Page 3

Chapter two

Hawk

“Up till now, y’all worked on advanced shooter drills and shoot-don’t-shoot scenarios, but this afternoon, we’re gonna do something different. We’re gonna work on knife defense. Have any of you ever run up against an assailant with a knife?”

“I have,” one of the guys said.

“What’s your name?” Today was my first day out at the camp with this group, so I hadn’t learned all their names yet. My marksmanship skills were top-notch—everyone at Three Bears Tactical Services was—but firearms training wasn’t my specialty. I was much more of a hand-to-hand guy.

“Joshua. Joshua Ward,” he said.

“How did that go for you, Joshua?”

He lifted his shirt to show a scar on his stomach. “Got this souvenir for my trouble.”

I nodded. “Yeah, knives are hard to defend against. Honestly, your best defense in a knife situation is a good offense, and that’s what we’re gonna be working on today.”

“Bobby,” I called, and the young kid who worked for us at the camp hurried over with a bucket filled with our training knives. “Thanks.”

“We’ll start with these.” I reached into the bucket and pulled out a handful of the rubber knives. I handed each of the sheriff’s deputies one. Law enforcement officers made up the majority of our training here at the camp. These guys worked in a stressful job where every decision could be life or death, which meant training was key.

“Bobby and I are gonna do a demonstration, and hopefully that”—I pointed at Josh’s stomach—“doesn’t happen again. You ready, Bobby?”

“Sure am.” He grinned at me and tossed his training knife back and forth from one hand to the other. His was different from theirs. It was something called a marker blade that had a metal handle and a blade made of chalk that would leave a mark anywhere he would’ve cut me.

“So the first thing I want to talk to you guys about is how to approach a guy with a knife. You want to use what we call an X formation.” I demonstrated by lifting my arms and crossing them at the wrists with my fingers turned toward me. “Anybody know why I have my arms facing this direction?”

“’Cause you’re in a better position to punch the guy like that,” someone called out.

“What’s your name?”

“Ted Silva.”

I separated my wrists and threw a couple of fake punches in Bobby’s direction. “Good guess, Ted, but no, that’s not why. Simple fact is, if you’re facing an assailant with a knife, there’s a good chance you’re gonna get cut. And we want to make sure if that happens, it does the least amount of damage.”

I crossed my wrists again and lifted them back up, facing out toward Bobby this time. “Okay, come at me, dude.”

He rushed me and slashed the knife, leaving a red mark across my inner wrist. I turned toward the guys and held up my arm. “So, anybody know their anatomy? What’s right there?” I ran my hand across the mark.

“An artery,” Ted said.

“Exactly. That’s the location of your ulnar artery, and that would be very bad. Keep those wrists facing you. If you’re gonna get cut, make sure it isn’t your tendons, so you lose use of your hands, or your arteries, so you bleed out. Let me see you do it.”

I watched as each guy made an X shape with their arms the way I’d shown them. I was sure it seemed silly to them now, but basically, all our training here was about creating muscle memory and good habits.

“Now, when you’re up against a knife, what’s your main objective?”

“To disarm the guy?” Joshua said.

“That’s part of it for sure, but the main objective is to subdue him. The knife is his tool, but he’s the problem. So, getting him on the ground under your control is the primary goal. Now Bobby’s gonna come at me, and I’m gonna put him on the ground. This is the fun part.”

“For you, maybe,” Bobby said, and everyone laughed.

I chuckled and shook my head. “Let’s do this, Bobby.”

We squared off. Over and over again, he lunged at me, and I blocked him, each time explaining to the guys why I’d gone in that direction. I didn’t take him all the way to the ground each time, but I did it often enough that he was getting frustrated, even though we were mostly goofing around. When I thought they’d gotten the point, I told them to pair up and try it themselves.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You just don’t have to make it look so easy,” he grumbled.

“You’re getting better, kid. I’m bigger and stronger than you are, but you’re fast. Keep up your training with Crowe, and before long, you’ll be able to take me.”

He smiled and looked at me hopefully. “You think so?”

