Page 3 of Brass
My heart slams against my broken ribs. I back away, shoes slipping slightly on the wet tile. The train’s rumbling grows louder, but it won’t arrive in time.
Two of them angle left. The other two cut right. Cutting off escape routes. Herding me.
My back hits the tiled wall. Nowhere to go. The flash drive feels like it’s burning through my pocket, branding me. I bring my hands up, remembering fragments from a self-defense class I took after covering a story on campus assaults. Thumbs to eyes. Knee to groin. Scream fire, not rape or help.
None of it will save me from four trained killers.
They close in. Ten feet away. Eight. Five.
A large hand grabs my upper arm. I scream, twisting to fight this new threat from behind.
“Stay behind me.”
The voice cuts through my panic. Low. Calm. Absolute authority.
A stranger materializes beside me. Tall—six-three, maybe six-four. Broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. Military posture. Close-cropped dark blond hair. A jagged scar beneath his left eye that pulls slightly at the corner.
He steps forward, positioning his body between me and the approaching men. His movements are fluid, calculated. Nothingwasted. I catch the outline of a shoulder holster beneath his jacket.
“You’ve made a mistake,” he calls to them, voice carrying across the platform without shouting. “Walk away.”
The four men exchange glances. No hesitation. No fear. The leader, a tight-faced man with cold gray eyes, smirks. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“It does now.” My defender’s tone is almost conversational.
I press against the wall, every nerve humming with adrenaline. The approaching train’s vibration intensifies beneath my feet, but it’s still too far away. The few commuters on the platform have noticed the tension—they edge away, gazes averted, unwilling to become involved.
“Last chance,” says Gray Eyes, hand slipping inside his coat.
My protector shifts his weight to the balls of his feet. “Four against one. Not great odds.” A beat. “For you.”
The first man rushes him.
The stranger moves like water. A sidestep, then a precise strike to the attacker’s throat. The man crumples, gasping. Second attacker comes in low—my defender drives a knee up, catches him under the chin. Bone cracks. The man drops.
Gray Eyes pulls a knife. The blade catches the fluorescent light—five inches of serrated steel. He lunges. The stranger deflects, twists, and suddenly the knife is in his hand. He slashes backward, opening a red line across his attacker’s chest.
The fourth man has circled behind. He reaches for me. I scream, ducking away. The stranger spins, hurls the knife. It embeds in the wall an inch from the man’s ear—a warning.
“Next one goes in your eye,” my defender promises.
The train roars into the station, brakes screeching. Doors slide open. The commuters hurry on, desperate to escape the violence.
Gray Eyes clutches his bleeding chest, face contorted with fury. “This isn’t over.”
“Wrong.” My protector growls, low and ominous. “You’re outmatched, out-skilled, and half your team is down. Whatever they’re paying you, it’s not enough.”
TWO
Ryan
I check my watch again.10:47 PM. Train should’ve been here seven minutes ago. Typical D.C. inefficiency.
Rain hammers the platform roof, echoing through the station. Four days in the nation’s capital is about three and a half too many. Especially when those days revolve around my mother’s endless parade of “suitable” women at her Thanksgiving table. Four potential daughters-in-law, each more aggressively cheerful than the last.
“You could have a normal life, Ryan. A good job. Children. Not running around the world getting shot at for people who don’t even know your name.”
My jaw tightens. Twenty years since Dad died, and she still doesn’t understand that some men are built for what I do. It’s in my DNA, just as it was in my father’s.
