Crossfire (Book 1) (The Omega Group) by Andrea Domanski Read Free Book Online Page A

with where she was. She
climbed off the bed, still wearing her clothes from the previous night, and
opened her door.
    “It’s time to go to work,” Greco said and then walked down
the hall toward the kitchen.
    Well, good morning to you, too , she thought. Rubbing
the sleep from her eyes, she changed into workout gear and padded over to the
bathroom to brush her teeth and splash some cold water on her face. Feeling
almost human, she went to the kitchen to meet Greco.
    As soon as she walked in, she was greeted by the smell of
freshly brewed coffee. Finding the mugs in one of the cupboards, Mirissa
grabbed one and filled it to the brim with the hot, liquid heaven that she
desperately needed this morning. She drank it black because that was how real
coffee lovers drank it. Cream and sugar were for pretenders. Taking her first
sip, she may have actually groaned at how good it tasted. Even the Baxter’s coffee
was delicious.
    Halfway through her cup, she heard the front door open and
close, and Greco came walking into the kitchen. Without saying a word, he
grabbed a mug and filled it with coffee, adding both cream and sugar. Of
course , she thought.
    Watching him stir his coffee, Mirissa sipped hers, waiting
for him to speak. He was really going to have to work on his conversation
skills if she was going to be spending every day with him.
    “We have two hours before breakfast, so let’s get going,”
Greco said as he walked out of the kitchen, then out of the house.
    “Yes, sir.” Mirissa said to the now empty room and then
followed him outside.
    The day started with a ten-mile run around the property. It
took her a couple of miles to find her groove, but once she did, Mirissa found
herself focusing on the landscape around her instead of the run. The woods were
thick, and even though the sun had already risen, the canopy created the look
of never-ending dusk. It was a really peaceful place, she thought as she wound
her way around the trees following Greco. They passed a good-sized pond that
lay a few hundred yards behind the barn, and later a vegetable garden that
Mirissa assumed Laura used for her cooking.
    Nearing the one-hour mark of their run, Mirissa figured they
should be fairly close to done. Without knowing the route they had taken, she
had no way of knowing the distance they’d run, but she felt as though she had
stayed at about a six minute per mile pace—not terribly difficult but enough to
get her blood moving. When they followed the path out of the woods, her
thoughts were confirmed when the front of the barn came into view. Slowing to a
walking pace to let her heart rate come down to normal, and downing the last of
her water, Mirissa saw Mr. Baxter—he hadn’t told her to call him
Walter—chopping wood in the house’s back yard. He looked up and gave her a
smile and a wave, which she happily returned, as she walked over to Greco.
    “What’s next, coach?” Mirissa asked with a cheeky grin,
trying to show Greco that she could handle more than just a long run.
    “Let’s head inside and start the workout.”
    Start the workout? Maybe she shouldn’t have tried to
show off so soon. This was definitely going to be a long day, Mirissa thought
as they entered the barn.
    Apparently Greco decided to test her abilities to ascertain
just how much work they had to do, so he had Mirissa sit on a large blue mat
near the center of the exercise area. First, he timed her for two minutes while
she did push-ups, to see if she could reach 100, which was considered optimal
for Special Forces recruits. She did 104. After resting for sixty seconds, she
did sit-ups for the same amount of time, beating the Special Forces’ standard
of 100 by six this time. Her last test was pull-ups. Do as many as you can,
before your body fails. Moving over to the pull-up bar that was suspended from
the ceiling, Mirissa completed twenty-three full pull-ups before she wasn’t
able to do any more.
    Greco seemed almost pleased at her less