Page 41 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

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.