Chapter Two
The click of the rifle bolt still echoed through Jessa, all the way to her bones.
She didn’t think, she moved. Instinct, training, pure survival all hit at once.
“Come on,” she whispered, taking hold of Deacon’s arm. “We have to move now.”
The sound he tried to muffle was pure pain, grit, and agony wrapped together. Damn it. He was hurt. How bad she didn’t know. Still, he was able to move on his own, and that was a good sign.
She hoped.
They moved together, deeper into the trees. The cold slammed into her face, slicing through her jacket. The winter air bit at her lungs, each breath a sharp reminder of how exposed they still were.
Behind them, the ravine stayed too quiet. Too still. But she figured the sniper wasn’t retreating.
He was adjusting.
“Get behind cover,” Deacon ground out, his voice rough. “I can take care of myself.”
She rolled her eyes. “Save the alpha male crap for when you’re not bleeding all over me.”
His breath hitched, and she didn’t know if it was pain or a laugh. Didn’t matter. His steps were dragging, slower every second. She tightened her grip on his arm, forcing him forward, deeper into the cover of the mesquites ahead.
Branches whipped against her arms, cold leaves brushing her cheeks like warnings. The darkness thickened, swallowing their breath, their footfalls, the tremor in her chest.
“This is my fault,” she muttered, words that only she could hear. Guilt churned hot in her chest, snapping tight across her ribs.
Not now. Not the time. Focus.
“We’re almost there,” she said instead, even though she wasn’t sure where there was yet. Just deeper cover, thicker trees, more places for a bullet to miss.
Another shift of air. A metallic whisper carried on the wind.
The sniper was moving.
Her pulse spiked. She scanned the darkness, her every nerve stretched thin. Not tonight. Not him. She wasn’t losing Deacon. Not because of a bullet. Not because of her.
When they reached an oak that was at least three feet wide, both of them crouched in the dark. Her muscles burned from the race to get to Deacon in time, but she ignored the ache and kept watch, her gun firm in her grip.
Branches rustled somewhere deeper in the trees. Soft. Measured. Not close, but not far enough.
Deacon lifted his gun, steady despite the blood on his sleeve. Determined. Stupid. Brave. All of it wrapped in one man who had no business trying to take a shot in his condition.
She laid a hand over his wrist. “Don’t,” she whispered. “I need him alive.”
He turned his head slightly. “Him?”
The single word scraped at something deep inside her. “According to the hacker, it’s Marty Wynn,” she admitted.
No clarification needed as to who that was. They both knew Wynn all too well.
“You really think Marty Wynn did this?” he asked.
It wasn’t exactly skepticism in his voice. Probably because he’d heard about Wynn’s recent shift in personality. It was possible that Deacon had even been on the direct receiving end of whatever the heck it was that Wynn was trying to do.
But it hadn’t always been that way.
Wynn was a former operative for Strike Force—Crossfire Ops’ parent company—and later one of Creed Response’s most reliable assets. Deacon had met him back when Jessa and he were together. Back when Wynn was her mother’s long-time companion and practically part of their extended family.
But six months ago, when Jessa’s mother, Lauren, had lost her battle with cancer, something in Wynn had snapped.
The grief curdled into something sharp and vicious, twisting into a hatred he’d never shown before.
He blamed Crossfire Ops for things they hadn’t done.
Blamed the Crossfire Ops’ leader, Noah Riggs, for choices he never made.
Lately… he’d turned that bitterness toward Deacon too.
Mostly because Wynn seemed convinced Deacon catered to Crossfire Ops and looked the other way because he and Noah were friends. The accusations had come out of nowhere, and they’d gotten worse every week.
Jessa drew a tight breath. “He’s been spiraling since my mother died. Saying things… believing things… and now this.”
Wynn wasn’t some unstable criminal. He was a skilled operator. A man trained to move unseen, hit hard, and vanish. A man who used to protect others, not stalk them from the shadows.
And if Wynn had chosen tonight to escalate?
Well, he most certainly could have planned something like this.
More noise, another branch shifting, but the sound drifted sideways this time. Not toward them. Wynn wasn’t closing in. Not yet. Maybe circling. Maybe looking for a better vantage point.
Or maybe trying to decide which one of them he wanted dead first.
The cold dug deeper. She edged closer to Deacon, angling herself so her body shielded him.
Deacon shifted beside her, wincing as he adjusted his grip on his gun. “Why the hell would Wynn attack me just to get to you?”
Jessa let out a quiet, tired sigh, the kind that carried way more weight than she wanted him hearing right now. “It’s a long story.”
