Chapter Seventeen
~ Decker ~
I woke in the dark with no transition between unconsciousness and alertness—my eyes open, my breathing already controlled, my body completely still while my brain ran through threat assessments on automatic.
The bedroom was silent except for the soft sound of Jasper’s breathing beside me, his exhales steady and even in sleep.
I didn’t move, not even to lift my head from the pillow, as I counted the seconds and listened for whatever had pulled me from sleep with my hand already reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there.
Two full seconds, then three. Nothing moved in the farmhouse.
No unfamiliar creak of the floorboards, no sound of glass breaking, no footsteps that didn’t belong.
Just the quiet of a building settling into night, the occasional faint tick of the cooling heating system, the distant sound of the creek running along the property line.
My right hand was resting over the curve of Jasper’s belly—three months along, the swell of it now unmistakable under my palm.
I hadn’t decided to put it there; it had just ended up there, the same way it ended up there every night—Jasper asleep on his side, my arm thrown across his waist, my palm flat against the place where our child was growing.
The specific weight of the contact registered somewhere beneath my sternum—not fear exactly, but adjacent to it. A vulnerability I hadn’t known I could still feel, had thought myself too careful for.
I sat up in one smooth movement and reached for my jeans on the floor. My T-shirt was still on, my boots by the door where I’d left them, my gun under my pillow where I kept it in case of trouble.
I was halfway through zipping my jeans when the bedroom door opened, no knock, no warning, just the sudden movement of hinges in the dark. My hand went under the pillow and came up with the Glock in one motion, aimed at the large shape filling the frame.
It was Rawley.
I lowered the weapon, finger already off the trigger, but didn’t holster it. Rawley wouldn’t be in our bedroom in the middle of the night if something wasn’t happening.
“Heard something on the property,” he said, voice barely above a murmur. “Not an animal. Already alerted Macon and Burke. Burke’s moving Danny and the baby to Macon and Carter’s place now. Everyone else is in the safe room until we know what we’re dealing with.”
He was gone before I could respond—back into the hallway, his boots silent on the hardwood—leaving the door open a crack behind him.
I turned back to the bed, sat on the edge, and leaned over Jasper. His face was relaxed in sleep, one hand tucked under the pillow, the other resting on top of the covers. I covered his mouth gently with one hand, careful not to startle him.
The moment Jasper’s eyes opened—wide, instantly awake—I held one finger to my lips. His body went completely still, only his eyes moving to track my face, reading the situation without me having to explain it. He nodded once, the quick, definitive movement that meant he understood and would comply.
I pulled Jasper’s clothes from the chair beside the bed—jeans, a T-shirt, the flannel button-up that had become his when he’d stolen it from me three weeks ago—and handed them over.
Then I finished dressing myself, boots included, moving with the quietness of a man who’d done this a hundred times before.
Jasper dressed fast and silent, his movements quick but controlled, no wasted motion. He didn’t ask questions. He’d learned the value of getting information when it was available rather than when he wanted it.
I could feel the fear coming off him—not in the way he moved or the expression he wore, but in the quality of the air between us. A specific change in temperature, in density, in the way the room suddenly felt smaller. He was afraid, and trying not to show it, and doing it mostly successfully.
I kept my face and body locked into deliberate calm because Jasper was watching me the way he always did—reading my expression, scanning for information about how bad this was.
He’d been a nurse before Nebraska; he knew how to spot the difference between professional confidence and actual certainty.
I checked the Glock’s load—chamber confirmed, full magazine—then took Jasper by the arm with my free hand. I put my mouth close to his ear, voice low enough that only he could hear it.
“Stay close,” I said. “Don’t speak. Don’t stop moving.”
Jasper nodded again, the same quick, definitive movement. He was barefoot, I realized, his shoes still by the door where he’d left them after dinner. I’d get him into boots when we reached the safe room.
I looked at him directly, taking in the firm set of his jaw, the careful way he held himself. “You’re with me,” I said, the simple statement carrying more weight than its three words should have been able to.
He understood what I meant—not “you’re under my protection“ or “I’ll keep you safe,” but the truth of us standing together against whatever came next. Not a transaction or a performance, but a choice freely made.
“We’re ready,” he said, keeping it simple.
I checked the hall through the gap in the door—empty, the night light casting a low amber glow across the worn hardwood—then moved Jasper in front of me with one hand on the small of his back.
Whatever was happening, whatever had brought Rawley to our room in the middle of the night, we would handle it the way we’d handled everything since Nebraska: together, with eyes open and weapons ready, no one making decisions the other hadn’t already agreed to.
In the hallway, we met Rawley, Jojo, and their infant son coming from the opposite direction.
Jojo had the baby cradled against his chest, one hand cupped over the boy’s head, his face set in lines I recognized—the quiet carefulness of a man who knew panic was contagious and couldn’t afford to catch it.
