Alexandra 'Alex' Polonia is an agent with TSD.
She will be, after a bit of trouble that she will encounter while, unfortunately, trying to take a vacation from other trouble. It does seems to follow her around, or as in that first trouble, be waiting for her arrival.
TSD stands for Teton Security and Defense. As it is initially told to her, it is a private company started by an experienced former government operative named Christopher Campbell and the company is, in the words of her close friend who recommends her to it, "TSD is the real thing. He doesn't do warehouse security - unless it's full of high-grade military equipment or other valuable stuff. His clients are governments, international businesses, and very rich individuals. He's ex-CIA and employs only the best. It's a growing field, especially these days".
Its main office is a modern glass façade building on Rhode Island Avenue in Washington, DC, its lobby manned by "three outsize, sports-coated guards, the two uniformed women at the front desk, and the NFL-tackle-sized man near the bank of elevators made it clear the building was well defended." The firm is a large one and still growing having offices in 23 countries.
Polonia comes to the company by way of an adventure (the first recorded one) which would show most anyone her capabilities of handling extremely dangerous and difficult situations. She came to that trouble while trying to clear her mind off a different type of problem back home in her native Cleveland, Ohio.
That homegrown issue was brought to her by her ex-husband who had a profitable business on the side manufacturing meth. That was bad enough since Polonia was a police detective at the time. Said scum-bag ex-hubby had turned state's witness against his partner cops to get a lighter sentence (still 12 years) and admitted that his then wife had nothing to do with the enterprise. Her boss believed it but not many others did and her name was fully tarnished, prompting a desire to get away.
Which is what caused the 42-year-old Alex Polonia to head to Venice, a place she'd always wanted to visit, and to a new totally different type of trouble and thereafter, a whole new profession in the private security world. She fit in just fine.