Not long after Jordan Vance loses her job at a strip club for kicking someone who got handsy, a stranger tries to kill her in a grocery store parking lot. Enter professional killer Dennis, who intervenes with efficient brutality and saves her life. As he and Jordan drive to safety in her car—with the body of her recent assailant in the trunk—Dennis reveals that he’s been hired to protect her from Iranian general Qasim Vahidi, who wants to use her as leverage to keep her father, Michael, from revealing his crimes. This comes as news to Jordan, who thought both her parents were killed in a car accident years ago. It turns out that her dad was not merely an engineer, but also a consultant to foreign governments; the accident was an attempt by Gen. Vahidi’s operatives to silence Michael, who was a witness to some of the dictator’s horrific acts. Somehow Michael survived the accident, however, and he’s recently resurfaced. Now Dennis, a freelance operative for the British government, is on a mission to keep Jordan safe. Hotchkiss maintains a consistent pace, grabbing the reader from the opening brawl. Jordan, driven by revenge and a desperate need for freedom, appealingly refuses to be a passive victim and instead seizes the opportunity to form a lethal but lasting partnership with her protector. It’s satisfying to watch an underestimated protagonist get the better of heartless, misogynistic predators. Dennis initially inhabits the cliche of the stoic hit man: “This man had just killed another man in front of me, with the casual precision of someone dusting crumbs off their shirt.” As the story goes on, though, his heart of gold eventually overrides his professional demeanor. The romantic dynamic with Jordan is particularly refreshing in that she chooses not to hide behind Dennis; she’s a formidable character who uses his protective instincts to achieve her own violent ends.