Now the director of the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security, Brooke Fairfax has one objective: stay on top of all threats to the people and property of the Commonwealth. The position is thankless and never-ending. It even pulls her out of Declan O'Roark's bed in the middle of the night.A power grid failure has struck Kentucky's largest city, and Brooke assumes the role of lead coordinator for the investigation. The power outage pushes the city to the brink of chaos. Police, fire, and rescue workers are overwhelmed-their efforts crippled by failed communication systems, looters ransacking businesses, hospitals running on emergency generators, and people desperate to find safety in a city quickly eroding into lawlessness.While experts scramble to restore the grid before thousands lose their lives, Declan receives word from an intelligence contact that an Eastern European cell of cyber terrorists is looking to take down the power grid for the entire Eastern Seaboard. Brooke and Declan must combine their efforts before the next attack. But just as they get close to the truth, the attackers turn their attention on stopping their greatest threat-Brooke and Declan.
Intelligence analyst and former FBI special agent Brooke Fairfax is on the run. Not from anything sinister, but from her past. She's hiding from Declan O'Roark after he proposed a question she simply wasn't ready to answer. She finds solitude in Washington, DC, where she struggles to reconcile her feelings about her late husband and a possible future with Declan. Within hours, Declan tracks her down, desperate to save the relationship.After establishing a tenuous truce, Brooke and Declan meet a suspicious man outside a Georgetown neighborhood bar. Terror begins to unfold just as Brooke realizes the man's intentions. But what appears to be yet another random shooting spree turns out to be a highly targeted act. Brooke's and Declan's lives will be changed forever-if they're lucky enough to escape.
After dozens of Lexington, Kentucky's forgotten-mostly prostitutes and the homeless-swamp local hospitals from apparent overdoses over the 4th of July weekend, Kentucky cops soon discover a new synthetic form of heroin is infecting their communities, and that gangs-namely the outlaw motorcycle gang Samael's Army-are responsible for using a "disposable" population to test the new drug.
Soon after, the deadly new drug claims the daughter of a US senator, and FBI Director Jack Waller assigns Brooke Fairfax to the case. Because the synthetic opioid was created in a lab, the feds turn to the expertise of billionaire chemist Declan O'Roark, who is all too happy to lend a hand if it will bring him closer to Brooke.
As Brooke and Declan are forced to work together, Declan attempts to tear down the barriers around Brooke's heart. But when Brooke gets drawn into the depths of the outlaw motorcycle gang she's investigating, she and Declan both fear for her life.
Just days before the running of the biggest thoroughbred horse race in the world, an act of bioterrorism kills Kentucky's lieutenant governor, and former FBI Special Agent Brooke Fairfax receives a video of the murder from her long-time anonymous source. When Brooke discovers domestic terrorists are actually after the governor-her late husband's brother-and that the radicals are eyeing more targets, she heads to Kentucky to stop the threat.
Shortly after the political assassination, the FBI zeroes in on one person: international mogul Declan O'Roark. Though Brooke has been out of the game since her husband was murdered, her former boss thinks she is the perfect candidate to connect Declan to the crime.
Despite the FBI clearly establishing means and opportunity, Declan remains unfazed; his motives have nothing to do with murder, but with getting closer to Brooke Fairfax. And Brooke finds the case becoming even more unclear as she falls for the FBI's number-one suspect.
