Three years ago, Ham retired to a quiet life in the remote desert of Northern Mexico. Realizing what she was doing would likely end in her death, she severed all ties, disappearing across international borders. Her retirement ended abruptly with a single message. The sole person in the world Ham feels the least bit of loyalty to is in trouble, in need not only of Ham but of the very skills that put her into hiding. Acting against every ingrained maxim, and ignoring the myriad warning signs popping up along the way, Ham returns north to find a great deal has changed in her time away. The world moved on, evolving in ways she would have never imagined. From local gang affiliates to the Los Angeles Police Department, everybody seems to be involved in something, all of it somehow leading back to a woman. A woman relying entirely on Ham to get her through…

On an isolated stretch of desert highway, Josh Reston is pulled over in the dead of night. By all accounts, he is a quiet, unassuming young man from the woods of Western Pennsylvania with a busted taillight. Until the arresting officer discovers more than a hundred pounds of cocaine and ten thousand dollars in cash stowed in the undercarriage of his vehicle. Brought to jail in the middle of the night, he offers to share everything he knows about the man he works for, Edgar Santos, and the operation Santos runs in exchange for the guaranteed safety of his family back home. Less than two months on the job, the offer reeks of everything Assistant District Attorney Dina Chadwick despises about the legal system. No part of her even wants to consider it, a feeling outweighed only by the intrigue of finally getting something concrete on Santos. Unsure how to proceed, if the claims Reston is making are even true, she decides to step outside the traditional order. Beginning with a simple phone call, she has no idea the person who ultimately answers will be Ham, a woman just recently released from self-imposed exile and aching to get back to doing what she does best. And with more than ample reasons of her own to get Even…

“Those guys might have been brutal, but they built this place from the ground up by implementing a code. Rules for the rest of us to follow.” Retired Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Detective Solomon Hill hasn’t heard the name in years. A man he hasn’t thought about since sending him away more than two decades prior for attempted murder. One of the biggest arrests of his entire career, a person the the world is better off without. Or so it was for the last twenty-one years in the time prior to his sudden inclusion on a list of governor’s pardons. A free pass undoing all that occurred, releasing a man with a short fuse and a long list of people he holds responsible for what happened. People that Hill still feels responsible for, even if his current physical condition will no longer allow him to make good on it. Low on time and options, Hill does the only think he can think of, calling in an old marker—a favor owed from his early days on the force, extended from one of the last vestiges of the original Las Vegas. Someone accustomed to handling issues in a way Hill isn’t accustomed to. Three hundred miles to the south, Ham muddles her way through the final months of a slow winter. Endless hours spent training for an unknown opponent, each day without the phone ringing heightening her desire for action. The need to be moving again, unable to feel fully alive without the adrenaline of the job after years spent relegated to the sidelines. A craving that sends her hurtling up out of the desert the instant she hears what happened in Las Vegas... Right into a head-on collision with a deadly opponent.

Never did I imagine her triggering the self-destruct. The absolute last resort, for when things were so bad there was no choice but to wipe it all away. A means of escape made possible by obliterating all that was forty years in the making. Destruction that is complete and total, all but a basic outline of the two main structures reduced to rubble. Charred and debris flung outward in a wide arc. A dark smudge of black and gray against a pristine white background. APPLESAUCE. One word. Ten letters. All capitals. This safe word was drilled into Ham time and again as she was growing up. A phrase meant to let her and the numerous other girls passing through the refuge know danger was near. One of the various forms of evil they were all hiding from had somehow found them tucked deep in the Idaho wilderness. A simple term Ham never once heard put to use during her formative years there, the numerous precautions taken to keep them safe more than sufficient. Defenses that have now somehow fallen short, meaning that when the single word arrives in her texts from an unknown number late one night, there is no doubting the sender or the unspoken meaning behind it. She needed to get to Idaho. Now. Just minutes removed from her most recent assignment, Ham begins her trek north. A mad dash through the night where she arrives to find the only home she’s ever known destroyed. The closest thing to family she has left forced to go on the run. It’s the beginning of a sprint far more intense than anything she’s ever encountered. A race to find her surrogate relations and keep them safe while unraveling the various forces and motivations acting against them. A list of possibilities that goes back decades, with reach and resources far greater than anything Ham could have imagined...

“It’s time for you to go be who you are, or the next time something happens, you won’t be any help to any of us.” Two months ago, the unthinkable happened. Ham’s family was attacked, pulling her back to the wilds of Idaho from her life on the opposite end of the country. A return trip that saw her do whatever was necessary to protect them, culminating not just with the removal of the threat, but in the destruction of the only home she – or the many young girls who now live there – have ever known. Forced on the run across state lines, the time since has been spent slowly rebuilding. A process Ham has willingly engaged in, consciously putting the growing restlessness within her at arm’s length. A calling from both the life she had built and the skills she worked so hard to attain. A second self-imposed exile that ends with her handler reaching out. Contact he wouldn’t normally dare make, if not for the extreme nature of a new case he knew would speak to her personally, paralleling something they both witnessed during their time in the military together. Seven hundred miles away, a vicious attack known as an annihilation has taken place. A coordinated strike, encompassing three different sites, all aimed at a particular family. Three generations of an agricultural dynasty completely wiped from the earth in a single night. The event completely upends the small community where they reside and draws Ham into a much different role than what she’s accustomed to. A partnership with local law enforcement that takes her from the small towns dotting the western half of Oregon to the capital city of Portland seeking the people and reasons behind such an attack. A search that eventually becomes a hunt, at long last letting the true nature kept bottled for months rise back to the surface...

“You remember the other night, in the bus, when you were telling me about how the whole world comes alive when you’re up on that stage? Well, this is my stage.” On the third stop of a nationwide stadium tour designed to skyrocket Blaze and her band into superstardom, the unthinkable happens. The guard posted outside of her dressing room vanishes without a trace, and in his place, a bloodstained knife pins a single, chilling note. You’ve been warned. In the aftermath of the incident, Blaze’s management team faces a difficult decision. The guard’s body was never found, and no one has any idea who could be behind it—or what message they’re trying to send. Ignoring it entirely and risking the lives of everyone associated isn’t an option, but neither is going to the police and jeopardizing the entire tour over what could be nothing more than a hoax. Backed into a corner, they choose a third option. They make a call to the wilds of Montana, where Ham has been dealing with her own incident—one that still lingers at the front of her mind as she reluctantly boards a flight, immersing herself in the chaos of life on the road. A new city and venue every night. A constant battle to ensure Blaze’s safety while she’s onstage. An unrelenting search for answers about what really happened outside that dressing room. Was it a cruel prank? Or something far more sinister? Most importantly, is one of the tens of thousands of screaming fans packed in tight every night responsible? Or are they merely a diversion for someone else waiting to make their move…