Status Updates From Fallen Hero (Downrange #2)

20 years ago, there weren't cameras on every street corner and everyone's front door. It was much easier to kidnap someone and get away with it.

I knew she was gone, but until Jason was also dead, I couldn't mourn her last days - how Jason and his father had used her.

Jason had to die by my hands. He owed me his life.

Just like a man to think telling a woman to relax will make it so.

Spoiler alert: I did NOT relax.

In that moment, I understood what it meant to physically feel beauty.

I was a virgin when Lilly was taken. After that there were too many things to worry about and then when we found out she was trafficked, sex became evil.

Lilly was sold and abused. She had no control over her body, but I had control over mine.

I can't say that I like my job because the nature of our job makes it not likable. But it saves lives.

I have an irrational fear of being beholden to anyone, but with you, I'm grateful, not beholden. I'm linked but not obligated.

PACE: primary / alternate / contingency / emergency

Because I was already in the frying pan, I figured I'd continue my stupidity and jump straight into the fire.

Callie is 40.

PDA is illegal in Dubai. Even married couples holding hands in public was iffy. Kissing ... absolutely not. Walking around with a tentpole would garner unwanted attention.

Mason is 45?

He and his high school/college sweetheart broke up 25 years ago, when he was 20.

How old is Callie?

SPOILER!!!

Wow! Callie is untouched! Rare in these days ... ?

Alcohol is illegal ... unless, of course, you can afford to buy it.

You cannot break yourself on a quest that will never end.

But I kept telling myself, "What's another mark when I'm slashed all to hell?"

I bear no physical marks, but my insides are all shredded.

Lilly's story had run out of pages. There was no immortal hero to swoop to save her. There was just an end.

Why do you hate the movie "Forrest Gump"?

Jenny reminds me of someone I used to know - selfish to the core.

Shame was a fickle b!tch, regret was a prison, and when they came together, they were an agonizing tornado of irrational emotions.

It’s easier to order a girl than it is to get real bacon or a martini.

The room went from icy to a whole other dimension of Arctic … and that freeze out came purely from Mason.

Tom will always do what he needs to, to ensure mission success, even if that mission is $h!t.

Tom wants me beholden to him & bending to his will, always remembering he holds the strings. What he forgets is I hold the scissors to cut those strings.