Crossfire Creek Vendetta (Hard Justice, Crossfire Creek #2)

Chapter One

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The blast of light and sound tore through the decrepit ranch house as the stun charge detonated inside.

Colt Morgan shoved through the busted kitchen door, rifle up, boots crunching over broken tile and rotted drywall. His comms provided him hearing protection against the blast still echoing in his skull, and he wore tinted eye shields and body armor as he scanned the room.

The air was thick with smoke, the sharp tang of ammonia and something worse. Maybe kerosene. The asshole who’d set up this place wanted to send a message.

And Colt wasn’t in the mood to read it.

“Target’s in the back bedroom,” came the crackle of his partner Harlan Creed’s voice in Colt’s earpiece. “Unconscious but breathing. Hostile’s down in the hall.”

“Copy,” Colt muttered, sweeping his sector.

He moved fast, clearing a makeshift barricade of overturned furniture and chicken wire. The smell got worse the farther he went. Sour sweat, piss, and other scents Colt didn’t want to identify.

A groan echoed from the corner.

Colt pivoted, laser sight locking on a man slumped against the wall, hands clamped over his ears. Obviously the flashbang had gotten to him. No surprise there. It was damn effective at neutralizing hostiles.

The guy reached for a shotgun, but Colt was faster. One hard boot to the ribs, and the weapon skittered across the floor. Colt hauled him up by the collar, shoving the dazed man forward. He got them moving, or in the hostile’s case—staggering—toward the exit.

Colt met up with Harlan at the back door, the heiress, Cassandra Vale, slung over his partner’s shoulder like a duffel bag. Cassandra was barefoot, her silk blouse ripped and streaked with grime, but she was alive. Pale, limp, breathing.

“Whole place is rigged with explosives that have been tripped,” Harlan blurted. “We’ve got maybe sixty seconds.”

“Then move,” Colt couldn’t say fast enough.

They tore through the scrub brush behind the house, boots pounding dirt, Colt dragging the kidnapper by the back of the shirt as they ran. A low rumble built behind them, then the world erupted in fire.

The explosion blasted heat across Colt’s back, shoving him forward as he and Harlan dove behind the armored SUV parked at the edge of the tree line.

Flames consumed the ranch house in seconds.

Colt leaned against the vehicle, panting, watching the fire twist up into the stars. Another second slower and they’d all be ash.

“You good?” Harlan asked, still cradling the woman’s body.

Colt managed a nod, and he whipped out a pair of plastic cuffs to restrain the asshole who was moaning and trying to wriggle away. “Yeah. Glad this was easy.”

“Explosives don’t say easy to me,” Harlan grumbled.

True. But they’d come prepared for that. Prepared for a fight to extract the hostage, and everything had gone as planned. Whenever an op didn’t go sideways and no one got killed, Colt was more than happy to label it easy.

Harlan opened the rear door of the SUV and eased Cassandra inside onto the seat. Colt moved to the other side, scanning her face for signs of consciousness. Still unresponsive.

“She’s alive,” Harlan said, brushing a leaf from her hair. “But she’s been pumped full of something.”

“Benzos, maybe worse.” Colt stepped back, dragging the zip-tied kidnapper down into the dirt beside the vehicle. “What’d you give her, you piece of shit?”

“Lawyer,” he snarled back.

In Colt’s mind, that confirmed the label he’d just given the guy. Then again, he hadn’t needed any confirmation since this asshole was Cassandra’s kidnapper. Doyle Mercer.

“And I ain’t no piece of shit,” Doyle whined.

“Right,” Colt snapped. “Former security guard at Cassandra’s family estate. Fired for assault, sued for harassment. You’re practically a model citizen.”

“He’s gonna love the Crossfire Creek jail,” Harlan added, causing Doyle to call them a bunch of choice names that Colt didn’t find very creative.

Colt tapped a finger to his earpiece to contact their boss, Noah Riggs, head of Crossfire Ops. “Noah, you can send the ambulance in now. And roll a transport for Doyle Mercer. He’s restrained… and verbal,” he added when Doyle just kept on spewing profanity.

