Prologue

Slamming his apartment door behind him and shaking the entire wall while swearing loud and long, he threw his hat across the room, not satisfied at all when it fluttered to the ground a few feet away. He paced, knowing he'd never forget the humiliation he'd felt while standing in front of the colonel, seeing the disgust in the officer's eyes.

His squad had been so excited to be picked to go through the special training, sure they'd be able to get through the makeshift city undetected. They were infantry soldiers; they'd trained for hours—no, years—in order to be stealthy in urban situations. The thirty days they'd spent at the National Training Center out at Fort Irwin in California had taught them everything they needed to know.

But somehow their entire plan had fallen apart within five minutes of the whistle being blown. Instead of being able to sneak through the city and get to the rendezvous point unscathed, every single one of his squad had been "killed," hit with lasers from specially designed nonlethal weapons, before they'd made it even halfway through the training scenario.

Remembering how nonchalant the other unit had been after "killing" them all had felt like salt poured into an open wound. They'd acted as if they hadn't just ruined his career, his reputation. Sure, the colonel had said it was just an exercise. Had said that his squad had done well. But he'd been lying .

They hadn't done well.

And it sure as hell wasn't just an exercise.

He'd seen the colonel laughing with another officer about how fast they'd been killed. And the team that had beat them acted as if what had happened wasn't a big deal. They'd patted each other on the back and given each other high-fives. To add insult to injury, their team didn't even have one casualty. Not one! They'd taken out his entire squad as if it was child's play.

He went into the small bathroom in his apartment and stared at himself in the mirror for a long moment.

His entire life, he hadn't been good enough.

Because you're pathetic .

He shook his head at the voice in his head. He wasn't. It was them. They were pathetic. And it was up to him to show the colonel that he was just as good as the other team.

Nodding as if he'd made a momentous decision, he started planning in his head. He and his friends had a lot of work to do, but by the time they were done, the other unit would regret their casual dismissal of his squad on the simulated battlefield, and he'd redeem himself with the general in charge of the post.

Knowing your enemy was the first rule in battle, and he vowed to himself then and there that he'd find a weakness in the other group of soldiers and exploit it to his advantage.

The asshole soldiers wouldn't know what hit them. By the time he was done with them, they'd regret their cocky attitude and their brush-off of his squad. He might have been beaten today, but the battle wasn't over.

He would take them down. No matter who he had to use to do it.