Burned Asset
He recruits people to risk everything. She’s what happens when it goes wrong.
Colton Barnes spent fifteen years as a CIA case officer, recruiting and running informants in places where trust is currency and betrayal is inevitable. He’s good at it. Too good. Shadow Ops brought him in to penetrate the human network behind an international arms pipeline—to find the people, turn them, and use what they know. It’s the work he was built for.
Talia Bachman was an asset once. Another handler, another agency, another promise that her service would be valued and her safety guaranteed. That promise was broken. She lost her relationships, her safety, and nearly her life. She rebuilt in Blossom Springs, working at the library, staying invisible, trusting no one who carried a government credential.
When Colton’s investigation intersects with Talia’s past—the network she once informed on has evolved into the pipeline he’s hunting—she becomes both the key to his mission and the woman who makes him question everything about how he’s conducted it.
In Blossom Springs, some assets refuse to be burned twice.
