Charismatic cult leader Mordecai Young was brought down in a government raid on the Young Believers compound sixteen years ago. So were most of his teenage followers. But not all of them. Jewel and Lizzie were making their escape with Lizzie’s baby girl when the compound caught fire. Lizzie was hit in the crossfire, and begged Jewel to save her baby, fathered by the cult leader.

Sixteen years later, Jewel has transformed herself. She is respected Syracuse news Anchor Julie Jones and lives on a crystal blue Lake with her sixteen-year-old daughter Dawn*. Only one person alive knows their true history—a senator’s brother who who is using it to blackmail her—until he turns up murdered.

Sean MacKenzie is an irreverent radio shock jock who just landed the co-anchor chair opposite his best enemy, Julie Jones. Viewers love the sparks that fly between them on-air. Behind the scenes, those sparks are even more volatile. But Sean knows Julie is keeping secrets about the murder of the senator’s brother. She was there, is acting nervous as hell, and if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s uncovering secrets.

But Mordecai didn’t die in that fire, despite that Jewel stepped over his broken body with his child in her arms and left him to burn as she made her escape. He survived, and now he’s back for vengeance, determined to claim his daughter and punish those who betrayed him, beginning with Julie Jones.

*Dawn is the heroine of Book 4, Killing Me Softly