She had become imprisoned in three seconds of her life…

Because Nina was not your ordinary ex-Army Stillwater housewife getting ready to trim the tree.

She was a “D-Girl,” attached to the Army’s elite Delta Force. She was also one of the few women to qualify for the Army Marksmanship Unit. Under extreme real-world pressure, she had reliably demonstrated the ability to get off an accurate shot with a handgun in under three seconds up to fifty yards.

It was all there in her eyes.

A split second before everyone else, Nina saw it was a trap. She saw Joe Reed appear through the back door of the bar with his big Browning automatic coming up in a two-handed grip. She yelled a warning, her hand flashing in a lightning reflex for the small of her back.

I can beat you…

But she came up empty. She’d left the pistol back at the motel on the table next to her sleeping husband. All she could do was watch.

“Janey!”

“I’m here, girl,” Janey yelled back, swinging around, yanking her Baretta, turning…

Too late. Reed shot her twice in the chest at a distance of ten feet. Lieutenant Janey Singer went down, and Reed came on another two steps and put the last one in her head.

Then Reed swung the gun, and Ace Shuster took the bullets meant for her. That’s when Ace’s crazy brother Dale stepped in front of Reed and stabbed her with the syringe of ketamine. The last thing she saw, as the paralyzing anesthetic dragged her into the black, was the contempt in Joe’s cold eyes. And blood. Ace’s blood on her chest.

Her eyes rolled up. Dread was mocked by the sinking euphoria in her veins. The thought that she’d never see her daughter again.

The pain, loss, and guilt had taken a freaky rebound; twisted around and got caught in her head. She’d let her buddies down. Worst thing in the world for a soldier like Nina Pryce.