“He’ll shoot us anyway,” Toro said.
She took the opportunity to convey her strategy. “Then we should treat him exactly like that snake.”
“I hear you,” Toro said, giving her a knowing look before goading Doc. “I saved his life once, and this is the thanks I get.”
Doc frowned at Toro. “You never saved my life. What the hell are you talking about?”
Dani took full advantage, inching sideways. While the two men argued over a past assignment they had been on together, she managed to circle around behind Doc.
Just like they had done with the cobra. Toro had understood her.
She would have only one chance to strike. Lowering her body, she planted her left leg and lashed out with her right foot, connecting with the back of Doc’s knees, buckling them. She knew his natural impulse would be to raise his arms to steady himself, which is what he did. For a split second the muzzle of the gun pointed straight up. She used that moment to drive her shoulder into his back, pitching him forward.
Toro grabbed for the gun, but Doc was too fast. He got off a shot that went wide, but Dani was on him before he could pull the trigger again. With practiced efficiency, she proceeded to deliver a barrage of knee and elbow strikes to every part of his body within reach.
Toro drove his fist to Doc’s face, briefly disorienting him. Dani wrapped her hands around the pistol’s slide, preventing it from firing, and hung on tight.
Doc’s hand was firmly wrapped around the grip. Unfortunately for him, his index finger was still on the trigger, pulling it frantically in a fruitless attempt to fire the weapon.
She had one play, and she made it, wrenching the pistol to the side with all the force she could muster.
Doc shrieked in pain when his wrist bent at an unnatural angle, crushing his finger in the trigger guard. Dani gave another ruthless twist, yanking the gun in the opposite direction.
Doc’s howl resounded through the room, echoing off the concrete walls. Like a wounded beast, he channeled his anguish and rage into renewed strength. He kicked her thigh, and pain shot like an electric current along the femoral nerve in her quadriceps.
Toro dove onto Doc’s back, taking them all to the ground. Doc landed on top of her, with the pistol trapped between them.
The impact of two men crashing down onto her squeezed the breath from Dani’s lungs. Darkness crept in around the edges of her vision. She knew she had only seconds to act.
The pistol’s slide began to slip through her sweaty fingers while Doc angled the muzzle toward her stomach. Getting gutshot in the middle of this deadly game would spell her death. She kept one hand where it was and moved the other to pry Doc’s finger from the trigger, resulting in another shriek of pain. He would have already shot her if she hadn’t injured his trigger finger and grasped the slide.
Toro smashed his fist into Doc’s temple, stunning him for an instant. Taking full advantage of his momentary disorientation, she wrapped her hand around Doc’s. Grunting with the effort, she rotated the barrel in the opposite direction and laid her index finger on top of his.
“Stop,” she said through gritted teeth, giving him one last chance. If he didn’t take it, this would only end with one of them dead.
His response was to push the muzzle back toward her abdomen. Before he could maneuver the weapon into position, she squeezed Doc’s index finger—still caught under hers—and pulled the trigger.
She felt the vibration from the explosion through her sternum. The gun was still trapped between their bodies, muffling its report. Doc stiffened, his eyes widening in shock; then he slumped onto her.
Deadweight.
She had not taken a life since leaving the Army. The possibility of deadly force always lurked in the background in her new career, but it was not the unseen ever-present companion it had been before. Nemesis had forced her into a position where she would dredge up all her previous training. Was Toro right? She had already lied and killed. Would she have to cheat and steal as the game progressed?
Toro heaved Doc’s limp form off Dani. “Son of a bitch fought like hell.”
She didn’t bother to point out that Doc had been fighting for his life. Instead, she shoved the gun into the top of her boot and bent to lay two fingers on the side of Doc’s neck. “Nothing.”
“Quit worrying about saving people,” Toro said. “Or we’ll never get out of here.”
She glanced up at him. “Spoiler alert. No one’s getting out of here alive.” She looked back at Doc. “That’s the whole point.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Remember what Nemesis said during the little intro speech?” she asked him. “We’re all a bunch of killers. We’re expendable. He views us as gladiators fighting to the death for his amusement.” She looked at him. “We’re killing each other because he tells us to.”
“You mean like being a gun for hire?” Toro said, indignant. “Like what I do for a living?”
He had almost blown her cover with that comment. “What we do to earn money isn’t the issue,” she said quickly, trying to repair any potential damage. “Now isn’t the time for this discussion anyway,” she added.
Perhaps the stress of the game had gotten to him, or maybe he’d been friends with Doc, but he had taken her remark as a personal insult and was lashing out in response.
“Like I told you before, you killed plenty of people in the military,” Toro said. “People you never met. And you did it on someone else’s orders for money, only you call it a salary.” He gestured back and forth between them. “We’re no different.”
She got to her feet. “We could not be more different.”
He took a step closer. “You think you’re special because you were a Ranger? You—”
She drove her knuckles into his throat, cutting off his air and ending his words.
He sank to his knees, coughing and sputtering.
“I told you that was a pickup line,” she said, trying to play it off. “For some stupid reason, I was trying to impress you.”
He continued to clutch his throat as the color drained from his face. “Sorry, honey,” he finally managed, voice rasping.
She summed up the situation in one word. “Shit.”
CHAPTER 36
Nemesis sped the video feed backward a few seconds, then played it again.
“You think you’re special because you were a Ranger? You—”
Then the throat punch. The look they exchanged followed by her lame attempt to gloss over his comment. There was no doubt about it. They were hiding something.
Nemesis had learned the hard way about secrets. They ruined lives, destroyed fortunes, and got people killed. After all, they were the reason behind the game.
Toro had called her a ranger. Did he mean a Texas Ranger? A forest ranger? Nikki Corazón had claimed she was trying to impress him. She was a soldier, so being part of an elite Army unit would be impressive.
But there weren’t any female Army Rangers. The training was too physically and mentally demanding. On the other hand, if a woman did somehow manage to succeed, that would be newsworthy, right?
Nemesis rolled the black leather swivel chair to the main computer and typed FEMALE ARMY RANGERS into a search engine. Several stories popped up. The first women completed Ranger training in 2015. After that, a handful had gone on to join the 75th Ranger Regiment, one even leading an infantry platoon in combat.
None of the stories featured Nicola Corazón. Maybe she had been bragging to pick up Toro at a bar. Official government archives had already revealed Corazón’s military career. She had been regular Army. No special forces. No commendations. Nothing unusual except the dishonorable discharge that cut her service short.
Law enforcement agencies weren’t the only ones with facial recognition technology. Nemesis digitized and uploaded Corazón’s face to conduct a full-spectrum sweep of all available media sources.
Hundreds of pictures populated the screen, including everything from school yearbook pictures going back to kindergarten to social media fluff. A few commands narrowed the search to anything containing the term ranger.
A feature story in a neighborhood newspaper with limited distribution in the Bronx popped up. The headline read LOCAL TRAILBLAZER OVERCOMES TRAGIC PAST. Squinting at the photo of a newly minted Ranger beneath the banner, Nemesis looked past the shaved head and camos to pick out the recognizable features of Nikki Corazón’s face. Only the news story identified her as Daniela Vega.
Damn.
Who was Daniela Vega? According to the story, she was a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx who had made her community proud by being among the first women to become a Ranger in the 75th Regiment out of Fort Benning, Georgia.
The articles mentioned a trauma in Vega’s past. Fingers jabbing the keyboard with unnecessary force, Nemesis went through layer after layer in a search for anything from the Bronx involving a family named Vega. It didn’t take long to spot a headline dating back nine years.