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High heels echoed on the tile floor as a woman approached the table where he stood. A little girl dressed in a pink frilly ballerina dress clung tightly to her skirt. The woman filled out a slip, then headed for the counter with the girl trailing after her.

Kyle narrowed his eyes, methodically dividing the interior of the bank into quadrants, checking each one repeatedly, searching for the other perp.

He wasn’t wrong about this. His innate sense of all things bad was tingling at the base of his neck.

The robbery would go down. It was only a matter of when.

A tall man in one of the teller lines tipped his head discretely to the lookout, who nodded emphatically in return. Now Kyle knew who the brains of the bunch was. The tall guy was calling the shots.

Protocol dictated Kyle had to wait for a crime to be committed before acting on what could only be articulated as “a hunch.” But this guy was a cold-blooded killer. Kyle had to get closer. No way would he let this asshole kill again.

He stepped from the table, his body tensed and spring-loaded. The perp approached the teller and shoved a gun through the bars. She gasped. Her eyes widened, and she jerked back. The heavy metal stool she’d been sitting on toppled and hit the floor with a clatter that rang throughout the bank.

Customers ’ heads turned. The all-but-sleeping security guard leapt from his chair. He fumbled for his gun and took several hesitant steps toward the counter.

Kyle yanked his Glock from his holster. He raced forward, taking cover behind one of the thick columns. He hoped to hell it really was solid, because he had a bad feeling someone was going to be shooting back at him real soon.

Movement to the left caught his eye. The lookout standing near the guard yanked a rifle from under his coat and raised the muzzle to the back of the guard’s head.

Kyle left his position, then aimed and fired. The gunshot blast reverberated throughout the bank. The front of the lookout’s shirt blossomed with a bright red stain just before the guy hit the floor hard.

Customers dropped to the floor, screaming. The old guard moved with surprising speed and scrambled for cover behind a table.

Kyle ducked back behind the column, focusing on the second perp. He aimed in and started squeezing the trigger, but stopped.

The man had grabbed a hostage––the little girl in the pink ballerina dress.

Kyle ground his teeth. Fucking bastard!

The perp pressed his gun to the girl’s temple. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she squirmed in his grasp.

Releasing his finger from the trigger, Kyle gripped the butt of his Glock so hard he thought it would crack. He could barely hold back the growl rising in his throat.

Even if he took the perp out now, all it would take was a dead man’s grip––the involuntary tightening of the man’s finger muscles––and the trigger would pull back, ending that sweet little girl’s life in less than a heartbeat.

A barrage of bullets slammed into the column. Kyle squeezed his eyes shut, half-expecting one of the bullets to drill straight through the column into his head or back. Moans and whimpers came from the customers kissing the floor. One guy started to get up.

“ Stay down,” he warned in a low voice, tugging aside his overshirt enough to expose the badge clipped to his belt. The man’s eyes popped open, and he dropped back down.

Leading with his gun, Kyle peered around the column, searching the interior of the bank in increments. No one else was standing except him. The perp must have hunkered down to reload.

Kyle raced to another column and took cover. His heart hammered, every beat shooting adrenaline through his body. Yet his mind remained calm. This wasn’t the first time he’d shot someone. Nor would it be the second. He’d lost track of all the bodies he’d left behind in his life.

Still clutching the girl, the perp popped up from behind one of the wood tables. Kyle jerked his gun to the left and came on target. The guy hadn’t seen him yet and was still aiming at the other column. The perp turned, his eyes flaring as he honed in on Kyle’s new position.

As if in slow motion, the guy raised his gun. In that second, images flashed before Kyle’s eyes. Those of his dead wife. She was never coming back, and it was his fault. He could finish this right here and now. Let the bullet enter his body and finally end the torment. But he had to save the girl.

Another image flitted into his brain. Vicki .

He gave himself a mental slap and squeezed the trigger. The lobby echoed with the blast of a .45 caliber semi-automatic gunshot. The perp stared, still standing but not moving. His eyes were wide, vacant and unseeing.

The little girl slid from the man’s now-limp grasp and ran to her mother.

For a few seconds longer, the guy remained where he was, then he slumped forward, and his forehead slammed onto the table. The body slid to the floor and disappeared from Kyle’s view. He remained aimed-in, but it was over.

Customers began to stand, some whispering in hushed tones, others weeping.

“ Stay down!” he shouted and moved forward, rounding the corner of the table and aiming at the body on the floor. Blood seeped from a hole beneath the man’s nose, marking the path of the jacketed hollow point bullet that had just severed his brain stem.

He holstered, then grabbed the Smith & Wesson from the man’s hand and stuffed it in the back of his waistband. Not that it was necessary, but he checked for a pulse.

