I sit in the dark for a long time, staring at the dead screen until my eyes bug out and my body aches from exhaustion. Then I glance at the kitchen clock—12:17 a.m. My pulse is still hammering from Marcus’s face on the news and the neat little lie a coroner told about a phone and a bathtub. No way that was the truth. No way a cell phone could produce that much juice, but there's no way I can prove it, either.
Sleep is a joke, but the body eventually betrays you. I go through the motions—toothbrush, tank top, sleep shorts. The mirror shows a woman with hollow eyes and a mouth that’s forgotten how to relax. I've been watching over my shoulder for days now feeling like any second, I'm next, and I don’t think the otherseven know what's happening. If so, why would Marcus have been so vulnerable to be found in his fucking bathtub like that?
My assignment brief scrolls behind my eyelids as I rinse and spit. I'm supposed to be taking down military-grade weapons smugglers while I'm here, and that work is the type of shit that makes a difference in this world. But my past is haunting me everywhere I go. I see his eyes. I fear his touch.
I hunch over my sink as a wave of nausea threatens to soil my mouth after just cleaning it. But fuck if I can't even think straight knowing that sick fuck got away with it. It makes me grit my teeth and clench my eyes shut until the rage passes.
Captain Jason Bryan is still breathing free air—after what he did to me. After what he made all of us do. I know what he did to silence them all. Proof rotted somewhere in a classified folder no one will ever unseal. Instinct is all I have left, and instinct says the bodies stacking up are his signature written in arterial spray.
I slide into bed and the sheets are cold. But my palm finds the Glock under the pillow—full clip, round chambered, safety off. It's how I've slept for the past two years, and how I'll sleep every night the rest of my life until I feel safe. If I ever feel safe again…
I force my breathing to slow, four-count in, four-count hold, four-count out. It's a ritual the psyche doctor gave me after coming home. He thought I had PTSD—you fucking think? My CO rapes me to keep me silent after his dirty shit and I'm supposed to come home whole? That was never going to happen.
But after thirty minutes of my breathing exercise, sleep drags me down like wet cement.
My dreams are jagged and broken, memories of things that happened, nighttime hallucinations of things I fear will happen.I'm in a heavy REM cycle when the front door sighs open, and like a mother hearing a crying infant, I'm instantly awake.
My eyes snap wide. Adrenaline detonates through every vein before my brain finishes booting up. I’m already moving—silent roll off the mattress, bare feet on cold floor, Glock in a two-hand grip as I slip off the bed.
Streetlight leaks through the blinds across the floor, and I melt against the bedroom wall beside the doorframe, muzzle tracking the sound. My breath is shallow, heart loud but steady.
I can't even snag onto a conscious thought. It all happens so fast. My body moves of its own accord as my training kicks in. You don’t make it all the way to the Seventy-Fifth Rangers Regiment without being the best of the best, and whoever the fuck thinks they can hunt us down one by one is going to fucking work for it tonight.
The door eases inward and a silhouette fills it—broad, balanced, moving stealthily like he's done this a lot. And it's not Bryan. I can see that immediately. This man is larger and not clean cut. He glides toward the bed, eyes fixed on the mattress as if unadjusted to the light yet, which gives me the advantage.
I step out behind him and hold my gun on aim, ready to pull the trigger to defend myself because I know I'll need to, but I say, “Don’t fucking move,” and for a second, he listens.
Exactly one second.
Then he spins like a snake, whipping his arm up to bat away my Glock, which drops to the ground and falls under the bed somewhere. His other hand clamps my wrist and twists until my bone grinds. Pain flares white-hot up my arm, but I’m alreadydriving my left fist up under his jaw. His teeth click and his head snaps back, and I fucking hope it hurts.
We both dive for the Glock as it skitters across the floor. His fingers close on the grip first, but before he can bring it up, my knee drives into his ribs with everything I have. Cartilage snaps like dry kindling and he folds forward with a sharp, involuntary grunt. And that half-second is all I need. I rip the pistol from his weakened hand, roll away, and come up on one knee with the muzzle already centered on his chest.
He recovers faster than I expect and comes at me low before I can get a shot off. His shoulder spears into my midsection like a linebacker. The impact lifts me off my feet and slams me to the wall, then he drops me to the floor. My spine hits hardwood and the air explodes from my lungs in a silent scream.
Black spots swarm my vision as his weight settles on me and his hands lock around my throat, thumbs crushing my windpipe. I claw at his hands for a moment before I realize it's so stupid. I'm better than this. I'm not letting him beat me. He's bigger, but I'm prepared.
I slap at the nightstand until fingers find the familiar shape of the Bench-made knife magnetically mounted underneath. The blade flicks open with the touch of a button and I drive it straight down into the meat of his thigh. Steel sinks deep, scraping bone before lodging tightly. A gush of hot blood splatters my face and neck.
He roars in pain and his grip falters for a fraction of a second, and that's enough. I twist hard, buck my hips, and throw him sideways, and he crashes onto his back where I follow, rolling on top and pinning his arm with my knee while the Glock presses against his forehead.
His left hand clamps over the protruding handle, trying to stem the thick pulses of blood that pour between his fingers and drum onto the floor. I reach over and slap the light switch.
The overhead bulb flares to life.
The man bleeding beneath me is a stranger—mid-thirties, dark hair, hazel eyes, square jaw shadowed with stubble. No one I've ever seen before in my life. It's a sickening realization. Bryan didn't even have the fucking balls to send a friendly to finish his shit work. He sent a stranger.
I keep the barrel welded to his skull. My voice comes out almost robotic. It's what I was trained to do, and it's so engrained in me, I can't deviate.
“Who sent you?” I ask, chest heaving.
He stares up at me, pain glazing his eyes, but something colder and sharper moves behind it. He's a professional watching his plan collapse.
"And I want to know who else is on your fucking list…"
3
JACE