“Copy that,” Noah replied. “You and Harlan all right?”

“We’re good. Cassandra appears to be stable, but she needs to be seen now.”

As if on cue, the distant wail of a siren pierced the quiet. Red lights flared behind the line of mesquites, dancing across the dust and the front of the SUV.

Harlan exhaled. “You already had them waiting.”

“I don’t gamble with lives,” Noah said.

The sound of tires crunching over the road followed, and a white-and-red ambulance emerged from the trees, followed by a sheriff’s transport. Colt straightened as the first responders jumped out, med bags in hand, already moving toward the SUV.

Two deputies climbed out of the transport SUV, and they crossed the clearing. One of them, a tall woman with her badge clipped to a tactical vest, gave Colt a nod before kneeling beside Mercer.

“Name?” she asked.

Since Mercer clammed up, Colt provided the info.

“Doyle Mercer. Kidnapped Cassandra Vale four days ago from her home in San Antonio, held her here. Her family hired Crossfire Ops to find her, and we tracked him to this location.” He tipped his head to Mercer.

“Watch him. He’s got a temper and a limited vocabulary. ”

Neither of the deputies attempted to hide their smiles. “We’ll take it from here,” the male deputy said, hauling Doyle to his feet with little concern for the man’s grunted protest. “Medical will check him out at intake.”

Colt stepped aside, watching as they perp walked Doyle toward the waiting cruiser. The guy struggled and fought them the entire way while cursing and repeating his demand for a lawyer.

Yeah, he was a piece of shit all right.

Colt’s earpiece buzzed, and he heard Noah’s voice again. “I’ll notify Cassandra’s family,” Noah explained. “They can meet her at the hospital.” There was a pause, then Noah added, “I’ve got someone here with me. She wants to talk to you. Both of you. Says it’s important.”

“Who?” Colt asked, though he already had a strange feeling creeping in.

Harlan stepped closer, eyes narrowing as he listened in on his own comms.

“It’s Brenna Keane,” Noah answered.

Colt froze.

For a second, the noise around him dulled—the scrape of boots, the quiet murmurs of paramedics, the distant rumble of the ambulance engine. It all faded under the sudden gut punch of hearing her name.

Brenna.

Memories hit like recoil. Dirt and blood.

A compound deep in the woods. The metallic stench of fear and adrenaline.

Brenna’s voice in his ear during that last mission when they’d all still worked for the private security company, Strike Force.

Her hands had been steady enough when everything else was falling apart.

Then her silence afterward. Months, years of it.

“Brenna showed up at headquarters looking for you two,” Noah went on, “and when she contacted me, I told her where we were. She drove straight here.”

Colt didn’t answer Noah right away. He exchanged a glance with Harlan as they watched the medics lift Cassandra Vale onto the stretcher. They’d done all they could for her now, and he had to hope that was enough.

“Has Brenna been in touch with you?” Harlan asked him.

Colt shook his head, and they started up the dirt and gravel road, such that it was. The narrow stretch of rutted earth wasn’t much more than a trail, winding between overgrown brush and weathered fence posts.

They moved toward the cluster of vehicles farther up, where a few responder rigs idled with headlights glowing faintly in the dark. A white van sat at the center of the chaos, Crossfire Ops decals faded on the sides. Noah stood beside it, talking to someone Colt couldn’t yet see.

As they got closer, Colt saw her.

Brenna.

She stepped around the side of the van, the overhead light catching in her blonde hair and casting shadows across her face. She wore jeans and a black field jacket, nothing tactical, but she stood with that old familiar tension in her shoulders. Watchful. Contained. Coiled like a spring.

Colt stopped walking.

Maybe skipped a breath or two as well.

For a second, all he could do was look at her. Same sharp brown eyes. Same stubborn chin. She looked like the last time he’d seen her, and completely different all at once.

Colt’s pulse kicked a little harder, and not just from the aftermath of the rescue. Brenna being here meant something had cracked open. Something they’d buried years ago, deep enough they hadn’t planned to ever dig it up.

