February, 1861, violence increases on settlements along the Kansas-Missouri border when Kansas is admitted to the Union as a free state. Alexandra Stratford's family are the victims of one such raid. She knows that it isn't the work of Missouri bushwhackers but of that of a much more sinister source, and she searches for a mercenary to help her avenge her family. She is led to Logan Drake. He isn't interested in helping her until he hears who it is she is going after. Too late, she realizes that the bold, brash, and darkly handsome mercenary is not who he says he is, that he has an agenda of his own to satisfy and may be using her to achieve it. Both have their secrets, but hers may get him killed. As their harrowing quest takes them from the evils of a Missouri plantation to a spy ring in the Nation's Capital, a love develops between Alex and Logan, but will it withstand the trial of trust and the horrors of the Civil War?