CHAPTER ONE

      “I’LL TAKE HER.”

      Luke Williams couldn’t get his eyes off the petite soldier who was fighting a man more than twice her size. It was better than any mixed martial arts match he’d ever seen on TV. He was standing outside the Plexiglas window of a ten-foot by ten-foot cube that had been designed to train soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. Except Sergeant Alessa Parrino didn’t need any training; she was literally kicking his best man to the floor. This one wasn’t made from the typical army mold.

      “Oh, no you won’t, Lieutenant.”

      Luke turned to his commanding officer, Colonel Michael McBride. “I thought the last unit member was my call.”

      “It is. You’re just not hiring her.”

      Luke bit the inside of his cheek, keeping his voice neutral and friendly. “You have a concern, sir?”

      The colonel raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “Have you read her file?”

      Luke knew why the colonel was asking if Luke really wanted Alessa Parrino for his unit.

      “Why did you let her apply and go through the test?”

      “So I could check the box that we gave equal opportunity for this unit. You know how it is these days.”

      “A woman could be an asset for us.” Luke said evenly. He’d worked with McBride long enough to realize the old man still wasn’t used to the idea that the army was letting women into special ops.

      “I don’t see how. You get injured on the field, that hundred-and-thirty-pound girl isn’t gonna carry your two hundred and twenty pounds to safety.”

      Luke watched Parrino extend her hand to the fallen soldier to help him up. Bad move. Rodgers was one of his dirtiest fighters; that was why Luke had used him for this exercise. All the other unit members had been handpicked by Luke’s predecessor. Luke wanted the open position to be filled by someone of his choosing, a member who would be loyal to him. He needed someone on the inside to help him with what he planned.

      Rodgers took Parrino’s hand and predictably used her weaker position to pull downward while sliding his leg across the floor to kick her legs out from under her. Classic. Can’t believe she fell for it.

      “Don’t go easy on her ’cause she’s a girl,” the colonel hooted even though the sparring soldiers couldn’t hear him through the cube.

      Luke resisted the urge to make a smart-aleck comment. He was on thin ice as it was. Parrino jumped a millisecond before Rodgers’s leg would have connected and used the downward momentum her rival had created to bend her arm and bring her elbow down on the other soldier’s solar plexus.

      Nice!

      Both Luke and Colonel McBride flinched at the look of sheer agony on Rodgers’s face.

      Luke slapped the Plexiglas wall, opening the door. “All right, Parrino, you’re done.” The last thing he needed was for one of his men to end up in the hospital. The unit was less than a month away from being fully operational. That meant he’d get to take his men and fly to an undisclosed location, far away from Colonel Pain-in-the-Neck, who would stay here at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, kissing up to the Pentagon.

      Parrino released her grip on the soldier’s throat and stood. Her eyes still alert for another attack, she walked toward Luke and stepped outside. She stood in front of Luke and the colonel and saluted. Barely five foot four, Parrino had short dark hair pulled neatly into a ponytail, golden-brown eyes and cream-colored skin tinged pink around her cheeks and nose. Her breathing was even and her expression relaxed. A shiny forehead was the only indication that she’d broken a sweat.

      “Well done, Parrino.” Luke acknowledged.

      She nodded curtly. They stared at her, and to her credit, her face remained impassive, back straight with a stance worthy of a recruitment poster. Luke tilted his head toward his office. “Wait there.” He didn’t offer her water or a chance to go to the bathroom; he needed to see her mettle.

      “Rodgers, you’re done. Go get cleaned up.” The man would never live down this exercise. It was the first one he’d lost, but the unit members wouldn’t let him forget the fact that he’d been taken down by a woman half his size.

      As soon as Rodgers was out of earshot, the colonel placed a hand on Luke’s shoulder. He wanted more than anything to smack it away. “Williams,