Part 2
Caleb closed the final gap between us. Uncle Mitch wore a triumphant grin, fully expecting the hardened Green Beret to aggressively dress me down in front of the gathering. Instead, Caleb ignored Mitch completely. He drew his heels together with a sharp snap that echoed across the wooden deck. His broad shoulders squared, his chin lowered slightly, and...
Part 2
No one laughed.
Owen remained at parade rest until I nodded. Only then did he relax, though his eyes stayed on Ray.
My mother, Elaine, stepped from the screen door. “Instructor?”
“Sergeant Major Maddox ran advanced survival and resistance training at Fort Liberty,” Owen said. “My team completed her course two years ago.”
Ray waved him off. “You have the wrong woman.”
“I...
The ocean does not care who you are, what medals you wear, or how many times you survived a war zone when the storm hits and the water turns black. My name is Sarah Chun. Six months ago, I traded the classified chaos of Southeast Asia for the supposed quiet of Millbrook, a coastal town where everybody knows your...
The surgical tray hit the polished floor of St. Catherine’s Medical Center with a metallic crash that shattered the quiet 3:47 a.m. shift, and instantly, twenty pairs of eyes locked onto me. "Jesus Christ, Thompson! Do your hands ever stop shaking, or is this just your natural state of incompetence?" Dr. Marcus Reed sneered, stepping over the scattered scalpels...
Seventeen years of critical care nursing teach you how to read a dying room in less than a second, but nothing prepared me for the man collapsing against the gate window at Washington Dulles International Airport. I was already running on borrowed time, my carry-on dragging behind me like dead weight after a three-car pileup on the interstate nearly...
The Belgian Malinois named Zara didn't bark, which was why Major General Conrad Styles didn't notice her until he was four steps inside the Naval Special Warfare Memorial Hall. I kept my left hand looped loosely in her worn leather leash, my spine straight against the third-row folding chair, my eyes locked on the elevated stage where the day's...
The heavy glass door of May’s Diner slammed behind me with a sharp ring that vanished instantly beneath the relentless hum of the overhead fluorescents, but my boots didn’t stop moving until my spine was firmly pressed against the cool, splintered wood of the back booth. In Milhaven, Texas, a town so flat you could watch your dog run...
The cold river water was already clawing at my shins when Loto slammed the heavy iron door shut, locking the female Navy SEAL inside the drowning room. I was just Pike, the guy who tied the boats at Andre Costa's illegal delta shipping hub in Louisiana, a ghost trying to survive three years of brutal silence. But the look...
My name is Jack Mercer, a former Chicago homicide detective turned private investigator, and right now, my ribs are cracking beneath a steel-toed boot.
Cold rain lashed against my face, washing away the metallic taste of blood pooling in my mouth. The sulfurous reek of gunpowder hung heavy in the damp air of the abandoned shipping yard on the outskirts...
My name is Captain Aara Voss, and right now, the air is thick with the scent of JP-8 jet fuel and the copper tang of my own fear as I sprint across the wet, freezing tarmac of the airbase. The tower lights are still aggressively blinking, warning sirens screaming a violent alert that splits the rainy night wide open,...
