Chapter Nine
The crack of the first shot hit Deacon’s nerves seconds after it slammed into the SUV.
A sharp snap, then the windshield exploded into a spiderweb of fractured glass.
The bullet didn’t punch through, thank God, but it struck hard enough to shove the whole pane inward.
Jessa jerked behind the wheel, swearing under her breath as the view ahead dissolved into a milky blur of shattered safety glass.
“Keep driving,” Deacon barked, already twisting in his seat, scanning the tree line, the rise of red-dirt berms, anywhere a shooter could perch.
Another shot. Lower.
The SUV lurched violently to the left as the back tire blew.
“Dammit.” Jessa fought the wheel, but the wounded vehicle fishtailed, dragging them toward the shoulder. Deacon braced one hand on the dash, the other going for his weapon.
They skidded to a rough stop in a spray of gravel.
For a heartbeat, there was only the ticking of the engine, shallow breaths, the faint metallic groan of the ruined tire. Deacon’s pulse pounded in his ears, counting off the seconds they didn’t have.
He turned to Jessa. “You hurt?”
She shook her head, but her hands were trembling on the wheel.
“Good,” he murmured, eyes already cutting back to the world outside. “Because I figure they’re not done yet.”
And he was right.
Another shot slammed into the SUV before Deacon could even reach for the door handle.
The impact rattled through the frame, hard enough to knock his breath sideways. Shards of already-cracked glass dusted the dash. Jessa flinched beside him, ducking instinctively as another round punched into the passenger-side door with a low, metallic thunk.
“Stay down,” Deacon ordered, dragging her lower in her seat as he pressed his own back against the center console.
The shooter kept firing, methodical, steady, every shot placed with the kind of control that came from training and time behind a high-powered scope. Deacon couldn’t see him, but the son of a bitch saw them clear as day.
A long-range rifle. Had to be. Maybe a suppressed one since he could barely hear the crack over the impacts.
Another hit.
This one near the engine block. The whole SUV shivered. Bullet-resistant didn’t mean impervious.
Deacon peered through the spiderwebbed windshield, trying to catch even the hint of movement on the distant ridgeline. Nothing. No glint, no shift, no mistake he could capitalize on.
Corbin was somewhere out here. Wynn too. Both dangerous in their own ways, and either one could’ve set up a shot like this. But Shade… Shade could be the one behind this.
But right now? Deacon wasn’t seeing a damn thing.
Another round drilled into the hood. “We can’t sit here waiting for him to punch through,” he muttered, mostly to himself but loud enough that Jessa heard.
“So we drive?” she whispered, hands tight on the wheel even though the blown tire pinned them.
“We move eventually,” he said. “But not until he commits to a reload or changes angle.”
And so far, that wasn’t happening. Maybe because the asshole had multiple weapons.
Or an accomplice.
A shot pierced the side mirror, sending fragments whipping across the glass. Jessa gasped and covered her head. “Is it Corbin?” Jessa’s voice was thin, barely more than breath.
“I don’t know.” And that was the truth that crawled cold down his spine. “Could be Wynn. Could be Shade. Hell, could be someone we don’t even know who’s in the game.”
Another round struck—closer, harder, the angle shifting.
Whoever this was, they were moving. Closing in. Adjusting for a kill shot.
The dread settled in Deacon’s gut like ice. He raised his weapon, knowing it was nearly useless against a distant shooter he couldn’t see, but the grip steadied his breathing anyway.
“We’re gonna get out of this,” he told her, even as the next bullet hit so close it rang through the SUV like a bell.
Deacon glanced at Jessa, needing eyes on her, needing confirmation she was more than just breathing. Her face was pale but steady, jaw locked tight. No panic. Just fury simmering beneath the surface.
“You good?” he asked, voice low.
She nodded, clipped. “I’m fine. Just pissed.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Join the club.”
Another shot hit the rear quarter panel, rattling through the metal. Bolts vibrated in the door.
They had seconds between impacts, just enough time for Deacon to pull his phone from his pocket. He kept low, head below the cracked dash line, thumbs moving fast as he typed.
Active gunfire at the turnoff to the ranch. Don’t drive in. Approach WITH sirens. Stay back. Set a roadblock at both ends of the county road. Shooter is long-range and mobile.
He hit send and immediately followed with another message.
No one gets close. Do NOT try to flank. This guy knows what he’s doing.
