Chapter 832
Walsh’s face flushed a deep, angry red. The casual dismissal of his strength was a direct assault on his pride. He let out a low growl and dropped into a fighting stance, his massive fists raised.
Sloane didn’t even bother to adopt a stance. She stood there, relaxed, her hands hanging loosely at her sides, looking for all the world like she was waiting for a bus.
Enraged by her lack of respect, Walsh charged. He threw a powerful right cross, a punch meant to end the fight before it began, aimed directly at Sloane’s face.
Sloane’s movement was a liquid blur. She didn’t dodge or block. She simply tilted her head a few inches to the left. The punch, carrying all of Walsh’s two hundred pounds of momentum, whistled past her cheek, stirring the fine hairs at her temple.
In the split second that his arm was extended, her right hand moved. It wasn’t a strike. She simply placed it on his elbow.
She didn’t push. She didn’t pull with force. She guided his own momentum downward, using his own strength against him, while her left foot hooked lightly behind his ankle.
It was a simple, elegant lesson in physics.
Walsh’s enormous body, suddenly deprived of its balance point, became a dead weight. He crashed to the ground like a felled oak tree.
The impact was a dull, sickening thud that seemed to shake the very ground. A collective gasp went through the squad.
From the moment he charged to the moment he hit the dirt, less than five seconds had passed.
Sloane looked down at the groaning, winded man on the ground. She nudged his shoulder with the toe of her boot, her voice tinged with a profound sense of boredom.
“Warm-up’s over.”
The field was utterly silent. The recruits stared, their mouths agape, their minds struggling to process the sheer, effortless dominance they had just witnessed.
Sloane’s gaze swept over the stunned formation, dismissing them all. Her eyes, cold and sharp as chips of ice, came to rest once more on Caroline.
The smile was gone from her face. It was replaced by an expression of flat, undeniable command.
“Now,” Sloane Hawke said, her voice leaving no room for argument. “It’s your turn, Thompson.”
The command was an iron gate slamming shut. There were no more exits, no more deflections. The air on the training field grew thick, heavy with the weight of inevitability. Every eye was on Caroline, waiting.
Her mind raced, processing variables at a speed that felt superhuman. A direct fight was suicide for her cover. A direct refusal was career suicide. The rules of the game were rigged. So she had to change the game.
Her gaze swept across the formation of recruits, a radar seeking a weakness, an opportunity, a pawn.
And then she found one.
Her eyes locked onto Melanie Thorne. Melanie was standing near the back, a look of pure, malicious glee on her face. She was savoring Caroline’s predicament, enjoying the show. She thought she was a spectator. She was about to become a participant.
A plan, cold, audacious, and exquisitely vicious, bloomed in Caroline’s mind.