Page 3 of Fallen Hero

“Just enjoying watching Ryan embarrass himself.”

Fallon didn’t look like he bought my excuse, but thankfully he dropped the subject.

Pete and Jack came back from cleaning up the range just as Cat was making her way to the starting box. The stage was simple, with a mix of paper and steel. Ryan should’ve been running circles around Cat’s time. But true to her word, the woman was damn fast and accurate.

Jack stopped behind Cat, glanced around him, taking a visual account of everyone.

One could never be too careful when playing with guns.

“Range hot,” Jack loudly called out. “Shooter ready?”

Cat’s hand hovered just above her holster.

“Ready,” she confirmed.

“Stand by.”

A moment later, the beep of the timer Jack was holding went off. A millisecond after that, Cat pulled her Glock from her Kydex holster—the draw so smooth and so fast, if I’d blinked, I would’ve missed it.

She double-tapped the first paper target, ran to the next station, leaned to the side to get a clean sight picture of the steel, and plinked each of the five down lightning quick. Without lowering her weapon, she released a mag, let it fall to the dirt, tipped her Glock to the right while her left hand pulled a new mag from her belt. She shoved it in, straightened the gun, and resumed firing, executing a perfect combat reload.

“Damn, that reload was quick.” Fallon mumbled my thought.

Watching her move through the stations was impressive as fuck. Every step she took purposeful, there was no wasted movement or breaths, and she counted her bullets like a pro, making sure she was never without ammo for the shots she needed to take.

Cat knocked down the last steel target, and Jack stopped the clock to call out her time.

“Fastest run yet,” he proudly announced.

Cat tipped her head back and beamed a megawatt smile at her man.

An emotion I’d never felt before slithered up my spine and made my gut uneasy. An emotion that felt a lot like jealousy. It wasn’t that I’d never had a woman look at me like that. It was that one had never looked at me with so much love and actually meant it.

Love was a bullshit farce unless it was Catarina Keys beaming a smile at her man. Then I believed it. Or it was Mia smiling at her man, Cole. Then I trusted it. Any woman beyond those two, I didn’t trust or believe. Women were lying and manipulative and only loved a man until they got what they wanted, then they bailed.

My phone vibrating in my pocket pulled me from thoughts that were really memories I’d done everything I could do over the last two decades to forget. And I’d done a damn fine job of forgetting her but remembering the lessons she’d taught me.

Never again would I be someone’s fool.

I yanked my phone free, glanced at the screen, and frowned.

A text from a number not programmed into my contacts.

I positioned the phone to read my face and opened the text.

What do you say about a trip to Abu Dhabi? I could use some backup.

The left side of my chest started pounding.

Just to be sure, even though I was fairly certain I knew who that was from, I texted back, Who is this?

CV

Calista Ventura.

Fuck me.

I shot back another message.