Jessa’s breathing steadied, but her grip on the wheel was white-knuckled. “Think your deputies will scare him off?”
“They’ll change his timeline,” Deacon said. “Maybe force him into a mistake.”
Or push him to relocate and take another shot at them from a fresh angle.
Another impact hammered the driver-side panel, metal groaning under the assault. Deacon ducked lower, instinct overriding thought.
His phone buzzed with a reply from his deputy. Copy. Roadblock incoming. Sirens on. Backup en route.
Good. It was something.
But he also knew the landscape like the lines on his palm. Acres of old ranch trails crisscrossing the scrub and mesquite, winding through dry creek beds and forgotten fence lines. Trails a scoped shooter could use to vanish before the deputies even made visual contact.
“Boxing him in is going to be a miracle with all those trails,” Jessa said, reading his expression.
Another bullet smacked the back end, jerking the SUV forward an inch. “Yeah,” Deacon muttered.
He tried again to catch movement through the fractured windshield, but the shooter stayed invisible. Quiet, disciplined, positioned exactly where Deacon would have gone if he’d planned an ambush on this stretch of highway.
He hated that. Hated knowing the bastard out there wasn’t guessing. He was hunting.
The next volley came in a vicious, rapid-fire burst.
Three—four—five shots hammered the driver’s side window. The reinforced glass shuddered, bowed, and finally gave. A jagged hole blew outward, followed by a spray of sparkling fragments that blasted across the cab like a storm of sharp sand.
“Down!” Deacon grabbed Jessa and shoved both of them sideways as another round tore through the compromised window, punching into the upholstery like a hot drill.
They had seconds. Maybe less.
“Backseat, go,” he barked.
Jessa didn’t argue. She dropped low and scrambled between the seats, Deacon right behind her. He kept his head down as he climbed over the console, shielding her with his body until they both hit the relatively protected space behind the front row.
The back windows were still intact. Still holding. For now.
Jessa reached under the seat cushion and yanked free a pair of compact binoculars, and she pressed them to her eyes.
Another bullet slammed into the side panel. The metal screamed in protest.
“Come on, come on…” Jessa’s voice tightened. Then—“There. By the live oaks. The trio near the ridge.”
She shoved the binoculars into his hands.
Deacon lifted them, bracing against the seat while he scanned the horizon. Dust shimmered. The cracked windshield distorted the lower half of his view, but he angled up, higher, until the live oaks snapped into focus.
There.
A figure crouched in the shadows between the trunks. Hood up. Mask covering everything but the eyes. Black clothes that blended into the mottled shade. Rifle braced on a bipod, perfect for long-range precision.
The shooter shifted slightly, adjusting aim.
Deacon’s jaw locked.
He couldn’t see the face. Couldn’t read the body. Couldn’t tell if it was Corbin. Wynn. Shade. Or someone entirely different.
But whoever it was had the calm, steady movements of a professional.
And they were zeroing in for another shot.
“See him?” Jessa whispered.
“Oh yeah,” Deacon said, lowering the binoculars as adrenaline surged hot and sharp through his veins. “I see him.”
He grabbed his phone again with his free hand, already typing out coordinates to his deputies. Because now he had a location. And the bastard out there was done being invisible.
The shooter shifted aim. Deacon barely had time to register the movement before the next barrage hit.
Bullets slammed into the rear side window with brutal force. The first two webbed the glass. The third punched a clean hole straight through, sending shards spraying across the backseat like sleet.
“Down!” Deacon yanked Jessa flat just as another round tore through the new opening, embedding itself in the opposite door panel with a dull, deadly thud.
They hit the floorboard hard. The cramped angle twisted Deacon’s torso, and white-hot pain shot through his injury. His vision blurred for a heartbeat. He clenched his teeth, forcing the sound down, refusing to give the pain oxygen.
Not now. Not with Jessa beside him. Not with bullets carving up the SUV.
But she saw anyway.
“Deacon—” Her eyes flicked over him, sharp and worried even as gunfire rattled the frame around them.
“I’m fine,” he ground out, breath clipped. “Stay low.”
Another shot hit the metal just inches from her hip.
Her expression changed, less fear, more fury. Controlled, focused. Jessa shifted, bracing herself awkwardly against the seat frame. She raised her weapon, angled toward the fractured hole in the rear window.
