Chapter 2 - The Perimeter SweepThey didn't move at first. They thought I was going to push past them to call an attorney.
When I reached the threshold, I didn't push past them. I stopped two inches from Brandon Prescott’s chest.
"Out of the doorway," I commanded quietly.
Brandon scoffed, resting his hand against the doorframe, leaning his head down with a mocking sneer. "Or what, Colonel? You going to call the military police on private citizens?"
I didn't answer him with words.
My right hand moved with lightning, surgical speed. I reached out, my thumb catching the nerve cluster beneath Brandon’s jawline, my fingers locking around his collar. With a single fluid, mechanical leverage technique, I drove his six-foot-two frame sideways out of the doorway, slamming his back flat against the hallway wall.
THUD.
Brandon let out a strangled, pathetic gasp as the air was knocked completely out of his lungs.
"Brandon!" Margaret shrieked, her face turning crimson with sudden, hysterical shock. "How dare you! That is assault!"
Ethan stumbled backward into the corridor, his face completely drained of color as he watched his broad-shouldered older brother pinned against the wall by a fifty-two-year-old woman in a dress uniform.
"Brandon Prescott," I spoke into his ear, my voice flat, cold, and razor-sharp as a combat blade. "You have thirty seconds to clear this floor before I treat your presence as an active threat to a military dependent."
Brandon clawed frantically at my fingers around his throat, his eyes bulging out of his head in total, horror-stricken panic. "Let... let go of me...!"
I released him. Brandon collapsed onto his knees on the linoleum floor, coughing violently, clutching his neck, looking up at me with pure, unadulterated terror.
I turned my cold gray eyes onto Margaret Prescott.
She took two fast steps back, her manicured hands coming up defensively, her diamond earrings shaking as her aristocratic composure shattered into a thousand tiny, panicked pieces.
"You... you are insane!" Margaret stammered out, her voice cracking into a high, pathetic squeak. "I will call the Chief of Police! I will call the Governor!"
"Call them, Mrs. Prescott," I advised softly, taking a slow step toward her. "Call every politician your money bought. Tell them that Colonel Victoria Hart, Commander of the 16th Military Police Brigade at Fort Liberty, is waiting for them."
At that exact second, the double doors at the end of the emergency wing were thrown open with a sharp, heavy CLACK.
Two broad-shouldered men dressed in dark suits, wearing earpieces, rushed down the corridor. They were the private security operators hired by the Prescott family to guard the wing.
"Mrs. Prescott!" the lead guard called out, reaching inside his jacket. "Is there a problem?!"
I didn't reach for a gun. I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out a encrypted military satellite phone, tapped three digits, and set it on speaker.
"Command," a crisp, disciplined voice answered on the first ring through the speaker.
"Major Vance," I commanded cleanly, my eyes fixed on the two security guards who had froze ten feet away. "Execute Protocol Ironclad. Deploy the Brigade CID team to Mercy General Hospital. I want a full tactical perimeter around this wing in ten minutes."
"Understood, Colonel," Major Vance replied deadpan. "Response team is en route. ETA six minutes."
The two private security guards looked at each other, then looked at my uniform, then looked at the cold, absolute authority radiating from my face. They slowly took their hands out of their jackets, taking two steps back toward the elevators.
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Margaret stared at me, her mouth opening and closing silently, her face completely drained of color as she realized that her money, her connections, and her family name meant nothing in my world.
"This is my city, Mrs. Prescott," I whispered softly into the quiet hallway. "And you just declared war on my daughter."
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