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.
----- ? ----
Chapter Two
----- ? ----
Brenna lowered her phone, the cool edge of the night air pressing against her skin. She didn’t feel the coolness. Not really. Not after showing them that list. The stew of emotions she felt about Timberline was always going to run hot, like a fire that just kept burning away at her.
It was no doubt doing the same to Colt and Harlan.
She’d watched the shock register in their eyes. The way Colt’s jaw had locked up like he was already planning how to fight it. Same as always. Push forward, take the hit, get the job done.
But this wasn’t just a job. This felt the worst kind of personal. This felt as if they were all being dragged back into their worst nightmare.
Trying to steady herself, she stared out at the dark horizon, her pulse climbing, her breathing nowhere near level. Marcus had been twenty. Barely a man. He hadn’t even known the full truth about what had happened to his uncle at Timberline. Now he never would.
She should have stopped this from happening. She should have already tracked down the person or persons responsible for the nightmare that’d gone on at Timberline three years ago.
But she hadn’t.
Now, whoever was behind it had just drawn a target on the backs of the people on that list. On Colt’s, Harlan’s, and hers, too. After all, the message had readAll of you have to die.Notthey. You.Brenna was certain thatyouhad been meant for the three of them.
She shifted her attention back to Colt when he groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face. Brenna watched the motion, saw the tension ripple through his shoulders and settle in the corners of his eyes. He didn’t say anything right away, but she could see it. Grief, frustration, guilt. All of it raced just beneath the surface.
That hadn’t changed in three years.
But Colt had.
Still had that same steady presence. The black hair that always looked like he had run a hand through it too many times. The clear blue eyes that used to cut through chaos like a blade. But there was something else now. A weight he carried in the way he moved, as if the world had shifted under him and he was still trying to stay upright.
Failure had left its mark on him.
And it was the same mark she saw etched into Harlan’s rugged face. The edges were different, but the root was the same. Timberline had carved something into all of them. Not just the physical scars. The kind that didn’t fade. The kind that shaped everything that came after.
Brenna felt it in herself, too. The ache of everything they couldn’t undo.
And now someone was dragging that pain back into the light. Piece by piece. Name by name.
“The other five people on that list… they have to be notified,” Harlan snarled.
“I’ve already started,” Brenna said. “I managed to reach three of them on the drive here from San Antonio. Gave themas much information as I could without scaring the hell out of them.”
She paused, eyes on the gravel at her feet. Marcus’s murder, the weight of the photo, and the list pressed heavily on her.
“I left voicemails for the other two,” she added. “Told them it was urgent, that they needed to call me back right away.” Brenna paused. “I also asked Noah to step in to provide security.”
It wasn’t an off-the-wall kind of request. She’d known Noah for nearly a decade. Back then he’d been the tech guy at Strike Force, where Colt, Harlan, and she had all worked. Then, when the Strike Force owner had formed Crossfire Ops, he’d made Noah the head guy of it. Noah was not only reliable and trustworthy, he had the resources they desperately needed.
