Sean McPherson

When a sniper killed his partner, Sean McPherson was injured in the ambush. Now an ex-cop, he takes a job at a writing retreat in the Pacific Northwest. At Pines & Quill, he hopes to heal and put his life back together in the Zen-like capacity of groundskeeper and all-around handyman. Sniper, Jason Hughes, blames McPherson for the loss of more than 10 million dollars’ worth of heroinand he wants revenge.

Burdened by the pressing weight of survivor’s guilt, Sean McPherson, an ex-cop, is desperate for redemption. At Pines & Quill, a writer’s retreat in the Pacific Northwest, he and his fiancée, Emma Benton, are planning their lives together. He wants to go back into law enforcement. She plans to walk again. Georgio “The Bull” Gambino, head of a Seattle-based crime family, has a long reach. Like cockroaches, his minions infiltrate even the most inaccessible of places to do his bidding.

In the village of Fairhaven—nestled between Washington state’s Bellingham Bay and the Cascade Mountains, home to writers’ retreat Pines & Quill—friends and family have gathered for the union of Sean McPherson and Emma Benton. Sean has been working with the FBI and local police to help solve crimes, particularly murders bearing the mark of crime boss Georgio “The Bull” Gambino. Emma, who has just learned to walk again, has begun to feel at home and hopes to one day raise a family.

Crime boss Georgio Gambino abducts Sean “Mick” McPherson’s pregnant wife, Emma, and his friend’s two daughters and contracts to sell them and another group of women—some into forced labor, others as sex slaves, and a few for their organs. Gambino confines three best friends—Mick, a PI; Joe, a homicide detective; and Rafferty, an FBI special agent—to Pines & Quill writing retreat and pits them against each other with a warning: “Mick, if you try to save Emma, I’ll kill Joe’s daughters.