Page 23 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

For half a heartbeat, Shade looked ready to come across the table—big fists clenched, jaw set, face dark. Then he pushed to his feet.

“I’m done,” he said, his voice low and pissed. “I don’t need this bullshit.”

Deacon rose with him, stitches screaming, refusing to show a flicker of weakness. “Sit down. We’re not finished.”

Shade scoffed. “Yeah, we are.”

He stepped out of the booth. And froze.

Because the front door swung open, the bell chimed, and a tall, broad-shouldered man strode into Luna Mae’s as if he owned the oxygen in the room. And just like that, the real storm walked in.

Roman Creed.

Dark jacket. Hard eyes. Jaw clenched tight enough to crack. Murder simmering just beneath the surface.

All sharp lines and lethal presence, filling the doorway with a kind of silent violence that made conversation inside the diner die off mid-breath. Black hair, blue eyes—the kind that didn’t just look at you, but through you. No bouncer bulk, no wasted mass. Lean, precise muscle. Tailored danger.

A man who could kill quietly or loudly and wouldn’t lose sleep either way.

Roman’s gaze landed on Jessa, flicking over her, no doubt looking for injuries. Then on Deacon, measuring, assessing, tense. And finally on Shade.

“Shade,” Roman said, voice low and lethal.

It sure as hell wasn’t a friendly greeting.

Shade went stiff as steel when Roman stalked toward their booth, and that stiffness soon turned to outright nerves. The hacker actually looked smaller somehow, shoulders folding inward, eyes darting like he was calculating escape routes.

Roman didn’t give him the chance. He clamped a hand around Shade’s arm—just above the elbow, firm enough to bruise—and forced him back into the seat.

“Sit,” Roman said. One word, low and cold.

Shade obeyed. Fast.

Roman slid into the booth beside him, all contained fury and razor-edged control. He leaned back, but the tension in his frame didn’t ease. He was coiled, watchful. Ready.

Then he looked across the table at Jessa. “You all right?” Roman asked, voice low enough that only their group heard it.

Jessa nodded. “I’m fine. But Deacon was hurt.”

Roman’s eyes snapped to Deacon instantly, and the air thickened. The two men locked gazes, and the diner felt colder for it. There was a whole damn history between them, carved in distrust and disagreements and that one case a year ago that had blown everything to hell. Deacon felt every ounce of that bad blood settle in his ribs, stirring his pulse.

But Roman didn’t linger on him long. His focus swung right back to Shade. And the look he gave the hacker…

Pure ice. Pure warning.

Deacon noticed it instantly—the same tightness in Roman’s jaw that Shade had mirrored, the same energy that rattled the space between them.

There was bad blood here too. Old. Ugly. Silent. And far from resolved.

Deacon leaned back just enough to give Roman space, not out of respect, but because the man radiated enough controlled violence to fill the whole damn booth.

“Shade was just explaining,” Deacon said evenly, “what motive he might have for orchestrating this shitshow.”

Shade’s head snapped toward him. “I told you I don’t have a motive.”

Roman gave a soft, humorless laugh. “You’ve got plenty.”

Shade stiffened, bristling, but Roman didn’t so much as blink. He kept his piercing stare locked on the hacker, voice calm in a way that made the hairs on Deacon’s neck stand up.