Page 41 of Lone Star Witness

No need to spell out that Rosa could be the main target if there was an attack. After all, he was the witness that could seal the fate of the killer. Once the killer was IDed, that is.

Rosa was trembling when he climbed into the window, but he didn’t hesitate with the jump. He landed much harder though than Jericho or Jace, and Slade heard him grunt in pain. Slade hoped he hadn’t broken anything.

“You’re next,” Slade told her. “I’ll keep watch from up here to make sure no one’s out there.”

Sonny.

That was Slade’s concern. That Sonny was hiding in the darkness, again, ready to try to kill them.

“And the two of you will be right behind me,” she insisted, glancing at Angel, who was still recording the scene.

“Yes, right behind you,” Slade assured her, and he did something that seemed to shock Marise more than the fire.

He brushed a kiss on her mouth a split second before he maneuvered her through the window. Below, Jericho had restacked the pillows so after she went out the window and hung onto the sill, she aimed herself at them, counted to three.

And sprang out.

While she had a terrified expression on her face.

Her reaction was understandable. Unlike Jace, Jericho, and him, she hadn’t had the training, but she clearly tried to mimic what Jericho and Jace had done. She landed hard on her feet, but thankfully kept moving. She darted behind some shrubs and looked up at the window. She probably hoped to see him.

But she saw Angel instead.

Slade had purposely had the cop go next because he wanted all the help on the ground to protect Marise. Angel hadn’t balked, and he moved damn fast to the window. He jumped and did his drop and roll while the smoke billowed out all the front windows on the second floor.

In the distance Slade could hear the sound of a fire engine. That was good, but at the moment, his focus was on Marise. And the toll this was going to take on his body, what with his injuries. Still, there were a lot of options here.

Slade climbed through the window, catching onto the sill with his good arm. And he let go. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to choke back the low snarl of pain he made when he hit. He shoved the god-awful pain aside, came off the ground, and drew his gun.

Just as a bullet slammed into the house next to him.

Part of Slade had been bracing for just this very thing, but he still cursed and moved straight toward Marise, putting himself in front of her. Thankfully, she was already getting down and taking cover.

“The shot came from the side of the house by our vehicles,” Jericho rattled off just as another shot rang out.

He took cover, too, by going belly down on the ground behind a landscape boulder. Jace was on his right. Angel, on his left. The boulder was nowhere large enough to give them all protection, but Slade soon realized that wasn’t a massive concern.

Because the shots were clearly aimed toward the shrubs where Rosa, Marise, and he were. So, one or all three of them were the targets.

“Jericho, do you have a visual on the shooter?” Slade asked, putting Marise belly down as well.

He motioned for the colonel to do the same. Rosa did, but he also positioned himself to protect Marise. Slade would thank him for that later. For now though, he focused on getting them out of there alive.

“No. Shrubs and trees in the way,” Jericho responded. “I’ll move out and see if I can spot him.”

“Hold for now,” Slade insisted. Jericho would be way too easy of a target if he shifted away from the boulder, and while his brother might not be the shooter’s primary mission, that didn’t mean he or she wouldn’t take Jericho out.

Especially if it was Sonny.

Sonny would be delighted in a sick-assed kind of way to kill two of his sons in this attack.

“Stay put,” Slade told Marise and Rosa, and he crawled through the narrow space between the shrubs and the house.

Not easily.

Crawling meant putting pressure on the stitches in his arm, but he kept moving. Kept aiming for the vehicles where the shooter had likely taken up cover.

Another shot came, this one slamming into the house where Marise and Rosa still were. Hopefully, they were still down, and while he was hoping, Slade added that maybe the shooter couldn’t see him. It was dark after all so Slade had that on his side. He also had the experience for this sort of counterattack. Lots of shitstorm missions had honed and prepped him for just this kind of op.

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