Chapter One
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Two Days Earlier
The Texas Hill Country was quiet in the early morning hours. Too quiet for a woman who lived in constant war with her thoughts.
Delaney Hart stood in the glass-walled operations room of Crossfire Ops’ headquarters, her hands curled around a mug of black coffee that she couldn’t bring herself to drink.
Below, the gravel drive cut through a blanket of fog rolling off the cedar hills.
Sunrise was still an hour away, and the silence inside her felt louder than ever.
This was her first mission in almost a year, and the weight of it pressed against her ribs like a too-tight vest.
Delaney let out a slow breath and glanced at her wrist. The rubber band was still there, snug against her skin, a faded blue one she hadn’t changed out in months. She gave it a sharp snap.
The sting helped. Usually.
But this time, the pain didn’t stop the memories from crashing through her. Memories of the young woman she hadn’t saved.
Jordan Mendez. Nineteen. Brown eyes too big for her face.
They’d found her in an abandoned trailer outside Amarillo. Four hours too late. Strangled. Zip ties digging into her wrists. Her body still warm when they rolled her over.
As an experienced FBI agent, Delaney had been sure she’d figured out the abductor’s cycle. Was sure they had time. She’d been dead wrong. And Jordan had paid the ultimate price for that.
Delaney gave the rubber band another sharp snap.
The pain flared again, but the memory didn’t fade. The memory didn’t fade from the rubber band hit anyway, but it vanished at the sound. The door behind her opened, and Delaney felt the shift in the air.
She turned slightly as Eli Tarrant stepped into the room.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, moving with the kind of quiet purpose that didn’t need to be announced.
He wore a weathered canvas jacket over a charcoal T-shirt, jeans that had seen years of hard use, and scuffed boots that echoed faintly on the polished floor.
A gray Stetson was pulled low over short, dark hair, and stubble framing a face that had seen its share of violence and silence.
At the moment, he definitely looked more cowboy than soldier, but she knew better.
Under the brim of that hat were the eyes of a man who had cleared rooms in foreign cities and chased fugitives across backroads in Texas.
There was a badge once, pinned to his chest as a Ranger, and before that, the weight of a special ops uniform that came with combat and loss.
“You good?” Eli asked.
“Fine,” she said.
He didn’t move. Not for a few snail-crawling moments. Then, finally, she heard the soft scuff of his boots crossing the floor as he came to stand beside her. He stared out at the pale morning light.
“Lying already?” he asked, his tone joking. She hoped. “We’re off to a hell of a start.”
She smirked, just barely, and continued the banter. “I was told optimism was part of the job.”
A dimple flashed in his cheek when he grinned. “Whoever told you that never met us, huh?”
He didn’t say anything else right away, just stood there with his arms crossed and eyes on the mist rolling over the hills. The silence wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t sharp either. More like the quiet before a storm. Their boss, Noah Riggs, was due in any moment to brief them.
Delaney took a breath, then spoke first. “Have you heard anything about our mission?” she asked.
“Nope. Anxious about your first Crossfire Ops assignment?” he asked after a moment, and he tipped his head to the rubber band. Clearly, the man didn’t miss much.
She nodded. “Yeah.” It was both a lie and the truth.
Yes, she was anxious. But it wasn’t just nerves.
It was those flashbacks that were creeping in again, twisting her thoughts and tightening the coil of tension in her chest. Still, Delaney reminded herself that she was trained for this.
First at Quantico, then through nine years of real-world experience wearing an FBI badge.
And finally, through the grueling twelve-week, military-style program she’d completed right here at Crossfire Ops headquarters.
Delaney looked down at her coffee, now cold and untouched. “You’ve been here since the start of Crossfire Ops.”
“Yeah. Six months,” he confirmed. “I’ve known Owen Striker for years, worked for him for a while at Strike Force and then shifted here when he and Ruby Maverick broke ground.”
She knew Ruby and Owen, of course. Had met them both during the initial interview process. They were celebrities in the world of personal security, both of them having built their own agencies, Strike Force and Maverick Ops, before venturing into Crossfire Creek.
“Owen and Ruby moved fast on this project,” Eli added. “Had this place up and running before the ink on the permits dried.”
“And you were one of the first,” she murmured. Eli, along with the other handful of operatives that Ruby and Owen had handpicked.
They’d no doubt chosen Eli because he was exactly the kind of man who could build a team from nothing.
