Killer Colton Christmas. Regan Black

a leave of absence.”

      Those last three words reverberated in her head. She wondered where she could go and how she might fill her time. Zane explained the cybersecurity team’s instructions for managing the identity breach issues. Password changes and notifications to her bank, credit cards, landlord and the IRS topped the list. Just when she wished she’d brought in a notepad, he slid a short stack of paperwork across the desk to her. “This is the packet going out to all employees by noon today.”

      Fast work, she thought, flipping through the comprehensive guide. “With all due respect, I’d prefer to stay and help.”

      Her coworkers were bound to be worried and the cybersecurity department would be flooded with calls and questions. Not to mention what they needed to do as a company to reassure customers that their data was safe. When she added up the tasks and the personnel, she knew they needed her here.

      Zane leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead, debating something. “Handle the notifications,” he said, “then come back to the conference room.”

      “Thank—”

      He interrupted her gratitude. “I’ll let you stay on one condition. You’ll cooperate with the FBI’s assessment of your safety. Whatever they decide, no arguments.”

      “Yes, sir.” She hurried out of the office before he changed his mind.

      As she walked to her office at the other end of the hall, she flipped through the guide, squirming at the long list of things she would now need to keep in mind. At least she didn’t have a spouse or children to worry about. In her situation, not even extended family was a concern, since she’d been a ward of the state of Texas since her birth.

      Marie’s lips twisted and her throat went dry as those old questions tried to rear up from her past. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Cohort had discovered who her father was or even where her mother had gone after she’d abandoned her newborn with nothing more than a name?

      Distracted, her head down as she passed the elevator, the doors parted, and she found herself tangled in the group entering the hallway.

      She nearly bumped into the man in the lead and he steadied her with a light touch at her elbow. The dark suits and serious expressions identified them as FBI, even without the badges they wore in plain view.

      “Excuse us,” the first man said, his touch sliding away.

      “No, pardon me.” She offered a tight smile and stepped aside. In her heels, she wasn’t quite eye level with him, though he wasn’t the tallest of the group. With dark brown hair, straight eyebrows over deep-set brown eyes and a stern mouth framed by a trim beard, he radiated authority and he gave her a long study that put heat in her cheeks as he passed by.

      What did he see? she wondered, striding away. Did he think he knew her? She couldn’t shake the strange sensation that he had come to some immediate conclusion about her with only a light touch and one long look.

      * * *

      Special Agent Emiliano Ortega recognized Marie Meyers as he steadied her when she brushed by them. Her picture and résumé were in the initial briefing documents he’d skimmed when his boss called him to Dallas early this morning.

      The FBI had assembled the fast-response task force Emiliano served on to investigate cyberattacks all over the country. They could even reach destinations overseas at a moment’s notice to protect US interests. Reporting to Dallas meant a particularly short commute in this case, getting them on scene quickly and reducing the window of time in which the hacktivists could erase their tracks.

      He hadn’t had much time to delve deep into the file but he knew the key points on the top executives at Colton, Incorporated. Thirty, never married, Miss Meyers had earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science and minored in psychology. No debts beyond a minuscule credit-card balance.

      Everything about her appearance, from her glossy dark brown hair curling softly around her shoulders to the pricey designer high heels, shouted that this woman valued order and discipline.

      He glanced back down the hallway, but she was gone. Why wasn’t the CDO headed to the conference room? A cyberattack of this magnitude usually brought all hands on deck.

      When his team reached the conference room with the obligatory massive table, monitors and floor-to-ceiling windows, the introductions were swift. Everyone seemed eager to hand over investigative control to the FBI. A typical reaction with attacks as aggressive as this one seemed to be.

      He kept glancing to the door, waiting for Miss Meyers to join them as he and the team listened to the rapid-fire updates from the technicians and executives on hand.

      The Cohort had claimed responsibility immediately: not the first time Emiliano and his team had encountered that strategy. Another stroke of luck, as the verification was swift and put them on the right track immediately.

      As he and the team systematically peeled back the first layers of the breach, Emiliano soon realized the Cohort had employed a brand-new tactic. The trail of links from Marie Meyers’s information led to a private message board called Campus Martius, where Cohort Principes were encouraged to share ideas on how best to make an example of her.

      “We have a problem,” Emiliano said as he kept digging. He shared his display on the presentation screen and conversation around the room halted in stunned shock.

      He spotted Zane Colton standing with his family near the wall of windows. “Where is Miss Meyers?”

      Zane started to answer and stopped short. “Right here.”

      * * *

      The notifications took longer than Marie expected, so she wasn’t surprised to discover the FBI team had turned the conference room to crisis central by the time she returned.

      Seeing her name and face plastered across the big presentation screen—that unnerved her all over again and she hesitated at the doorway.

      Zane motioned her closer. “Marie Meyers, our CDO,” he stated. “This is the FBI’s National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force.” He gestured to the presentation screen. “They just drilled through the rhetoric to this direct death threat against you.”

      Despite the shock rattling through her system, she forced herself to stride forward.

      The man with the dark eyes who’d studied her so intently in the hallway extended a hand in greeting. “Special Agent Emiliano Ortega.”

      She grasped his hand, momentarily distracted by the calluses on his palm. “A pleasure to meet you.” She kept her eyes on him, rather than the presentation screen. His square jaw offered a much better view anyway.

      His mouth tilted in a skeptical half smile before he introduced the three other members of their task force as Special Agent in Charge Selene Dashwood, Special Agent Finn Townsend and malware analyst Tristan Staller.

      Despite the suits and no-nonsense attitudes, the task force was a study in contrasts, from the sleek Dashwood, tall and lean with flawless ebony skin and no accessories beyond her wedding band, to the not-quite-rumpled Staller, who seemed reluctant to tear his gaze from his monitor. She knew his type well. In between were Townsend with his curling light brown hair and friendly smile and Ortega, who watched her closely.

      “We’re aware this isn’t a good day,” Ortega said.

      Not her worst, either, though she kept the thought to herself. “How can I help?”

      As Dashwood resumed her conversation with Fowler and T.C., Agent Ortega planted his hands on his lean waist. “Sometimes attacks like this one resemble battering rams. This attack, while large in scope, had some precision elements.” He pointed to the screen. “As you know, they took everything in order to inflict the most chaos and damage to the company as a whole.”

      “Obviously,” she agreed.

      “Underneath the obvious, we believe the strategy was meant to blur their particular focus