this book is best read in: times new roman / smallest font & reading mode ⸻ scrolling
" And the skeletons in both our closets / Plotted hard to fuck this up " TAYLOR SWIFT,cowboy like me.
Luciana Reyes had never learned how to slow down. It was almost as if her soul craved success, even from infancy. A craving that had been attempted in earnest to be sated by her loving parents. They had indulged in every advanced milestone, every fleeing interest, and every passion voiced by their daughter, having immigrated from countries that suppressed any form of thriving. But, it never seemed to be enough.
With her adolescent heart set on joining the elite agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but her age just falling short of the requirement, Luciana turned her enthusiasm to the Drug Enforcement Agency to jump-start her career in law enforcement. Assisting with operations in her mother's home country of Colombia for two years, her superiors were impressed by her ability to connect to civilians to obtain pertinent information, sending a recommendation to the FBI, who offered her a spot in their academy.
The praise she relied on was replaced with unrelenting ridicule from her training officers and fellow male trainees, including when she had expressed her interest in Hostage Rescue, making the five months of training both physically and mentally exhausting. She pushed through only to be rewarded with a nine-to-five desk job in the Organized Crime division. She found herself resenting the system, jealous as she watched her male counterparts get hired into field positions straight out of the academy.
But, much like her childhood, adulthood brought that hunger for more. Between her shifts at Quantico, she attended lectures at a local University, including one on the subject of hostage negotiation. Her ceaseless participation and questions, alongside the knowledge she already possessed in the subject, caught the attention of the lecturer. Being regarded by SSA David Rossi seemed to scratch that illusory itch in her mind finally and when she was informed that the elite Hostage Rescue Team offered her a place in their selection course at Rossi's recommendation, she finally felt a sense of gratification for the first time in her life.
Becoming the youngest recruit into the Hostage Rescue Team at twenty-seven years old, proving herself capable of everything others told her she couldn't do should have been enough. But she needed more.
Her unrelenting work led her to be chosen to fill the eventual vacant post of commander of HRT a few years later, leaving her in charge of leading a task force of high-skilled individuals around the country at a single call to assist in saving lives through methods of counter-terrorism.
