a privacy window. Then silence. Solitude, no chance of shouting jack to anyone in this...

      A limo, perhaps? Who kidnapped someone using a limousine?

      Once they stopped, he would be ready, though. The second he could see, he wouldn’t even need his hands. He was trained in seven different forms of self-defense. He could use his feet, his shoulders and his body weight.

      He would be damned before he let himself ever be helpless in a fight.

      They’d pulled off an interstate at least twenty minutes ago, driving into the country as best he could tell. He had no way of judging north, south or west. He could be anywhere from Florida to Mississippi to South Carolina, and God knows he had enemies in every part of the world from his work with Interpol and his triumphs over competitors in the racing world.

      And he had plenty of pissed-off ex-girlfriends.... He winced at the thought of females and Carolina so close together. Home. Too many memories. Bad ones—with just a single bright spot in the form of Lucy Ann Joyner, but he’d wrecked even that.

      Crap.

      Back to the present. Sunlight was just beginning to filter through the blindfold, sparking behind his eyes like shards of glinting glass.

      One thing was certain. This car had good shock absorbers. Otherwise the rutted road they were traveling would have rattled his teeth.

      Although his teeth were clenched mighty damn tight right now.

      Even now, he still couldn’t figure out how he’d been blindsided near the end of Rowan Boothe’s bachelor party in an Atlanta casino. Elliot had