Dirt exploded beside her boots. Delaney sprinted across the open patch, drawing fire, making herself a target. The air buzzed with bullets. Her lungs burned.
Behind her, Eli veered for the barn’s side entrance.
And through the crack of rifle fire, Delaney heard the scream.
----- ? ----
Chapter One
----- ? ----
Two Days Earlier
The Texas Hill Country was quiet in the early morning hours. Too quiet for a woman who lived in constant war with her thoughts.
Delaney Hart stood in the glass-walled operations room of Crossfire Ops’ headquarters, her hands curled around a mug of black coffee that she couldn’t bring herself to drink. Below, the gravel drive cut through a blanket of fog rolling off the cedar hills. Sunrise was still an hour away, and the silence inside her felt louder than ever.
This was her first mission in almost a year, and the weight of it pressed against her ribs like a too-tight vest.
Delaney let out a slow breath and glanced at her wrist. The rubber band was still there, snug against her skin, a faded blue one she hadn’t changed out in months. She gave it a sharp snap.
The sting helped. Usually.
But this time, the pain didn’t stop the memories from crashing through her. Memoriesof the young woman she hadn’t saved.
Jordan Mendez. Nineteen. Brown eyes too big for her face.
They’d found her in an abandoned trailer outside Amarillo. Four hours too late. Strangled. Zip ties digging into her wrists. Her body still warm when they rolled her over.
As an experienced FBI agent, Delaney had been sure she’d figured out the abductor’s cycle. Was sure they had time. She’d been dead wrong. And Jordan had paid the ultimate price for that.
Delaney gave the rubber band another sharp snap.
The pain flared again, but the memory didn’t fade. The memory didn’t fade from the rubber band hit anyway, but it vanished at the sound. The door behind her opened, and Delaney felt the shift in the air.
She turned slightly as Eli Tarrant stepped into the room. He was tall and broad-shouldered, moving with the kind of quiet purpose that didn’t need to be announced. He wore a weathered canvas jacket over a charcoal T-shirt, jeans that had seen years of hard use, and scuffed boots that echoed faintly on the polished floor. A gray Stetson was pulled low over short, dark hair, and stubble framing a face that had seen its share of violence and silence.
At the moment, he definitely looked more cowboy than soldier, but she knew better. Under the brim of that hat were the eyes of a man whohad cleared rooms in foreign cities and chased fugitives across backroads in Texas. There was a badge once, pinned to his chest as a Ranger, and before that, the weight of a special ops uniform that came with combat and loss.
“You good?” Eli asked.
“Fine,” she said.
He didn’t move. Not for a few snail-crawling moments. Then, finally, she heard the soft scuff of his boots crossing the floor as he came to stand beside her. He stared out at the pale morning light.
“Lying already?” he asked, his tone joking. She hoped. “We’re off to a hell of a start.”
She smirked, just barely, and continued the banter. “I was told optimism was part of the job.”
A dimple flashed in his cheek when he grinned. “Whoever told you that never met us, huh?”
He didn’t say anything else right away, just stood there with his arms crossed and eyes on the mist rolling over the hills. The silence wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t sharp either. More like the quiet before a storm. Their boss, Noah Riggs, was due in any moment to brief them.
Delaney took a breath, then spoke first. “Have you heard anything about our mission?” she asked.
“Nope. Anxious about your first Crossfire Ops assignment?” he asked after a moment, and he tipped his head to the rubber band. Clearly, the man didn’t miss much.
She nodded. “Yeah.” It was both a lie and the truth.
