I look down at the man kneeling in front of me, his hands still raised, his eyes wide with fear. Taking out some zip ties from my vest, I drop them on the ground. “Tie your friend up.”
He fumbles like the amateur he is. When he finishes, I tell him to turn around and I secure him. Then I key my comms. "Warden, I’ve got two shooters secured on the north ridge. One’s bleeding. Third one's south. I'm going after him."
"Riot—"
"Emma okay? Harper?"
"Both fine. Shaken, but fine."
"Good." I'm already moving, heading south through the trees. The third shooter is mine, and when I find him, he's going to wish Turner had sent someone else.
57
LUKE
The south ridge is dense with pine and scrub oak, the kind of terrain that swallows sound and hides movement. Perfect for a sniper. Bad for an escape.
I move through the trees like a ghost—silent, controlled, every sense dialed in. My rifle is up, my breathing steady. It’s muscle memory. Delta drilled it into me until it became instinct. Track. Identify. Neutralize.
I spot the disturbance first—broken branches, boot prints in the soft earth. He's running, not covering his trail. I shake my head. He’s either an amateur or cocky. Either way, he’s mine.
I follow the tracks south for two hundred yards, then pause.
There—a flash of movement through the trees.
He's crouched behind a fallen log, rifle aimed back toward the direction he came from. Waiting to see if anyone followed.
I circle wide, coming up behind him from the east. He doesn’t hear me.
When I'm ten feet away, I speak. "Drop the rifle."
He spins, eyes wide, finger on the trigger.
I put a round through his shoulder before he can fire.
Screaming, he goes down hard, the rifle clattering onto the dirt. I'm on him in two seconds, kicking the weapon away and planting my boot on his bleeding shoulder.
"Who sent you?" I ask, my weapon aimed at his head.
He tries to spit at me but it falls on his chest. "Fuck you."
I press down harder, and he cries out, trying to clutch his wound.
I smile down at him. "Let's try again. Who sent you?"
"Turner!" he chokes out. "Turner paid us five grand each to scare the woman at Circle H."
"Scare her?" I press down.
"Make her sell!” He pants, curling into the pain. “That's all he said. Just scare her."
I lean down, my voice dropping to something cold and lethal. "You shot at a pregnant woman."
His face goes white. "I didn't know?—"
"You didn't ask." I pull a zip tie from my vest and secure his wrists behind his back, ignoring his screams. "How many more are coming?"
"I don't know, man.” He struggles uselessly. “I swear. Turner just hired us for today."