By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Dale Mayer

There is no greater motive
than bloodlust, DNA, and revenge
mixed up in a cocktail of hatred …

Jasper, watching Mason go down, is all-in on the investigation. Taking over the current investigation team, he distrusts everyone. Tesla, his cousin, expects Jasper to get to the bottom of this and fast.

ER nurse Amber isn’t on Mason’s team but knows something major is happening. The hospital is overwhelmed with men, as they want updates on Mason’s condition. A few look like they belong, and then a couple don’t. Taking pictures of those in question, she sends them to Jasper, which starts a cascading chain of events. And none of it good.

Hunting down Mason’s shooter, Jasper is sidelined by keeping Amber safe, when she’s targeted next. He must keep them both safe, … even as the investigation heats up and gets even uglier.

Note:
This is an interconnected series where some plot points are not solved until the end of the series, there are going to be 5 books and one novella.

The prologue of this book had me screaming NO! NO! Not Mason! Tesla and Mason are two of my all-time favorite characters. Mason is responsible for so many others and so many of them have found their own happiness by being on his team. So, this just hit me hard and fast. Tesla was running to Mason when he was shot, her cousin Jasper, who drove her to the base, ran after her to assist in the aftermath.

Getting Tesla situated close but safe, Jasper joins a Masters who’s already working on staunching the blood from a head wound. Jasper finds another abdominal wound and uses his shirt to put pressure on that one while the wait for the approaching sirens to arrive.

With Mason on his way to the hospital, Jasper approaches Tesla to take her to be with Mason. They are cousins and Jasper is soon to start his new job on the base. Looks like he’s starting it earlier than he thought.

This is a favorite scene.

As soon as Jasper settled Tesla into the passenger seat, he walked to the back of his vehicle. He pulled out a clean shirt and stripped off the bloody one he now wore. Using other medical supplies he kept on hand, he did his best to wipe off as much blood as he could, tossing it all back in the trunk. Then he got in the driver’s seat and pulled out.

“What do you know about Masters?” he asked Tesla in a clipped tone.

With a sigh, she stated, “I don’t know anything about him. He’s just around.”

“Was he supposed to pick up Mason?”

She thought about it but obviously was struggling to concentrate.

“Stay focused. We must collect as much information as we can, and fast. So I need you to tell me everything you can think of.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “I hear you.  … I do.  … I’m just not sure I have an answer.”

“Better than making one up,” he replied, with a smile.

“Not something I would ever do,” she murmured.

“You know as well as I do that we’ve got to get to the bottom of this— and fast.”

“He was targeted, wasn’t he?” She spoke in a whisper.

“Absolutely. He got off that plane with no opportunity to do anything but take a full hit,” Jasper confirmed. “So the question is, who set this up?”

She shook her head, her bottom lip trembling a bit. “Everybody loves Mason.”

Jasper wouldn’t argue with her because obviously somebody did not love Mason, but Jasper knew what she meant. Generally Mason was highly respected by both those below and above him, but there would always be somebody crosswise for some reason. An outlier would work to make life miserable for him. And that was just the current way of the world. Whenever you had somebody who succeeded, somebody else chose to work against that success. Obviously somebody was determined to interrupt or to derail Mason’s intentions.

Jasper glanced at Tesla. “Stay strong.” Her back stiffened, as he smirked in response. “There’s my girl.”

She snorted. “Always the same Jasper. You might not know me as well as you think.”

“I never claimed to. All I need to know right now is that you’ll make it through this,” he explained, “and that you’ll do your darndest to not let Mason know how upset you are and how worried you are about his making it through this.”

She continued to glare at him. “Mason knows that I’ll be there for whatever needs to be done, no matter the outcome.”

“Good. So I’ll be straight with you. I didn’t see anything close to his spine, so I highly doubt we’ll hear of any paralysis or the like. I’m more concerned about his surviving. I won’t minimize the damage. I saw a lot of bleeding.” She swallowed and nodded. “Yet he’ll get the very best medical attention available, and you can bet they are already on it.”

“Right.” She took a deep breath.

He listened cautiously, hoping that she wouldn’t hyperventilate on him. Sure enough, she pulled herself back into a state of calm control. He gave her a small smile. “You’re doing great. Let’s keep it that way.”

She didn’t say anything to that and took a moment to take stock. “You will find out who did this, won’t you?”

“I plan to. There’ll be one hell of an investigation.”

“Good.” She turned to him, declaring, “You also know this was an inside job.”

He winced. “I was hoping you wouldn’t pick up on that quite so fast.”

“Like hell I wouldn’t. Shot on base, by sniper fire, with enough skill to take that shot and to not miss,” she summed up. “So, even if it wasn’t somebody who is currently on base, maybe somebody just not currently on active duty,  … you must know perfectly well that somebody coming from that background had an intel contact inside.”

