Page 39 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

Jessa clenched her hands into fists. She’d known some of this. Suspected more. But Wynn apparently wasn’t finished.

“There’s enough in there to raise questions about you, Jessa,” Wynn snarled.

“What questions?” she couldn’t ask fast enough.

More of that bitterness slammed through Wynn’s eyes. “Your involvement with Creed Response operations. Jobs you took with no oversight. People who disappeared after you tracked them.”

Jessa sucked in a breath. “Those were legal extractions—”

“Were they?” Wynn snapped. “Because the reports say otherwise. Surveillance missing. Gaps in timelines. Payments unaccounted for. Makes it look like you did more than just extract targets.” He paused, letting the words twist the knife. “Maybe… eliminated them.”

Jessa felt heat crawl up her spine—anger, fear, disbelief. She’d never killed anyone who didn’t try to kill her first. Never crossed that line. But on paper? With the right edits?

She knew how easily someone could make her look dirty.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Jessa,” Wynn went on. “But Lauren trusted me with the truth. Trusted me to protect you. And I will, unless you fail her.”

“Wynn—” Deacon said.

“Forty-eight hours.” Wynn cut him off. “Find her killer. Or I burn every one of you with the truth.”

The line went dead, and on the screen, Wynn’s truck engine revved.

Corbin stayed on his phone and said something, too quiet to hear, but Wynn’s head whipped toward him with such venom that Corbin flinched. On the security feed, Corbin climbed out passenger’s side and hurried to his vehicle. The moment he was in, he took off.

And so did Wynn.

“Shit,” Deacon spat out. His phone buzzed. A text from his deputies. Two minutes out.

“Too late,” he muttered, thumbs flying as he typed a response.

Wynn and Corbin fleeing. Go in pursuit. Wynn is primary. Use caution. He hit send, snapped the phone shut, and turned to her. “Let’s move.”

Jessa grabbed her gear, sprinted with Deacon out of the office, through the house, and into the cold morning air. Ranger barked behind them, pacing anxiously at the door, but they were already halfway to her SUV.

She jumped in, Deacon slamming into the passenger seat beside her. The engine fired to life, and she floored it down the long gravel drive. Trees whipped past. Gravel spit under the tires. Deacon braced an arm against the dash, phone in hand, already checking the feed.

“They went left, toward the old county cut-through,” he said.

She swung the SUV onto the main road, speeding toward the turnoff. They had barely cleared the tree cover when the shot blasted through the air.

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.