Four Hard SWATs by Marteeka Karland Page A

something familiar about the man moving to intercept her team, but she couldn’t place him. Tawni’s gut tightened. If Gray and Wyatt missed the man’s entrance, they’d be vulnerable.
    “Bastian, do you have eyes on him?” Niko’s voice was calm as ever. How the hell did the man stay so fucking under control? Tawni wanted to scream, to run to their aid no matter what Niko said. The newcomer was an unknown. No one had a clue how he was armed.
    “Negative, Top. I got nothing. Snipe, how far out is he?”
    “Left of the front of the house. Thirty meters out and closing fast.” Tawni’s heart pounded in her ears, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Sweat continued to trickle down her face, dripping off her eyelashes, but she refused to take her eye away from the scope to wipe her hand across her forehead. “I’ll have a clear shot for a couple more seconds and that’s it.”
    “I’m ready for him, Top,” Gray’s voice came over the radio over yells and the occasional chorus of gunfire. “Let him inside so we know who we’re dealing with.”
    Tawni ground her teeth. Was he fucking kidding?
    “Copy that,” Niko said. “Hold position, Snipe.”
    Tawni hated that they called her “Snipe.” They’d said “ Tawni ” was too girly to use over the radio, laughing as they’d insulted her. Oh, they hadn’t been condescending or actually meant to be insulting. They were teasing. Like they constantly ragged Wyatt by calling him Earp. Still, it grated. She was well aware they were all physically bigger and stronger than she was. It was something they just loved pointing out on a daily basis, calling her Shrimp, or Short Stuff. Their sizes were part of their appeal to her. All in all, even if she didn’t like it, she supposed Snipe was the better alternative.
    From the day she’d met them, started training with them, she’d tried to view them as nothing more than men she worked with. Instead, she’d developed a very unhealthy attraction to all of them, secretly loving it when they manhandled her, tossing her to the top of a training wall or pinning her beneath them when they trained in weaponless combat. Now, watching them move from a distance, she had to wonder if they were taking advantage of her skill as a sniper or simply getting her out of their way while the “men went to work.”
    As if sensing the trap, the newcomer changed direction, heading into the tree line next to the house. The cover was dense there, the woods thick in the mountains on the outskirts of the rural, Appalachian town.
    “He’s headed for cover. Into the woods,” Tawni advised.
    “Let him go for now. Concentrate on the house, Snipe.” His command was sharp. Cutting. Like he expected her to drop her scope and run after the unknown man.
    Gritting her teeth, she replied, “Copy,” again adjusting her grip.
    There was radio silence for several long minutes. The occasional yell or curse from the house echoed in the night, but no more gunfire. Gray and Wyatt shoved their prisoners out the door, hands behind their backs. Three men, all subdued. Only one appeared to have been injured in the shootout, favoring his right leg before dropping to his knees on the ground with his companions.
    “All present and accounted for, Top, including Mr. Messer.” Gray tipped a two-fingered salute in the general direction of where Niko kept watch over his team.
    “That’s good work, people,” Niko praised, the radio clipping his voice with slight static.
    Immediately, Tawni swung her scope to the tree line, looking for the man who’d fled, needing to get a line on him. If she could find him, she could prove how valuable an asset she could be to them. All of the men had been in the military together. She had no idea which branch or what they’d done, only that they’d been friends for years. Had been together, watching each other’s back for years. Niko had always led, the others willingly followed his lead even though all of them could have