Chapter Seven
Four hours later, Rena couldn’t help but think that the briefing room looked like a war zone of its own.
Empty coffee cups, data cables snaking across the floor, the blue wash of monitors painting tired faces in harsh light.
The hum of the servers was the only constant sound besides the quiet murmur of techs typing and the occasional rustle of paper.
Rena rubbed her temples, the ache behind her eyes throbbing in slow, insistent waves.
The adrenaline that had kept her sharp for the last several hours was long gone, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion and the dull pulse of an oncoming migraine.
Still, she stayed at the table, because Noah’s voice still echoed in her head.
Let’s find the bastard who tried to kill us.
She wasn’t quitting until they did.
Across the table, Owen and Ruby looked just as worn but hadn’t budged either.
Owen’s arm was wrapped tight from a graze wound, and Ruby’s hair was still streaked with soot from the fires in the hangar.
Sheriff Arden Chase leaned over one of the monitors with Isla, the two of them exchanging clipped updates.
Noah stood near the head of the table, watching the shifting images on the monitors. Every few minutes, he’d give a quiet order. “Eliminate him,” or “Run a second check on her.” Isla or one of the techs would respond, the photo vanishing from the wall or being highlighted.
Nearly half the monitors were black now, the faces gone, crossed off because they were dead, locked up, or didn’t have the muscle or money to pull off an assault like this.
That still left forty-eight faces staring back at them.
Forty-eight possible enemies.
Rena leaned back, dragging a hand through her hair.
Her shoulder twinged where the stitches pulled, and she ignored it.
She glanced across the table at Gage. He was hunched forward, studying the photos as if he could will the right one to confess.
The stitches on his arm peeked from under the bandage, dark.
He looked up, met her gaze, and gave a small nod. No words, just understanding. They were both running on fumes, both too stubborn to stop.
Noah exhaled, the sound rough in the quiet. “Forty-eight names,” he said. “That’s forty-seven too many.”
No one disagreed.
Rena looked at the wall again, her vision blurring slightly from fatigue, but one thought cut through the haze. Whoever had done this had planned it with precision. Someone smart. Someone who knew Crossfire Ops, knew their layout, their people, their defenses.
And that meant this wasn’t some faceless threat.
This was personal.
Whoever had done this hadn’t just attacked a facility. They’d come after a family, and families fought back.
Noah’s phone buzzed against the tabletop, a low hum that cut through the quiet. Conversation stalled. Even the techs paused, glancing up from their screens as he answered.
“Riggs.” He listened for a moment, jotting quick notes on a legal pad with a pen that scratched loudly in the stillness. The call lasted maybe a minute, but by the time he hung up, the room felt sharper, more alert.
He set the pen down, blew out a long breath, and grabbed the remote from beside his coffee. “That was the medical examiner’s office.”
Everyone straightened. Noah turned toward the wall of monitors, where the remaining forty-eight faces stared back at them. He clicked the remote, and one by one, eleven of the faces were marked with a red X.
“They’ve identified all eleven of the dead from the hangar,” he said. “Former contractors, mercenaries, and a couple of small-time gunrunners. Every one of them has a file in our threat database. Everyone was on our board.”
Rena’s stomach turned, the fatigue sharpening into unease. “So they weren’t random hires,” she said.
Noah shook his head. “No. Someone pulled them together. Different outfits, different histories. Some of them used to hate each other. But tonight they were working as one unit.”
Gage let out a low whistle. “That takes serious money. And someone who knew how to play them.”
Ruby crossed her arms. “Or someone who convinced them Crossfire Ops was worth dying to take down.”
“A grudge big enough to unite a bunch of old enemies,” Owen commented.
Noah nodded. “That’s what it looks like.
” He rubbed a hand down his face, the motion equal parts frustration and exhaustion.
“All right,” he went on. “We’ll regroup in the morning at zero-seven-hundred.
That’s—” he checked his watch “—five hours from now. I’ve got night techs coming in to keep digging. ”
No one argued. Chairs scraped back. Owen stood and rolled his shoulders with a grimace, the sound of his joints popping loud in the quiet.
Rena pushed to her feet, her body protesting every movement.