A former Air Force Combat Rescue Officer and later a Texas Ranger, he had the rare mix of tactical skill and unshakable calm under pressure.
He was hardened by years in the field, forged in crisis zones and manhunts, the kind of operator who didn’t hesitate when lives were on the line.
Delaney took another long breath and turned her gaze back to the fog. “They picked me because I was broken,” she admitted.
Eli’s head shifted slightly. Not quite toward her, but enough that she knew he’d heard about her past. About her failure. About the girl she hadn’t saved.
“Because I needed redemption,” she added. “Or maybe because Ruby and Owen felt sorry for me. That’s probably more accurate.”
This time Eli looked at her. Really looked, and she felt a moment of shock at the intensity in his amber eyes. Shock and something else she definitely didn’t want. A reminder that along with being Mr. Perfect Crossfire Ops, Eli was a damn attractive man.
Yeah, she didn’t need that reminder, and Delaney shoved it aside.
“You think that’s why they brought you in?” he asked. “Because they felt sorry for you?”
Delaney shrugged. “Why else take in the FBI agent who misread a killer’s timeline and got a young woman killed?”
She didn’t expect him to argue. Didn’t need comfort.
She just needed to say it out loud so that Eli knew she had screwed up and was willing to take the blame.
Even if that blame chewed and chewed and chewed away at her.
Even if that blame had no chance of ever going away, not without a blasted time machine anyway.
“You know what I think?” Eli asked. But he didn’t wait for her to respond. “I think Ruby Maverick doesn’t waste time feeling sorry for anyone. And Owen Striker doesn’t bring dead weight into a fight.”
His tone was neutral, but his words hit harder, and with far more reassurance, than she expected. Delaney blinked and looked away, her jaw tight.
The door behind them opened, and she felt the change in the air. Noah Riggs had entered the room.
His gait was uneven, boots thudding with a slight mechanical rhythm.
The prosthetic wasn’t obvious unless you knew to look, but Delaney had studied his file.
He was in his late forties, tall and lean, face weathered from the sun and something deeper.
Combat lines etched across his features, but it was the quiet in his eyes that marked him most. He moved with a purpose that didn’t allow for wasted motion or wasted words.
Noah slid a glance at both of them before his attention fixed on her. “All settled in and ready to go?” he asked.
Delaney gave a nod, her expression composed, though her fingers tightened slightly around the coffee mug. “Yeah. I’m settled in. I’ve got one of the log cabins out back.”
Noah’s gaze lingered on her for a second longer, as if weighing what she said against what she didn’t.
“It’s quiet,” she added. “Modern inside. All the bells and whistles.”
What she didn’t say was that she hadn’t exactly had anywhere else to go. Or that the silence at night still pressed in too close.
But she figured Noah already knew that. From her short time with him, she had learned that he usually knew more than he said.
“I’ve got the unit at the edge of the tree line,” Eli cut in, tipping his hat back with one finger and leaning his shoulder against the wall.
“Looks like a hunting cabin from the outside. Inside, it’s got surround sound, a rainfall shower, and a coffee maker that probably cost more than my first truck. ”
“That’s because Owen personally picked the appliances,” Noah explained. “The man loves his gadgets and tech.”
Eli grinned. “Explains why the fridge has a Wi-Fi signal and inventory of what’s inside.”
Noah’s mouth twitched, just short of a smile, but his eyes had softened slightly. Delaney looked between them and let the moment settle. Eli had a way of easing the pressure without dismissing it. He gave space without acting like it was pity. That kind of thing didn’t go unnoticed.
And maybe it was nothing. But maybe it was the start of something she hadn’t felt in a long time.
Steady ground.
Delaney took a breath and made sure her voice was level before she spoke. “So, what’s our mission?”
Noah went to the center of the war room where he picked up a slim remote from the table and turned it toward the massive wall screen.
It blinked to life, casting a cold blue glow over the high-tech space.
The room was lined with monitors, encrypted gear, and intel boards.
Ruby’s and Owen’s money and design had built Crossfire Ops into a fortress disguised as a ranch compound.
Images filled the screen. An aerial view of a sprawling property tucked deep in the Hill Country. Low buildings with metal roofs. A perimeter fence. Carefully maintained gravel roads winding between structures. A garden. A therapy pool. From a distance, it looked like a luxury retreat.