Page 21 of Crossfire Creek Siege

That was true enough. Gage felt the weight of it in his chest. They’d survived tonight, but he had a really bad feeling that this was just the first round.

“Thank you,” Noah said. “All of you. You saved lives tonight, and that matters. But we’re not done.”

He reached for the remote on the table and turned toward the massive wall of monitors. A few clicks later, the live feeds vanished, replaced one by one with photographs, faces filling the screens until the glow of a hundred mugshots lit the room.

Gage recognized some of them immediately. A few were old ghosts from ops gone sideways, people he’d hoped never to see again. Others were familiar from Crossfire’s database, former operatives, discharged soldiers, mercs who’d taken the wrong contracts. And some were personal, men and women Gage had crossed paths with overseas, who’d vanished into the underbelly of war and resentment.

The farther the wall filled, the heavier the silence grew. By the time the last photo appeared, the entire surface was a mosaic of potential enemies.

Over a hundred faces.

Noah’s jaw was tight, his expression a mix of fury and focus. “I had Isla pull every file tied to threats against Crossfire Ops. Me. Maverick Ops. Strike Force. Anyone who’s ever had reason to come for us.”

Gage could feel it, the collective shift in the room as everyone took in the scope of it.

“That’s one hell of a list,” Owen muttered.

“It is,” Noah agreed. “And at this point, we’re going to work with the theory that whoever orchestrated this is still alive. That either they escaped in the helicopter or possibly weren’t even on scene.”

Noah stepped closer to the wall, the glow from the monitors cutting hard lines across his face. “We’ll go through every name, every file, every rumor until we find the one who did this.” He turned back to the room, voice dropping low but steady. “Someone out there tried to kill us. Tried to kill my niece. Tried to send a message.”

His gaze swept over each of them. Ruby, Owen, Rena, Gage.

“Let’s send a message back,” Noah growled. He pointed at the wall of faces, hand steady. “Let’s find the bastard who tried to kill us.”

Chapter Seven

Four hours later, Rena couldn’t help but think that the briefing room looked like a war zone of its own. Empty coffee cups, data cables snaking across the floor, the blue wash of monitors painting tired faces in harsh light. The hum of the servers was the only constant sound besides the quiet murmur of techs typing and the occasional rustle of paper.

Rena rubbed her temples, the ache behind her eyes throbbing in slow, insistent waves. The adrenaline that had kept her sharp for the last several hours was long gone, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion and the dull pulse of an oncoming migraine. Still, she stayed at the table, because Noah’s voice still echoed in her head.

Let’s find the bastard who tried to kill us.

She wasn’t quitting until they did.

Across the table, Owen and Ruby looked just as worn but hadn’t budged either. Owen’s arm was wrapped tight from a graze wound, and Ruby’s hair was still streaked with soot from the fires in the hangar. Sheriff Arden Chase leaned over one of the monitors with Isla, the two of them exchanging clipped updates.

Noah stood near the head of the table, watching the shifting images on the monitors. Every few minutes, he’d give a quiet order. “Eliminate him,” or “Run a second check on her.” Isla or one of the techs would respond, the photo vanishing from the wall or being highlighted.

Nearly half the monitors were black now, the faces gone, crossed off because they were dead, locked up, or didn’t have the muscle or money to pull off an assault like this.

That still left forty-eight faces staring back at them.

Forty-eight possible enemies.

Rena leaned back, dragging a hand through her hair. Her shoulder twinged where the stitches pulled, and she ignored it. She glanced across the table at Gage. He was hunched forward, studying the photos as if he could will the right one to confess. The stitches on his arm peeked from under the bandage, dark.

He looked up, met her gaze, and gave a small nod. No words, just understanding. They were both running on fumes, both too stubborn to stop.

Noah exhaled, the sound rough in the quiet. “Forty-eight names,” he said. “That’s forty-seven too many.”

No one disagreed.

Rena looked at the wall again, her vision blurring slightly from fatigue, but one thought cut through the haze. Whoever had done this had planned it with precision. Someone smart. Someone who knew Crossfire Ops, knew their layout, their people, their defenses.

And that meant this wasn’t some faceless threat.

This was personal.