Her stitches tugged, her head still throbbed, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a proper night’s sleep, but stopping felt almost unnatural.
Noah gestured toward the adjoining hallway. “Ruby, Owen, guest quarters are open. You’re both welcome to stay.”
Ruby gave a tired smile. “Appreciate it. I think my team can manage without me for a few hours.”
Owen just grunted in agreement, his hand finding Ruby’s shoulder as they started toward the corridor.
Rena glanced at the wall one last time. Thirty-seven faces. She doubted she’d sleep knowing those people were still out there.
Beside her, Gage stretched, wincing when his shoulder protested. “Come on, Calloway,” he said. “We’ve earned at least a cot and five hours.”
That drew a ghost of a smile from her. “If you start snoring, I’m throwing something at you.”
“Noted.”
They stepped out into the hallway together, the air cooler and quieter beyond the briefing room, and they headed toward the barracks that were in a building attached to the headquarters. The corridor was empty, their footsteps the only sound echoing off the polished concrete floors.
Rena’s pulse thrummed in her ears, a leftover rush of adrenaline that refused to fade, matching the low buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead.
The barracks wing was quiet when they reached it, the air faintly scented with detergent and other cleaners.
Not the typical open-bay layout she’d known from her military days.
Crossfire Ops did things differently. Each trainee had a small private cubicle with a sliding door, a bunk, a desk, and, best of all, a private bathroom.
A luxury by military training standards.
She stopped at her door and turned to Gage.
He was standing a few feet away, his expression unreadable but his posture loose in that deceptively relaxed way he had.
Even exhausted, he still looked like a man built for motion.
Short dark hair mussed, jaw shadowed, a hint of blood and smoke still on his shirt.
The kind of rugged that should have come with a warning label.
Rena cursed herself silently. Not now. Not tonight.
But her body hadn’t gotten the memo. The tension was still there. Coiled, alive, humming in the narrow space between them. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or the memory of the way they’d fought side by side hours ago.
Or maybe it was just him.
Gage tipped his chin toward the hall, his voice low, rough from exhaustion. “We should probably grab showers before the night’s officially over.”
“Yeah,” she said, forcing her tone casual. “You smell like a flashbang.”
That earned her a crooked grin, the kind that punched straight through her defenses. “I’ll take that as motivation.”
He started toward his cubicle, then paused and looked back. “After that, meet me in the common room? One drink. A nightcap before we crash.”
Rena hesitated just long enough for the pause to say more than she wanted it to. She didn’t trust herself to sleep anyway. Her body was exhausted, but her mind was still wired, replaying every second of the attack.
“Yeah,” she finally said. “One drink.”
He nodded, eyes lingering on her a beat too long before disappearing into his room.
Rena exhaled, pressed her palm to the cool metal of her door, and muttered under her breath, “Bad idea.”
Then she was going to do it anyway.
Rena slid the door shut behind her, the soft click of the lock sounding too loud in the silence.
The room was dim, the low amber light spilling from the wall fixture doing little to soften the edges.
She didn’t bother turning on the brighter overhead.
Instead, she stood still, listening. The soft hum of the air system.
The distant creak of pipes. No footsteps. No voices.
Still, she checked.
Her hand went automatically to her Glock, and she drew it.
She swept the compact space the same way she had every night since arriving at Crossfire.
Corners, closet, under the bunk. Pointless maybe, but she couldn’t shake the need.
The attack had just reinforced what she already knew, that safety was an illusion.
For a short time, at that party, she’d believed it. The music, the laughter, the ridiculous pink frosting and twinkle lights, it had felt like peace. Then all hell had broken loose, and the illusion had burned away in the flash of gunfire.
Now, the flashbacks overlapped. The hangar bathed in red light, blurring with the orange glow of her jet’s cockpit fire, the smell of smoke and metal fusing together in her head until she couldn’t separate one from the other.
Her stomach twisted, and she sank down on the edge of the bunk, elbows on her knees. The throbbing behind her eyes had sharpened to a familiar warning. Migraine territory. She closed her eyes, took a slow breath, counting the seconds until her pulse evened out.
Yeah. She was going to need that nightcap.
Even if meeting Gage in the common room was a bad idea.
Especially because it was a bad idea.