“Not a chance.” I ruffled his hair and turned my focus back to the class. I really did like the kid, but he was green, and it would be a while before he was ready to take on any of us at TBT.

The group practiced and swapped off turns being the attacker and the defender. I kept a close eye on Josh the whole time because, even though they weren’t using real knives, the last thing I wanted was for this exercise to trigger him, but he seemed to be okay.

I watched them until they replicated the moves I’d shown them pretty smoothly, and then I called a halt to the practice.

“Looking good, guys. Much better. We’ll be building on that tomorrow morning, but for now, we’re gonna stop for lunch, and then you’ll all be with Gator for some tracking training.”

They all made their way toward the farmhouse that sat on the property to get some food, and I got in my truck to head back to the TBT building in town. I enjoyed spending time out at the camp, but I was a city boy at heart. I’d grown up in Houston, so for me, calling Vesper a city was a bit of a stretch—but I liked it alright.

When Wolfe first proposed starting a security company and putting it in his hometown, I’d thought he’d lost his mind, but he’d made a good case for it. The property was much less expensive, and we were in a great location. It was only a few hours to the state capital, a little over an hour to San Antonio, and far enough out of the way for us to keep a fairly low profile.

In the end, he sold us on the idea when he’d shown us his plans for the downtown building that we now called home. Three Bears Tactical was located in what used to be the corporate offices of a now-defunct home goods store. We’d converted the lower floors of the building into Three Bear’s headquarters and the top floor into living spaces for me, Wolfe, and Gator. We’d also added some smaller apartments just below us on the ninth floor for any of our employees who wanted to live there.

I pulled into the parking garage and parked in my assigned spot. I had a few things I wanted to run by Wolfe this afternoon, but I needed to shower and change clothes first. I got in the elevator and pressed my thumb to the sensor before pushing the button for the tenth floor. The doors opened, and I stepped out into the common area on our floor and went to the left to my front door.

Mine and Gator’s sat on the ends of the floor, and our layouts were mirror images. Wolfe’s space ran along the back of the building between our two units. The condo was way bigger than I needed, but I loved living here in the middle of all the action.

I took a quick shower. Then I put on a pair of jeans and one of our Three Bears polos before heading down to the seventh floor where our offices were located. Wolfe’s assistant was sitting at his desk outside his office, like usual.

“Hey, Caden.” I lifted my hand in greeting as I went by. “He in?”

“He is. But he has someone in there with him. You want me to let him know you need to talk to him?”

“Yeah, I have a few things I want to go over with him. But it can wait until he’s free.”

I went into my office and sat down, pulling out a stack of papers. We were looking to bring a PI on staff full-time, and since I’d been the one who’d pushed for the position, Wolfe had me vetting the applicants. I’d narrowed it down to two, but I wanted to take another look at what we had on them before we brought them in for in-person interviews.

I hadn’t been in there long before my door opened, and Wolfe walked in and sat down in the chair across from me. “How were things out at the camp?”

“Good. Things are really coming together out there.”

He nodded. “We’re already booked out through June. I’m wondering if we should pause classes for July and August.”

“I think so. Working them hard enough to be effective could be a liability in the heat.”

“The camp would be officially open for six months at that point. By then, Crowe should have a good idea of what adjustments need to be made, and that would give us time to do them. I’ll email him and let him know.”

“Sounds like a plan. Have you heard from Knox?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. He’s hating life, but everything’s going okay.”

“I don’t envy him. When I saw the details of the job, I knew it was gonna be a rough one.”

“He said the girl is spoiled rotten and doesn’t listen to directions. She constantly threatens to tell her father Knox is unreasonable—even though Knox has run all the protocols by the father and he’s on board.”

“At least it’s a short-term assignment, so he won’t have to be there long.” I hadn’t been kidding when I said I didn’t envy him. When we first opened Three Bears, I worked a lot of close protection jobs, but my least favorite was always spoiled rich kids who couldn’t seem to grasp that I was there to keep them safe.

“True enough.” He stood up to go, but before he walked out, he turned back to me. “You had another self-defense class start a couple weeks ago, right?”

“I did. We have eight people in this one.”

“Good, good. Glad that’s working out well.”