The baby was awake but silent, eyes wide in the dim light, one fist wrapped around the collar of Jojo’s shirt.
Rawley nodded once when he saw us—the simple acknowledgment of a plan coming together—then gestured toward the back of the house with his free hand.
He was armed, the weapon held at his side rather than aimed, his posture of a man who knew exactly how this would go and was already three steps ahead of it.
“Safe room,” he said, voice barely audible. “Now.”
Rawley led. I took the rear with one hand on the back of Jasper’s shirt, Jasper positioned between us with Jojo and the baby. We moved down the hallway in formation.
The farmhouse was dark except for the low amber glow of the hallway night light, and every creak of the old hardwood floors registered enormous in the silence.
Jojo’s breathing was quick and controlled, the baby still silent in his arms. Rawley moved with the quietness I recognized from my own time in service—nothing wasted, just the direct line from point A to point B.
We were ten feet from the utility room door—the reinforced safe room Decker and Rawley built out together two years ago, unknown to anyone outside the ranch—when the first shot came through the front window.
The sound was unmistakable—the crack of a rifle round followed by the explosion of glass across the living room floor.
The baby made a sharp sound—not quite a cry, more surprise than fear—and Jojo dropped low without being told, covering the boy with his body, one hand braced against the wall for balance.
Rawley had his sidearm up and aimed toward the front of the house before the last shard of glass hit the floor.
I was already moving, putting myself between the front of the house and Jasper, who had pressed flat against the hallway wall with both hands over his belly, his face drained of color, but his eyes clear and focused.
“The safe room,” Rawley said, voice steady. “Go.”
But we never made it to the door. The second shot punched through the front door—a clean hit, center mass on where a person would have been standing—and in the space of one breath I read the pattern: whoever was out front knew the interior layout well enough to be aiming into it, which meant they had been watching this house, which meant going deeper into it meant getting cornered.
The safe room was no longer the play.
I grabbed Jasper’s wrist and reversed direction toward the kitchen, the tactical calculation happening too fast for words. Rawley read the change without a word, already getting Jojo moving, the baby now completely silent in his father’s arms.
“Kitchen,” I said. “Back door.”
Rawley nodded once—the acknowledgment of a man who’d reached the same conclusion—and we changed course without breaking stride.
The hallway felt suddenly twice as long, the distance to the kitchen door stretching out in front of us with the wrongness of a place that wasn’t what it had been a minute ago.
I reached the kitchen first, flattening against the wall beside the back door, the Glock held at ready. The window above the sink showed nothing but darkness—the yard behind the house still and empty, no movement visible, which meant nothing and I knew it.
Darkness was cover, not information.
I looked at Rawley, who was braced against the opposite wall with Jojo and the baby behind him. He gave me a tight nod.
“On three,” I said, keeping it simple. “One, two—“
I opened the back door low and fast, clearing the immediate frame with the gun, then stepped through in one smooth movement.
The yard was exactly as it had been when we’d closed up for the night—the gravel path to the equipment barn, the wood pile stacked neatly against the east wall, the darkness of the tree line thirty yards out.
Nothing moved. Nothing changed. The quiet of the ranch at night continued exactly as it had before, as if the front of the house wasn’t currently being shot to pieces.
Jasper came through the door behind me, then Jojo with the baby, then Rawley bringing up the rear. We pressed against the back exterior wall of the farmhouse, the rough wood cool through the thin fabric of my T-shirt, the Black Butte mountain a dark mass against the sky beyond the tree line.
The gunfire continued from the front of the house—not random, not panicked, but controlled and measured, the cadence of professionals who had done this before and knew exactly how it should sound.
Two shots, a pause of exactly three seconds, then two more, then a longer pause while whoever was behind the trigger assessed results and adjusted accordingly.
Jasper’s hand found mine in the dark and gripped hard, his fingers cold against my palm. I squeezed back once—brief, definitive—then pulled free, because I needed both hands. I needed to count the shots, map the positions, figure out how many there were and where they were sitting.
I needed to find a way to get Jasper and Jojo and the baby off this property without dying in the yard.
The fear I was carrying was not for myself—it was for the man pressed against the wall beside me and the child he was carrying—and it was the sharpest, most clarifying thing I had felt in years. I pushed it down to where it could move me rather than stop me, and started working the problem.
Three shooters, minimum. Professional positioning—one covering the road, one on the east tree line with sightlines to the front door, one mobile between positions.
Not locals—the timing was too precise, the spacing too deliberate for amateurs.
Not random—the front door shot had been too clean, too specifically aimed at where a person would have been standing.
I looked at Jasper—the firm set of his jaw, the careful way he held himself—and made the calculation I’d been carrying since the first shot: we couldn’t stay here.
We couldn’t go back inside. We couldn’t make it to the equipment barn or the Callahan place or Macon’s without crossing thirty yards of open ground with at least one professional marksman already sighted in on the property.
We needed to move.
Now!