Battle It Out—(Code of Honor book Six)
Copyright © 2021 Reese Knightley
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Warnings
Please be advised that this book is intended for adult readers age eighteen and older due to sexually explicit content, language, and violence. Trigger warning: graphic violence, off the page mention and flashbacks of domestic and child abuse trauma.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to the actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. This is a work of fiction and should be treated as such.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Art: Reese Dante reesedante.com
Disclaimer—Cover content is for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted on the cover is a model.
Editing provided by Heidi Ryan of Amour the Line Editing
Interior Design and Formatting provided by
Stacey Ryan Blake of Champagne Book Design
Copyright and Trademark Acknowledgments: All products/brand names/Trademarks mentioned are registered trademarks of their respective holders/companies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
CODE OF HONOR EPIGRAPH
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
OTHER BOOKS BY REESE
SNEAK PEAK of Ricochet
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Worse than telling a lie is spending your whole life living true to that lie.
—Robert Brault
Infinity—A US Army Special Forces, Black Ops, top secret military unit that provides help, domestic and foreign, and answers only to the Secretary of Defense.
Fury—US Army, Black Ops, specialty unit that provides assistance when ordered by the Secretary of Defense.
Training facility, California.
Exact location unknown
Zane
“Call it!” the captain ordered over the mic.
Nothing but the slight crackle of silence followed the command and Zane wiggled the small bit of plastic tucked into his ear to check if he had mic failure.
“Brewster!” Captain Stone snarled into the continued silence.
“Clear,” Brewster finally hissed with a touch of irritation.
Zane pushed Miller into the training facility’s stairwell with a hand on his shoulder. Gun oil and metal failed to mask the man’s nervous sweat.
“You’ll be fine.” Zane pulled Miller around, repositioned his vest, and tightened the Velcro straps before pointing him toward the stairs. “Up we go.”
Miller shifted beneath the tactical training gear, clutched the high-tech laser rifle to his chest, and took the stairs upward.
“Now?” Miller whispered when they reached the door at the top level.
Zane cracked his neck where a kink had been growing and gave Miller the okay with a quick nod. The brown-haired, brown-eyed, twenty-seven year old gave him a cheeky grin.
“Don’t get cocky,” he warned before gesturing at the door. Miller may have aced his tests, but his tactical abilities had yet to be assessed.
Miller eased open the door and went through it in a crouch. Zane followed, doing a quick perimeter check. The dimly lit obstacle course overflowed with empty wooden boxes, black rubber tires big enough to carry a semi-truck across the country, and stacks of empty pallets reaching to the ceiling.
Several dark, gaping doorways lined the far wall and Zane automatically stepped behind a stack of pallets.
When Brewster had given the all clear, it provided him and Miller time to come up with a game plan to take out the opposite team.
Two seconds later, the sensor over Miller’s heart lit up with a bright yellow light. The activated sensor on his vest detected a direct hit.
“Son of a bitch!” Miller gaped, gazing down in disgust and then across the room where Sergeant Holden Wreck pointed a training weapon at him.
Holden gave Miller a smirk. It wasn’t a pleased smirk, but more of a what the fuck? Shaking his head, Holden pulled up his weapon and disappeared back the way he’d come.
“Call it,” Zane ground the words out. Mother fucking fiasco. All clear my fucking ass!
“Group up, now,” Maddox snapped.
“I fucked up,” Miller whispered with a grimace.
“No, you didn’t,” he said from between his teeth, his gaze a laser focus on the door.
The second Brewster entered, Zane went for blood. He clutched Brewster’s throat and slammed the fuck-up against the wall. Dust drifted down from the ceiling, covering them both.
Fingers clawed at his wrist. Hands yanked at his own, but Zane felt nothing beyond the throat in his grip and the hot rush of his blood thundering in his ears.
The yellow light flashing over Miller’s heart mocked him. Miller would be dead if this had been a mission and all because Brewster had been distracted with fuck knows what. That pissed him off further and he squeezed, power lifting the asshole up the wall.
“Help,” Brewster gasped, clawing and kicking when his feet left the concrete floor. It wouldn’t do any good to struggle, he had about three inches and a good twenty-five pounds on the fucker.
“I’m okay,” Miller said on a rush of words and clutched both hands around his bicep, but Zane wasn’t done choking the fuck out of Brewster.
Through a hazy red fog, Captain Maddox Stone’s “Oh shit!” came through the mic.
He didn’t fucking care. All he pictured was that flashing light where Miller’s heart was.
Where Isaac’s heart could have been because Miller was a stand-in for Isaac. And Brewster’s fuck up could have cost him Isaac—and that couldn’t be allowed.
“Sergeant Gannon, stand down!” Maddox snapped, now close to his ear.
Sucking in a hard, savage breath, he used every ounce of self-discipline to unclench his hand and toss Brewster to the ground. The man hit the concrete with a loud crack and toppled over onto his side, wheezing for air.
Something hard and plastic toppled from Brewster’s pocket and landed with a slight crack on the ground.
Zane
