Fuse by Ellie Masters
A brilliant analyst who’s forgotten how to speak. A broken soldier who’s forgotten how to feel. And an AI that’s hunting them both.
Three years of emotional abuse taught Talia Singh one lesson: silence is survival. Now the former FBI behavioral analyst speaks in fragments—two words, three if she’s feeling reckless—and lets her data do the talking. When she witnesses a professional hit and uncovers evidence of a corporate conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of power, she has forty-eight hours to disappear. The only thing standing between her and a kill order is a man who communicates even less than she does.
Jonah Jackson doesn’t do rescue missions anymore. Not after a betrayal in Syria cost him his team, his trust, and every reason to care whether he lives or dies. As Cerberus Security’s demolitions expert, he prefers explosives to emotions—at least C-4 is predictable. But when he’s assigned to extract a silent, infuriating analyst from Chicago, he discovers she’s the most dangerous thing he’s ever encountered: a puzzle he can’t solve.
She reads patterns in data. He reads patterns in threats. Together, they’re being hunted by Phoenix—a rogue AI that predicts their every move before they make it. As they race through compromised safe houses and corporate kill zones, the friction between the analyst and the operator ignites something neither expected. Talia sees the protector beneath the scars. Jackson sees the fire beneath the silence.
But Phoenix is learning. Adapting. And the only variable that matters now is time.
They’re running out.