More customers started getting to their feet. Outside , Jim and the rest of his team had Ilya Sorofkin cuffed and face down on the sidewalk. Police cars swarmed into the area, red-and-blue lights flashing, sirens wailing.

“ Wait !” Anyone rushing out the door risked accidentally getting shot by the good guys. He tugged out his cell and cued up Jim’s number. He watched through the window as Jim snagged the phone from his belt.

“ You okay?” Jim asked.

“ Yeah .” He took in the dozen shocked faces waiting for his direction. “ We’re all fine. Two perps down. Let the uniforms know we’re coming out.”

“ You got it.”

He ended the call, noting a green SUV pulling up beside the NYPD patrol cars.

Sure enough, the boss of the FBI’s New York City Strike Force teams— Special Agent in Charge Michael Morrison —joined his team on the sidewalk.

Morrison’s lips were pursed. Even from this distance, Kyle could see the flames shooting from his eyes. Great .

He tucked his overshirt behind his belt, revealing his badge so he wouldn’t get drilled by any of the cops swarming into the area.

“ Everyone follow me. Keep your hands in the air. Don’t run, and don’t leave the area.

The officers will want to ask you some questions.

” He opened the door and held his hands above his head.

The second his SAC caught sight of him, the man’s eyes narrowed to angry, don’t-fuck-with-me slits, confirming what Kyle expected.

He was in for an ass-reaming of epic proportions.

Disobeying protocol and going into the bank alone was bad enough.

That was only part of why Morrison was so pissed.

Kyle stepped onto the sidewalk and drew a long, resigned breath as he approached his boss. This wasn’t the first time he’d risked his life. It hadn’t been the second time either.

Morrison’s lips pursed, but that didn’t stop the man from growling loud enough for Kyle to hear from ten feet away. He’d be lucky if he didn’t get chained to a desk for six months and forced to spill his guts to a shrink about his death wish tendencies.

Slowly , he lowered his hands. “ Boss? —”

“ Don’t .” Morrison shook his head, flattening his lips more.

“ Just . Don’t . I’ll stay with your team.

You can send in your statement to the NYPD later.

I’ll cover for you here. The only things I want you to do now are to turn in your firearm, get your ass back to 26 Fed , and stay there.

Somehow I have to miraculously convene a shooting review board out of thin air and get them to clear you in less than a week. ”

At this point, virtual steam was shooting out of Morrison’s ears.

Jim and the rest of Kyle’s team wisely backed away.

Aside from his older brother, Jack , Kyle was about the only one in the New York Field Office that had been on the receiving end of one of Morrison’s ballistic tongue lashings… and lived.

“ Yes , sir.” Kyle discretely tugged his weapon from the holster and handed it to Morrison .

Morrison stuck the Glock in his waistband. “ Now get out of here.”

“ Yes , sir,” he repeated, then headed back to his Expedition , weaving through the fleet of emergency vehicles that had completely blocked off Broadway .

Sirens wailed in every direction as a seemingly endless stream of emergency vehicles continued pouring into the area.

Kyle understood Morrison’s concerns. He’d just created a mile high pile of red tape for his boss to wade through, and they both knew it.

Mikhail Lazovsky and Boris Kolbayev’s trial started next week.

With two protected witnesses to squirrel safely in and out of the courthouse there was a boatload of tactical and logistical coordination to go over.

After a shooting, he’d be on the rubber gun squad until the review board cleared him.

For the trial, he had to be fully cleared for active duty.

He’d been through a shooting review before but never at such a critical juncture.

He got into the SUV but didn’t turn the key. It felt as if there was a fifty-pound weight pressing against his chest. He closed his eyes, trying to blot out the ghostly images from his past that refused to leave him be. Vicki , for one.

Ironically , she’d saved his life today. He’d saved her life once, too, but it had cost him. It had cost them both .

He turned the key and put his hands on the wheel. They should have been shaking—normal physiological responses to shooting two men and coming a hair’s breadth from being killed himself. His hands were rock-steady. That wasn’t normal, even for a seasoned FBI agent who’d been to war for his country.

He was going numb. There was always the remote possibility all the normal PTSD signs would come later. Kyle didn’t think so. Risking his life, at times not caring if it ended, then going on with his job and life as if everything were normal…

Was becoming routine.

He didn’t know which would be worse, dealing with Morrison and the shooting review board or his brothers after they heard what he’d done. Again .

Kyle spun the SUV in a U -turn, intending to head south toward 26 Federal Plaza but slowing to watch paramedics in front of the bank examine the little girl in the ballerina dress. Her mother stood next to the gurney, holding the girl’s hand.

Watching them triggered a soul-wrenching ache deep inside him that he’d thought was long buried.

Because of his actions today, this mother and child had been saved. But he’d never forgive himself for what he’d done.

When his actions had resulted in the death of his own family.