She looked at both of them. No smile. No welcome.

Just the words Colt had been dreading ever since Noah had told them she was there.

“We need to talk.”

Colt didn’t say a word as he and Harlan followed Brenna away from the van. Noah didn’t stop them, just watched with that unreadable expression of his.

Brenna led them toward a black SUV parked just off the road, a little distance from the rest of the responder vehicles. She stopped beside the driver’s side door but didn’t open it. Didn’t move. Just waited.

Colt’s footsteps slowed. He didn’t want to remember, but his brain didn’t ask permission.

Three years ago. A compound outside Kerrville called Timberline Lodge.

Once upon a time, gun runners had used the shell of an old hunting camp, fortified with concrete, barbed wire, and paranoia.

But the gun runners had long since moved on by the time the place landed on Colt’s radar.

By that time it had become the site of a Strike Force mission for Brenna, Harlan, and him.

Intelligence had said there were hostages inside. Civilians who were being held for reasons unknown. No time for a long recon. No time to bring in the local cops. Strike Force had gone in fast and hard.

But it wasn’t enough.

The hostages were already dead by the time they got inside. Slaughtered. Traps rigged at every turn. Colt had taken shrapnel to the ribs, and Harlan had almost bled out trying to drag him to cover. Brenna had been the only one still upright when they finally got out. Barely.

No part of that mission had been clean. No part of it had been easy.

And when the dust finally settled, Brenna had walked.

She’d left Strike Force and private security. Said she was done. No warning, no goodbyes. Just filed the papers and vanished. Last he heard, she was working as a PI out in San Antonio, chasing lost kids and cheating spouses. Nothing like the adrenaline-fueled life they’d led before.

But now she was here. Standing in front of them with that familiar fire in her eyes and something sharp riding beneath her voice.

“This isn’t a personal visit,” Brenna spelled out. “And it’s not about closure for what happened three years ago.”

Colt gave her a long look. “Didn’t think it was.”

Brenna looked past them for a moment, toward the smoldering ruin of the ranch house in the distance. Then her gaze returned to Colt, steady and unreadable.

“I’ve been working a missing person’s case,” she went on a heartbeat later.

“A guy out of Dallas. Twenty years old. Last seen crossing into this part of the Hill Country the day before yesterday. His name’s Marcus Hartman.

” She paused. “He’s the nephew of one of the hostages who died at Timberline. ”

And there they came again. The blasted flashbacks that even now ate away at him like acid. It no doubt did the same to her since Brenna had seen every one of those bodies as well. He still remembered her face when she came out of the back of the lodge. Blood on her shirt. Silence in her eyes.

Now she shook her head, muttered, “Damn it,” and pulled out her phone.

Dragging in a long breath as if trying to steady herself, Brenna tapped the screen and turned the phone toward them. “That’s Marcus Hartman.”

The image wasn’t sharp. Black-and-white, low resolution. But the subject was clear enough. A young man lay on his back in the dirt, limbs twisted, face half in shadow. His eyes were open. Vacant. Colt’s gut clenched.

It wasn’t just that the man was dead. It was how he’d been posed.

Arms spread wide. Knees angled just so. Head tilted left. A length of rope still bound his wrists, pulled taut beneath him in a way Colt remembered all too well.

And in his right hand, barely visible in the grainy light, was a scrap of torn fabric. Red and white flannel.

Colt had seen that exact position before. So had Harlan.

That exact fabric had been found clutched in one of the Timberline hostages’ hands. A man in his twenties. He’d held it even in death, fingers locked around it like it meant something.

Whoever killed Marcus had studied the details. Or had intimate knowledge of them. And that person wanted the message understood.

“Who killed him?” Harlan asked and immediately tacked on a second question. “Is it someone from Timberline?”

Brenna’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know. Not yet.”

She scrolled down to the bottom of the image, and Colt saw the words written there in jagged, uneven handwriting. A list with six names, including Marcus Hart. And beneath the names, someone had left a message.

You can try to save them, but you’ll fail again. All of you have to die.

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