Unwelcome (Men of the First Brigade #3)

After facing the wrong end of an IED, the Army decides they're done with me when I fail a mental eval. Like that, twenty-five years of my life go down the drain. I have no choice but to pull Plan B out of thin air, so after numerous surgeries, evaluations and assessments, I find myself back in upstate New York.

While growing up in Syracuse, I promised myself that if I ever got out I'd never come back. New York has nothing for me but bitter memories and regret and, as it turns out, a career with the FBI and something else completely unexpected: Giulia.

Giulia is a can of nitroglycerine, waiting to detonate, and she's everything I'm not: loud, flirtatious, crass, forward, and extremely comfortable in her own skin. Something about the combination makes me stupid, because when she's around I can hardly remember my own name.

When Giulia's job and her idiot boss put her in danger, I make a stupid move: I get personally involved. The last thing I'm ready for is the woman who swept into my life like a tsunami. But she's more than meets the eye, and when I need someone to hold me up, she's there without questions or recriminations.

Just when I've begun to understand I might have a chance at a normal life and actually being happy, I make a critical mistake and Giulia disappears without a trace. Not only do I know what I've lost, but I fear I've lost her to a group of ruthlessly organized individuals, the sort who require permanent silence. They're people she may have known her whole life: her own family.