Page 3 of Raven's Mark
"There's a case that surfaced in Fredericksburg a few weeks back. A rancher was killed under suspicious circumstances. The local sheriff ruled it an accident, but the whole thing has cartel fingerprints all over it." He's quiet for a moment. "The gun-running pipeline you've been chasing runs right through the heart of the Hill Country, Raven."
Nausea rolls through me in a slow, greasy wave. Fredericksburg. The one place on earth I swore I would never set foot in again.
"I have a safe house just outside of town. Its location is known only to me, and you'll have everything you need there: a base of operations, resources, equipment, and intel." Uncle Robert's tone softens just enough for me to hear the concern threaded beneath the authority. "You won't be working for me, Raven. This will be your investigation, on your terms. But I'll give you every tool at my disposal to make sure you can do it right."
"Why Fredericksburg?"
"Because that's where it all started. You became an agent to fight exactly this kind of evil." His voice is steady, certain, carrying the conviction of a man who has spent decades making impossible decisions. "Your badge doesn't matter anymore. But the fight does."
My service weapon sits on the passenger seat with my badge right next to it. Five years of believing the system could deliver justice and tonight proved just how naive that belief was. "I need to turn in my badge and gun."
Uncle Robert scoffs. "Think, Raven. You're compromised. If you walk into that field office, you won't walk back out. Just do what I'm telling you. We'll handle the badge and the firearm through proper channels when the time is right. Everything will be ready for you in Las Cruces, and from there I want you heading straight to Fredericksburg."
My hands tremble as I take the I-10 on-ramp heading north. "I'm forty minutes out from Las Cruces, give or take. Unless something comes up, I'll call you when I reach Fredericksburg."
"Stay safe." The line goes dead before I can respond.
The lights of El Paso shrink in my rearview mirror, and once again I am leaving behind everything I know. The interstate stretches northwest into the dark, and I try not to think about what waits on the other side of swapping out this vehicle. Fredericksburg. The last time I was there, I was nineteen years old and watching everything I loved burn to the ground.
But I'm not that girl anymore. This time, I'm the one bringing the fire.
ROBERT
Dawn breaks over the Potomac, and I haven't slept since Raven's call. My niece is running for her life, hunted by the very people she spent the last five years trying to bring down.
I pick up my secure phone and key in the one contact I trust to keep her alive if the cartel finds her before I can get proper protection in place.
Raven is on the run. Cartel and possibly federal involvement. Her partner tried to kill her in El Paso tonight. She's headed for Fredericksburg and I'm sending her to the Cypress Street safe house. Don't ask questions. Just keep her breathing.
The message shows as delivered within seconds. Jesse will understand. Former Delta Force, one of my best Shadowland operatives, and a man who owes me more than one favor. He and Raven have history together, created in the kind of situation that either builds trust or destroys it. That shared experience should help her accept his presence long enough for him to dohis job. More importantly, Jesse is the kind of man who doesn't flinch when trouble shows up at his door.
And trouble is most certainly on its way.
1
RAVEN
The highway cuts through the countryside in long, unwavering stretches, and my jaw aches from clenching it for the last hundred miles. It's been ten years since I've seen these rolling hills, the same limestone cliffs and live oaks and winding back roads that I've spent a decade trying to forget and never once succeeded.
Uncle Robert's voice keeps circling through my head. A rancher died under suspicious circumstances. The local sheriff ruled it an accident. Cartel fingerprints all over it. The story is so familiar it turns my stomach.
I combed through the file he emailed while I was waiting at Graham's dealership. Tom Pritchard, killed in what was officially ruled a tragic ranching accident, but the details are paper-thin. The autopsy was rushed through without any testing, and the widow sold the property immediately for well below market value. Every instinct I have is screaming that she was either paid off or threatened into silence.
Uncle Robert wouldn't send me here to investigate a simple accident. The whole thing reeks, and the fact that official channels won't touch it only makes it worse.
I left El Paso with nothing but my go-bag and enough rage to power a small city. Five years with the ATF, every late night, each case file, and the hundreds of sacrifices I made in the name of doing things the right way, all of it wiped out in a single evening. Morrison's betrayal still twists in my gut like a blade he forgot to remove.
But it's returning to Fredericksburg that cracks me open in ways I wasn't prepared for. The ache in my chest has nothing to do with Morrison or the ATF or the cartel. It's older than that, deeper, the kind of pain that lives in your bones and wakes up the second you get too close to its source.
The sign appears by the side of the road before I'm ready for it. It's weathered now, the paint flaking and the post leaning slightly to one side, but the words are still legible: Blue Fork Ranch, Est. 1910.
I tell myself not to look. I tell myself to keep my eyes on the road and just drive past like it's any other stretch of fence line.
But memory doesn't care what I want, and it hits me with the force of a freight train.
Uncle Martin turns away, his shotgun in his hands, and I'm screaming his name as Jesse Hollister drags me backward, his arm locked around my waist like an iron band, and I'm fighting him with everything I have, my boots scraping against gravel, my nails clawing at his forearm.
"No! Stop! Let go of me!" My voice is raw and desperate. "Uncle Martin!"
