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      HARPER ALLEN

      lives in the country in the middle of a hundred acres of maple trees with her husband, Wayne, six cats, four dogs—and a very nervous cockatiel at the bottom of the food chain. For excitement she and Wayne drive to the nearest village and buy jumbo bags of pet food. She believes in love at first sight because it happened to her.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Epilogue

      Prologue

      January

      E-MAIL MEMO—URGENT & CONFIDENTIAL

      To: Cassandras<Alexandra Forsythe, Darcy Allen, Tory Patton, Samantha St. John, Josie Lockworth>

      From: Lt. Kayla Ryan

      Re: Lab 33 assassin Dawn O’Shaughnessy

      Phys. Description: 22, 5’7”, blonde, green eyes

      Capabilities: Extraordinary strength, agility; possibly other enhanced capabilities

      Skills (partial list): Weaponry, martial arts, hand-to-hand combat, stealth, B & E

      Background: O’Shaughnessy conceived in vitro with egg retrieved from former Athena Academy student Rainy Miller, whose recent murder by Lab 33’s Lee Craig, code name Cipher, is being investigated by the Cassandras. Retrieval conducted by Dr. Henry Reagon under guise of an appendectomy. Actual purpose: genetic manipulation experiment headed by Dr. Aldrich Peters of Lab 33. Eggs fertilized with sperm from Navy SEAL Thomas King, whose sperm sample was stolen from a fertility clinic. Neither Rainy nor Tom King were aware of procedure carried out by Peters. Fertilized egg implanted in surrogate mother; child taken at birth to Lab 33 in New Mexico to be raised under Peters’s supervision. Subject has no knowledge of her true background; believes her black-ops instructor, Lee Craig, is her uncle.

      Note: Subject actively working against the Cassandras; must be considered extremely dangerous.

      Update: Subject has been told the truth about her parentage. Her failure to kill Thomas King as per Aldrich Peters’s instructions and her elimination of Dr. Carl Bradford to save Kayla and Jazz Ryan’s lives indicate that O’Shaughnessy is no longer an immediate threat. In fact, she has vowed to take down Lab 33 by herself. She will be given this memo and other documentation in the hope that learning more of the truth will encourage her to join forces with the Cassandras against—

      The memo police lieutenant Kayla Ryan was holding—the memo she herself had written and securely e-mailed to her best friends, the Athena Academy graduates known as the Cassandras, and that she had updated only two days ago—had been torn in two at that point. On the back was a handwritten note, unsigned, asking Kayla to meet the writer at the Athena Academy gymnasium, which was usually deserted over Christmas break. Taking a deep breath, Kayla pushed open the double doors of the gym and saw a lithe figure pummeling the hell out of a workout bag.

      She approached, noting the dampness darkening the honey-blond hair that had been secured into a thick braid, the sheen of exertion gleaming on the tanned midriff revealed between the low-rise sweatpants and the racer-back top. The only thing impossible to see was what was going on behind Dawn O’Shaughnessy’s gold-green eyes.

      Kayla held up the scrap of memo. “You read this?”

      A volley of punches slammed into the workout bag. Dawn stepped back. “I read it. It sums up everything you told me at your house a few days ago.” She paused. “It’s not every day a girl finds out her whole freakin’ life has been a lie.”

      Kayla frowned. “You understand now why Samantha St. John had no recourse but to take down your uncle two months ago?”

      “If I’d known then what I know now, I would have done it myself,” Dawn replied. “And I’d appreciate if you didn’t refer to Lee Craig as my uncle. He lied to me. He killed my biological mother. He let me go on an assignment to kill my biological father. What I felt for him is as dead as he is.”

      Kayla’s gaze sharpened. When Kayla had told Dawn about her parentage three days ago, Dawn had shown no emotion. But now…. Unless she was mistaken, there were pinpricks of moisture glittering at the corners of those brilliant green eyes. I knew Lee Craig as the Cipher, she thought, the world’s most deadly assassin. But he was the only family Dawn had. Knowing he lied to her is tearing her in two—and until she deals with that conflict, she’s a ticking time bomb.

      She kept her tone conversational. “There must be a part of you that wishes you could see him one more time, if only to ask him how he could betray you so terribly.”

      Without warning, Dawn faced the workout bag again and exploded into action, her gloved fists a blur. Kayla started when the bag split asunder, the sand it was filled with pouring out in a stream and the chain securing it giving way, solid steel links spilling to the floor like broken teeth. She’d