“Jessa—”
Too late.
She took aim through the jagged opening and fired.
The blast of her return shot echoed inside the cab, loud enough to rattle Deacon’s skull. She fired again. And again. Short, disciplined bursts. Textbook counterfire.
Deacon lifted himself enough to watch her, pain stabbing deep with each movement. Dammit, she shouldn’t be doing this, not with a long-range shooter out there. But her stance was solid, her aim steady. She was fighting back.
Another round from the ridge struck the SUV, this one lower, angling for a different line.
Jessa shifted her aim and fired again through the hole, jaw set, eyes blazing with stubborn resolve.
Deacon pressed a hand against the seat to steady himself, ignoring the pulse of agony in his ribs.
“Easy,” he murmured, though his voice was rough with pride and adrenaline. “Don’t waste the rounds.”
“I won’t,” she snapped, eyes still locked on the ridgeline. “But he’s not getting a clean shot at us again.”
Gunfire rattled outside. The shooter adjusted. The SUV rocked under the hits.
But Jessa kept returning fire, each shot buying them seconds, forcing the shooter to reconsider his angle. Forcing the bastard to realize they weren’t the ones pinned down.
Deacon maneuvered himself upright enough to wedge his shoulder against the seat frame, ignoring the white-hot stab that ripped through his injury. His hand found his weapon, grip firm despite the tremor of pain running down his side.
Another bullet tore into the metal above them, close enough that grit rained over their heads.
“That’s it,” Deacon growled.
He angled himself toward the nearest hole punched through the shattered window, found the sliver of open sky beyond it, and took aim. Not ideal, far from clean, but he didn’t need perfect.
He just needed pressure.
He squeezed off two controlled shots. The sound inside the cab was a concussion, bouncing off steel and glass, rattling his teeth. Jessa flinched but recovered instantly, shifting to another angle and firing through the second hole.
The SUV filled with the thunder of overlapping gunfire—his weapon, hers, the echo slamming around them in tight metallic waves.
Deacon fired again. And again. Each shot kicked pain through his ribs, but he pushed past it, muscles shaking as he realigned the muzzle through the warped gap.
Jessa matched him shot for shot, her jaw set, her expression carved from pure determination.
Outside, the shooter’s barrage stuttered. Then stopped. Silence fell fast and heavy. Too fast.
Deacon held his breath, weapon still leveled through the jagged opening. His ears rang from the enclosed blasts, a high whine that blurred the edges of sound. He blinked hard, trying to filter out the distortion, to catch any hint of movement from the ridge.
Nothing.
“Think we hit him?” Jessa whispered, lowering her weapon just enough to breathe.
“No.” Deacon didn’t let himself believe that, not without personally seeing the body.
Deacon’s pulse thudded deep and hard, each beat syncing with the throbbing pain in his side. He steadied himself, eyes locked on the fractured view.
The bastard out there had stopped firing.
Which meant he was changing tactics.
And that was almost always worse.
The ringing in Deacon’s ears finally gave way to something else, faint at first, then swelling into a rising wail.
Sirens.
He lifted his head just enough to peer through the intact rear window.
Blue and red lights strobed across the dusty stretch of road, bouncing off mesquite and fence posts like frantic lightning.
His deputies were still a ways back, holding position like he’d ordered, but their presence cut through the suffocating silence the shooter had left behind.
Jessa kept her grip firm on her weapon. “They’re close.”
“Close enough he’ll know they’re here,” Deacon said.
But the shooter didn’t fire again. No more sharp cracks rolling across the ridge. No more punches of impact against the SUV. Just the throb of emergency lights and the distant churn of engines.
Deacon waited a beat. Two. Listening. Watching.
When nothing came, he pushed up a little higher, bracing himself against the seat as his side screamed in protest. He ignored the pain and angled his line of sight toward the nearest bullet hole in the shattered window.
Jessa steadied the glass for him, holding back dangling fragments.
“Careful,” she murmured.
He leaned in and looked through the jagged opening toward the trio of live oaks on the ridge. Wind rippled the leaves, and dust drifted across the ground in lazy, swirling patterns. The branches swayed—but no figure crouched between them now.
No flash of a rifle. No masked shooter. No hint of motion except the land settling into itself again.
Deacon shifted to the second hole, checking another angle. Nothing.
A cold realization settled in his chest. The shooter was gone.