Page 93 of Shared By the Mountain Men Triplets

The dawn is cold and colorless. The valley still sits in shadow, quiet in the deceptive way places get before men start dying in them.

I’m lying prone beneath a screen of spruce and deadfall, with my rifle braced, and my radio against my shoulder.

It feels natural and familiar, except for the part where I’m constantly aware that Wren is two ridges back at Novak’s forward command post, close enough to hear the operation unfold, but too far for me to put my hands on her if things go sideways.

She’s with federal agents, well outside the projected engagement zone, but ready to help interpret the terrain in real time. She’s effective, but she’s also scared.

I saw it in her eyes before we left her there, though I don’t think anyone outside of my brothers and me would notice. While agents with rifles and armor moved around her, she had her eyes fixed on the topo map, pointingout drainage that could distort radio reception and old game trails that Turner might have widened into escape corridors.

Her head was up, and her shoulders were square, but when I stepped close, I saw that her pupils were too wide, and her mouth was pressed flat.

“Listen to Novak,” I told her quietly.

She looked up at me. “Don’t give me orders because you’re scared.”

“I’m giving you orders because I’m scared,” I said.

Just for a second, the hard line of her mouth eased. “Then takemyorders: Come back.”

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to drag her a million miles away and keep her there until this is over. I wanted things I had no business wanting, but I only touched the inside of her wrist with two fingers to feel her pulse beneath her skin. “We’ll be back.”

“All three of you,” she said, and it was also an order.

Boone stepped in, his medic bag already over his shoulder, pressed his mouth to her forehead, and said something I didn’t catch.

Cade stood behind him with a lethal quiet that meant he was already halfway into the work. He touched the back of Wren’s neck and squeezed.

I cupped her jaw and kissed her once, hard, but brief. A claim and a vow.

“Go end this,” she said.

Now, with the sun rising over the valley, I intend to do exactly that.

Static clicks in my ear. “Forward command to all elements,” Novak says. “Check in.”

The DEA assault team answers first in their units: Alpha One, Alpha Two, and Bravo set.

Then Cade’s voice comes through, “Smoke set.” He’s on the east ridge, tucked into an overlook with a scoped rifle and enough elevation to see the staging area’s northern edge. He picked the position, and Novak listened because he’s smart enough to recognize a man who understands the terrain better than a satellite image.

“Mouth set,” Boone says. He’s with the DEA entry team near the lower drainage.

I key my radio. “Prime set.”

“Copy,” Novak answers. “All elements hold for final confirmation.”

The sound of engines breaks the dawn’s silence. There’s a diesel truck already sitting near Turner’s prefab command structure, then another comes in from the west, then another.

Turner comes out of the command structure like a man stepping onto his porch to greet business partners. His posture reads entitlement, like he thinks these mountains belong to him because he found a way to profit from them.

“Forward command,” I murmur. “Visual on Turner. Center clearing. Gray jacket. Moving toward incomingvehicles.”

“Copy, Prime,” Novak says. Less than a minute later, he comes back. “Prime, Dr. Hollis confirms the western vehicle route matches the corridor she flagged from displacement data. Likely secondary access connects to drainage south-southwest of your position.”

Wren was right.

“Copy,” I say. “I have eyes on the lower spur. No movement yet.”

“Smoke has two armed men on north berm,” Cade says. “One behind engine block. One in timber pocket left of structure.”