My husband’s family never knew I had once been an MMA champion. At my mother-in-law’s BBQ, my brother-in-law poured beer over my head. My husband stood up and told him to apologize to me. He laughed, shoved my husband, then punched him in the mouth. He told me to sit down because it didn’t concern me. Then he grabbed my wrist... and that’s when my sister-in-law started screaming.

The rain had begun to fall in thin, needle-like sheets by the time Ryan pulled the Subaru into the dead-end alley adjacent to our apartment complex. The city lights smeared across the windshield in streaks of amber and crimson. I killed the headlights fifty yards out, letting the car roll on momentum alone into the shadow of a commercial dumpster.

"Engine off. Keys in your pocket," I whispered. My voice was stripped of emotion, locked into the cold cadence of fight week. "Check the alley fire escapes."

Ryan didn't flinch. He slipped the Glock from his lap into the inside pocket of his jacket, his movements measured. "Third floor, North ladder. Shadow just moved behind the rust grate."

I smiled faintly. Three years of coaching him at shooting ranges and teaching him basic situational awareness hadn't gone to waste. "That's Scout One. Standard high-ground overwatch. Scout Two will be at street level, tucked near the electrical junction boxes to intercept anyone taking the back fire exit."

"How do you want to play it?" Ryan asked, his knuckles brushing against mine.

"Fast. Silent. No firearms unless the sky falls," I said, flexing my fingers inside the black leather gloves. "Gunshots bring sirens, and sirens bring Victor's lawyers before we can extract their comms. You hold the alley exit. If Scout Two tries to run, you body-block him. Leave the physical takedowns to me."

"Understood, Champ," he said softly. The old nickname sent an electric current down my spine.

I slipped out of the passenger door, staying low against the brick wall. The smell of wet asphalt, rotting trash, and ozone grounded me. This was my terrain. Long before I met Ryan in a sunlit coffee shop in Portland, I had spent seven years in subterranean Reno cage circuits where elbows split foreheads and tapped ribs were just collateral damage.

Scout Two was leaning against the steel junction box, wearing a heavy hooded coat, chewing a toothpick. His right hand rested casually inside his pocket, gripping a snub-nosed revolver. He was watching the main alley entrance, completely oblivious to the shadow creeping along the blind angle of the concrete pillar behind him.

I closed the distance in four silent strides.

Before he could register the puddle rippling under my boot, my left hand shot over his shoulder, clamping over his mouth while pinching his nostrils shut. Simultaneously, my right forearm snaked under his chin, locking into a textbook rear-naked choke.

He bucked, his heel slamming toward my shins, but I shifted my hips, driving my knee directly into the nerve cluster behind his thigh. His leg buckled. His fingers scrambled inside his pocket, but I rotated my core, cutting off the carotid arteries on both sides of his neck.

Five seconds. Six seconds. His frantic clawing turned to sluggish twitching. At eight seconds, his eyes rolled back, and his body turned to lead.

I lowered him into the shadow of the dumpster without a sound. Reaching into his jacket, I pulled out a heavy steel Kimber .45 and a handheld encrypted walkie-talkie.

*Click-click.*

A burst of static came through the earpiece dangling from his collar: *"Barton, status. Marco is five minutes out with the transport van. Did the girl come back for her gear?"*

I looked up at the third-floor fire escape. Scout One was leaning over the rail, squinting down into the gloom.