The Ghost Protocol

She reads liars for a living. He's the first man she can't. Vivian Mercer has twelve million listeners and one rule she has never broken. Follow the evidence, not the feeling. Then a recording lands on the private line only four people have. Eight seconds. One voice, pitch-shifted and scared. One sentence. Ask Gideon Cole what he buried the night Delilah Hart disappeared. Spring melt has surfaced bone in the hills above Cold Creek, Montana. Every thread runs back to a man with no photographs and no past anyone can verify, holed up on eleven hundred acres at the end of a road that was never built for visitors. Vivian drives up to take him apart on tape. Her brake lines are cut before she reaches his gate. Gideon Cole pulls her out of the wreck, looks at her like he's known her for years, and tells her she's staying. He isn't the man the file says he is. He's worse. He's better. Every hour on Black Pine makes the difference harder to find, and the men who finally have a name to hang on the ghost are already climbing the mountain. She came to bury him. He's the only reason she's still breathing. Some men hide bodies. He hid the truth. Dark Romance, Romantic Suspense, Morally Grey Protector, Explicit Open Door, Slow Burn with a high-heat pay-off. Standalone romance with a cliffhanger lead into Book Two. Content notes inside.