After losing custody of her young son, security specialist Hannah Nicks has one goal: earn enough money to retire and raise her child. The fastest way to accomplish that is to take on a covert, privately funded mission in the Middle East, and in a war fueled more by money than morality, Hannah is on only one side--her own. When the opportunity arises to do a little extra business, rescuing a kidnapped American doctor and retrieving a handsome reward, Hannah figures Why not? But when the mission ends badly, she discovers the price of her risks: the loss of a young ally, the reward money and her reputation.

Two years later, Hannah is back in Los Angeles, no closer to gaining custody, more uncertain of her fitness as a mother and even less in demand for employment.

But when a chance encounter leads to the man who ruined her mission in Iraq, Hannah plans to even the score. Now she's got another shot at unraveling a tangled web of lies and treachery that, she soon discovers, could drag America to its knees. Her only ally is a cop who has burned a few too many bridges himself, a man who understands that the odds are always better when you have nothing left to lose.