Page 47 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

The lawyer finally slapped a hand on the table, glaring at Deacon. “This interview is over for now. I need time alone with my client.”

Shade opened his mouth as if he wanted to keep spewing poison, but the lawyer shot him a look that actually worked. Shade clamped his jaw shut.

Deacon stood. “Fine. I’ll give you a few minutes. “Interview paused.” He switched off the recorder, left the interview room, and stepped into observation with Jessa. His expression was hard, the kind he wore when he was trying to lock down anger.

“It’ll take a while,” he muttered. “The lawyer’s going to have to drag him down from whatever cliff he’s hanging off.”

Shade was pacing now inside the room, jabbing his finger at his lawyer, who was clearly trying to get him to sit.

Deacon exhaled and tilted his head toward the hallway. “Come on. Let’s regroup in my office.”

Jessa followed him down the corridor. Her chest still felt tight from everything Shade had thrown at them, at her. She pushed it down. Focus. Stay alert.

When they stepped inside Deacon’s office, she immediately saw Noah standing inside, waiting for them. He turned when they entered, his expression grim, his eyes sharp with questions Jessa wasn’t ready to face. Her pulse hitched before she could stop it.

“Deacon. Jessa.” Noah gave a tight nod. His voice was steady, but his tension was impossible to miss. “I’m sorry to barge in, but there’s something you need to see.”

She swallowed hard. Her palms felt too warm.

He lifted his phone and tapped the screen, turning it so they both could watch. It was footage from one of the exterior security cameras outside the Crossfire Ops compound. Grainy night vision. A quiet patch of woods. And a figure moving in it.

A hoodie. A mask. Gloves. Someone careful. Someone who knew exactly where the camera blind spots started and ended.

The figure hammered something into a tree. A board or maybe a sheet of metal. It was hard to tell from the angle. But when the person stepped back, the camera caught the words in stark, white paint.

Ask Jessa who her father is.

Her stomach dropped. Her breath froze.

The room felt smaller. Too warm. Too bright. Noah’s gaze stayed on her, steady and unblinking, and she felt pinned by it. Deacon didn’t say a word, didn’t move, but she could feel him there, bracing for the impact right along with her.

Noah lowered the phone slowly. “Jessa,” he said. “What is this supposed to mean?”

Her throat tightened. She tried to breathe, but everything inside her felt tangled, pulled in too many directions. She had avoided this moment for months. Told herself she needed time. Space. A plan. She’d convinced herself it was to protect Roman, to protect what little stability she had left.

The truth was simpler.

She hadn’t known how to look the man in the eye while carrying a secret that would change everything he believed about his past. But the words on that sign had torn away any illusion of control she had left.

Jessa lifted her chin, even though her voice felt trapped somewhere behind her ribs. “Noah, I’m your daughter.”

Chapter Eleven

Deacon felt the words settle in the air like a shockwave.

I’m your daughter.

Noah went absolutely still. No blink. No breath. Just a man frozen in a moment he never expected, staring at Jessa as if he were trying to rewrite the past by sheer force of will.

“Is that true?” Noah asked quietly. Then he shook his head. “Of course it is or you wouldn’t have said it.”

Noah sank into the nearest chair, the tension draining out of him so fast it looked as if his legs simply stopped holding him. Deacon had seen Noah in firefights. He’d seen him walk into a burning building to pull out a civilian. He’d never seen him rattled.

But it wasn’t every day a man learned he had a thirty-three-year-old daughter.

Deacon stayed where he was, watching Noah try to absorb the hit. Watching Jessa try to stand steady under the weight of the truth she’d finally said out loud. The truth that was going to detonate through their lives whether any of them were ready or not.

Noah finally drew in a breath, slow and unsteady. “I am guessing Lauren didn’t tell me because her parents wouldn’t have approved.” He said it softly, more to himself than to them.