“Potentially,” he admitted, “but let’s not rule out the fact that we could be dealing with a foreign entity as well.”

She sat back, pondering it silently.

“You and I both know that, as Mason has climbed the ranks, he’s also made enemies.” She stiffened, but he shook his head. “No, this isn’t a time to sugarcoat it. Enemies, they happen to all of us. That doesn’t mean that Mason’s any less of a man, any less of that perfect person you love so well,” he added. “Enemies happen. We do our best, but they’re still out there, and, God help us, somebody wanted Mason dead. That wasn’t a casual shot. Somebody was deliberately trying to take him out.”

“They won’t succeed,” she stated flatly. “No way in hell Mason would leave me right now.”

Jasper half smiled at that. Mason had and always would fight damn hard to get to Tesla’s side, and that wouldn’t change. However, the fact remained that Mason wasn’t necessarily in control right now. He had to wake up. He had to understand what the stakes were. Subconsciously he would probably know that he had been critically injured and that his team would all pitch in and help.

“Promise me,” she began, her voice thick. He winced. “Don’t give me any bullshit. Promise me that.”

“I promise,” Jasper vowed. “I promise that we will get to the bottom of this. I don’t know if it will be me directing this case, but I will ensure that I am involved in some way or another.”

She glanced over at him. “You haven’t even had your department meeting yet, have you?”

“No, I haven’t,” he replied, “and they may decide that I’m too close to this case, too close to Mason. After all, we are related,” he noted in a wry tone.

“I don’t give a crap what they say,” she snapped.

“Good, then you may want to apply some pressure yourself.”

She frowned at him, then immediately pulled out her phone and started sending text messages.

“Keep in mind that you cannot come across as a completely overwhelmed. irrational and hysterical woman,” he noted. After a moment of silence she shot him a look that had him grinning back at her. “Just checking. Not a person on base wouldn’t allow you some leeway, after what you’ve just witnessed.” He shut up under her stare.

“Doesn’t matter whether they would or not,” she declared, her tone determined.

“Who are you contacting?” he asked, as she went back to texting.

She shrugged. “As high up as I can go.”

“Good, but what are you telling them?”

“That I want you on the case.” When he sucked in his breath, she nodded. “You might not like that, but there’s not much of a choice right now.”

“You won’t make me very popular, will you?”

“Like you give a shit about a popularity contest,” she noted.

“No, I don’t, and, yes, this is the work I do, so no doubt about my popularity status. However, that’s not exactly the way to get started on a new base, and I don’t know people here.”

“Yet you seem to know Masters,” she pointed out, a question in her tone.

“I knew him from way back. Plus I met him a couple days ago, when I was on base.”

“Does he have any idea why you were here?”

“No, but I’ve come from a SEAL team that he knew, so we share mutual friends.”

“Do you have a good rep or a bad one?”

“I have a hard rep,” he clarified, yet his tone remained neutral. “I don’t give a damn how they take that.”

She burst out laughing at that, then immediately stopped. “God, I shouldn’t be laughing at a time like this.”

“Not much to laugh about right now,” he agreed. “Yet, if laughter helps you to stay balanced, if it helps you to remain somewhat stable, and if it gives you a different perspective so you can handle what’s coming,” he shared, “then laugh. You hang on to anything that you can because, God knows, we will all need it going forward.”
Dale Mayer. Jasper-Dale-Mayers-re (Kindle Locations 104-168). Kindle Edition.

We meet Amber an ER nurse, as she assists some with Mason before being pulled for another patient. She’s the one Jasper speaks with as to Mason’s condition and she immediately shows her concern for Tesla. Amber checks on her regularly and brings her food even as Jasper arranges for round the clock security for her and Mason. Only people both he and Tesla can trust. It’s Amber who arranges the cot for Tesla to stay with Mason thankful that the room also has a private bathroom.

Jasper begins working with Masters sort of independent from the team assigned to investigate. Jasper is allowed on the team, but they don’t know who he is, and they don’t quite trust him and the feeling is mutual.

Amber sends a video to Jasper of a couple of men who to her were acting suspicious and things from there get a bit crazy. Starting with Amber being struck by a car in the parking lot.

There are many twists in this tale, while our focus is on Mason’s recovery and finding the culprit. Jasper also has to protect Amber as the attacks on her continue. He also finds himself attracted to her in ways he really shouldn’t and isn’t sure he can be.

We see some of Mason’s team, notably Marcus, Evan and Corey. I’m sure we’ll be seeing others as this series continues. I really can’t wait for the next book in this series.

5 Contented Purrs for Dale!

Dale Mayer

Dale Mayer is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her Psychic Visions and Family Blood Ties series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Second Chances, SKIN), her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life and Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy series).

She honors the stories that come to her – and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and cross multiple genres!

To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.