A Gunnery Sergeant shoved a female patron to the floor twice, completely unaware she was a former Navy SEAL task force commander.

Bull frowned, his arrogance faltering for a fraction of a second under the sheer weight of Pete's dead-serious tone. "What the hell are you talking about, old man?"

Pete didn't answer with words. He reached beneath the wooden counter, his hands searching the lower storage shelf near the brass cash register. He pulled out a heavy, dust-covered wood-and-glass picture frame—an antique shadowbox that had been tucked away in the private archives behind the bar for years.

Pete set the frame down flat on the mahogany counter and slowly rotated it 180 degrees, sliding it across the wood until it stopped directly in front of Bull's belt buckle.

The young Marines in the booth leaned over their table, straining their necks to look. The patrons along the bar stood up from their stools.

Inside the glass frame sat a worn, high-resolution military group photograph taken in a harsh, sun-baked desert valley somewhere in the Middle East. It depicted twelve individuals dressed in sterile, unmarked desert camouflage, holding high-end modified carbines, their faces darkened with greasepaint and dust. Standing directly in the center of the group, flanked by senior special-operations officers and intelligence operatives, was a young, lean woman with blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun.

Beneath the photograph, set into the dark velvet backing, was a heavy, polished brass plaque.

Bull looked down at the photograph. He squinted his eyes, his whiskey-addled brain trying to process the image.

As his eyes scanned the faces in the picture—recognizing the legendary insignia of Naval Special Warfare Development Group and the classified task force crests—the smirk on Bull’s face began to melt away. The flushed color drained from his broad cheeks, leaving his skin a sallow, pale gray.

His head snapped up from the frame, his eyes darting across the five-foot gap to look directly at the blonde woman standing by the pool table.

Alexis didn't move. She stood quietly, her hands still resting at her sides, her dog tags gleaming softly under the amber lamp.