He angled his head enough to look at her, even in the dim light. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Deacon,” she whispered, sharper than she meant. She didn’t want to snap at him, but fear had her nerves stretched tight. “Not now. We’ll talk once we’re safe. I promise.”
Safe. A word she wasn’t sure existed right now.
She scanned the tree line again, trying to pick out Wynn’s position. Nothing. No light, no silhouette. Just the restless rustle of night creatures and the weight of the man beside her slowly bleeding into the dirt.
She leaned in closer. “Listen. My SUV is parked about three hundred yards from here, off a deer trail.” She pointed north with her chin. “It’s bullet-resistant. If we can get to it, we can get out of here.”
Deacon’s response was immediate, flat. “I’d rather stay and confront him.”
Of course, he would. The man was made of stubborn bone and bad timing.
She caught his arm again before he tried to push himself higher against the tree. The movement pulled a pained groan from him, and she felt it like her own ribs cracked.
“Deacon.” She kept her voice low, steady. “You’re hurt. I don’t know how deep the wound is, but if Wynn comes at us again while you’re like this—”
“I can still shoot.” His jaw clenched. “I don’t run from threats, Jess.”
“This isn’t running.” She leaned in until their foreheads were almost touching, her breath fogging between them.
“It’s regrouping. It’s getting you medical attention before you collapse on me.
And then”—she angled her head back, staring into the cold, dark woods—“then we work out how to catch Wynn.”
Deacon’s eyes narrowed. She could practically feel the argument forming on his tongue. She didn’t let him speak.
“You want him stopped?” she whispered. “So do I. More than you know. But we don’t do it here. Not like this with you hurt.”
Silence stretched between them, tense, heavy, broken only by the distant shuffle of branches deeper in the woods. Wynn was moving again. Circling. Watching.
Deacon exhaled slowly, the breath trembling from pain. “Three hundred yards to your SUV?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “Then let’s move.”
Relief washed through her sharp as ice. She shifted her stance, lifting his arm back over her shoulders. His weight dragged against her, warm and heavy and terrifying in its fragility.
“Ready?” she whispered.
“No,” he muttered. “But let’s go anyway.”
She adjusted his arm over her shoulder, bracing his weight, and they moved, slow, uneven, but moving. Every few yards she paused, listening. The night gave nothing back but cold wind and the nervous chatter of dry leaves.
They were maybe halfway to the SUV when a low light flickered through the trees.
Headlights.
Too high to be an ATV. Too slow to be a civilian truck. Too damn wrong to be safe.
“Down,” she whispered.
Deacon didn’t argue, thank God. She pulled him behind a cluster of boulders, the cold rock biting through her jeans as she crouched low. She pressed a hand to his shoulder when he swayed, grounding him, keeping them both silent.
The headlights crawled across the distant trail, a restless sweep of white against the dark. Jessa held her breath. Waited. Counted heartbeats.
One. Two… all the way to ten.
But the vehicle never got close. The lights kept moving, then angled away, swallowed by the trees until nothing was left but blackness again.
Still… no voices. No footsteps. No door slams.
Just the dead quiet that made her nerves go razor-sharp.
Beside her, Deacon’s breath hissed between his teeth. Not pain. This time, it was frustration.
“Why do you need Wynn alive?” he pressed.
Of all the questions she didn’t want him asking, that one topped the list. She clenched her jaw, staring into the dark. He deserved something. Anything. But the weight of it pressed like a vise in her lungs.
He waited. And she could feel him looking at her despite the shadows.
She sighed, low and tight. “You’re hurt, you’re freezing, and you’re trying to fight off a sniper who’s better trained than either of us. Maybe save the interrogation for later?”
“I’m bleeding, not dead,” he whispered back. “And someone tried to kill me. I think I’m owed a little intel.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
Damn him.
She shifted, still listening for movement, for anything, before she finally whispered, “Wynn gathered… things. Secrets,” she said, the word bitter on her tongue. “A stash of information and intel. On Crossfire Ops. On Creed Response. On people I care about.”
Deacon stiffened beside her. “You’re telling me Wynn has a blackmail file?”
“I’m telling you that if something happens to him—if someone kills him, arrests him, scares him too hard—that stash gets released.”
“To who?”
Her throat tightened. “Everyone.” She swallowed hard. “The press. Law enforcement. The wrong hands. And definitely our enemies.”
Deacon let out a slow, careful breath. “So that’s why you don’t want me putting a bullet in him.”
“That,” she whispered, “is why I need him alive.”