Dante knew that at some point, they would be attacked, and not by his own enemies. Those who would attack him were his family's enemies, those who sought the ranch lands.
For that reason, Dante had devised a very meticulous plan.
First, he increased the power of the police in Montana, provided them with helicopters, and inserted his own agents into a rapid response team to eliminate targets.
When the Predator Plan was activated, it meant that the Dutton family was under attack and needed to be relocated to a safe point until the threat was neutralized.
Now that the plan had been activated, it was only a matter of time before Dante received support.
But in the meantime, he had to do his best to handle things himself.
"Zz… They're massacring us, we're too exposed."
"What happened?" Hawk was about to ask another question when—
Bang!
Before the machine gun assistant could respond, another shot rang out.
This time, Hawk clearly saw one of the men from the second search team get his head blown off.
"Sniper! Get down!" Hawk shouted desperately.
Realizing they were being targeted by a sniper, the team quickly dropped down and took cover out of the snipers' line of sight.
In an instant, the mercenary team had taken cover, leaving the first group that initiated the attack to fend for themselves.
The man on the machine gun and his assistant were well aware of how bad their situation was.
They were out in the open, facing a sniper.
Their surroundings were a vast open field—not a defensive fortress by any means.
Everyone was in grave danger.
Without further delay, the two of them took cover like everyone else. However, it was already too late.
Bang!
Another shot was fired, and one of the men holding the machine gun, who had barely had enough time to lift his weapon, suddenly had his head blown off.
The machine gun fell to the ground as the assistant panicked and covered his head.
He didn't want to lose his life. No one could blame him for that.
As the squad leader, Hawk didn't care about his men, who had gone ahead to kill Dante. He had already estimated the direction the shots were coming from and fired toward it with his assault rifle.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The others joined Hawk in the gunfire, and the place where Dante was supposed to be was attacked from multiple directions in an instant.
After firing that shot, Dante quickly moved away to dodge the incoming bullets, which split the tree trunk in two just seconds after he had left that position.
He knew everything about the sniper rifle in his hands. Even though it was equipped with extra gear, it didn't slow Dante down in the slightest.
The most important factor for a sniper was their position—more important than taking down enemies with a single shot.
Dante swiftly evaded the incoming fire and rushed to one of the locations he had chosen before the battle.
"Argh!" Dante dropped behind a raised rock.
He then looked at the wound on his left shin.
"Dante, are you okay?" Jamie, for some reason, seemed to be blessed by some merciful saint, and thanks to that, he hadn't been hit by any bullets.
But Dante wasn't as lucky. He had just been grazed by a bullet, but it also served as a reminder of how strong his enemies were and how serious they were about killing him.
Dante had an advantage over them—his position and the power it gave him to ambush them. However, he had already been injured after only a few minutes of facing them.
After all, these were professionals—skilled shooters who outnumbered him. Since he wasn't in a favorable zone, he had to hold out until reinforcements arrived.
"I'm fine…" Dante tore off part of his shirt and used it as a bandage to wrap around his shin. "I should have learned how to deal with wounds…"
The pain reminded him of that as he bandaged the wound.
He had to move again.
He knew that if he stayed in that spot any longer, he would eventually be surrounded.
The mercenaries could easily estimate his location after that last shot.
His instincts told him not to underestimate them.
The wound on his leg slowed his movement, especially with the fabric wrapped around it, which hindered him even more.
After a full five minutes, he finally left the battlefield.
He crawled into his new hiding spot and looked back at the place he had just left.
Seven soldiers had already surrounded it. They formed a three-and-four formation, with three advancing cautiously while the rest covered them from behind.
If Dante were still there, he would have been killed ten times over.
Even if he had managed to take out one or two of them, the rest would have finished him off.
However, Dante had already left that area and could safely eliminate the remaining soldiers from a distance.
Bang!
One of the soldiers collapsed into a pool of blood.
Dante started moving again among some nearby trees.
Gunfire followed him, shooting at the spot he had just left. Dante was glad he had chosen this area, which he knew so well.
"Damn it!" Hawk shouted furiously at what was happening.
One of his men had fallen once again.
He wanted to tear that damn sniper apart with his own hands, ripping him limb from limb, but he knew that anger wouldn't help him solve the problem at hand.
If he didn't come up with a plan soon, he and all his men would die there.
Hawk began looking around, but as Dante moved back, there were more trees in the area.
"He must have chosen this place on purpose!"
After inspecting his surroundings, Hawk was sure of it.
He had a bad feeling, above all else.
This wasn't just some armed thug. If he had managed to counter an ambush before it even happened and then deliberately chose this terrain within seconds to suit his skills, he had to be a soldier.
"Could it be Kayce and not Dante?" Hawk silently wondered, frowning.
Although he knew there was a member of the Dutton family who could be troublesome, they had devised a plan to take him down easily.
But now that they had run into a serious problem, even Hawk began to doubt whether he had mistaken Dante for his older brother, Kayce.
As a mercenary, he was being paid well enough to kill the Duttons one by one.
Even if it drew a lot of attention, he would do it without hesitation.
However, Hawk had no intention of dying in the process.
That's why he had chosen the youngest member as his target—he would be the easiest to eliminate. His plan was perfect; the others would do the hard work while he handled the simplest task.
His survival had always depended on plans like these. But now, it seemed he had gravely misjudged the youngest of the Duttons.
"Even if he's a soldier, we'll kill him here as soon as we get organized," Hawk thought, gritting his teeth as he gave orders to his men.
"Command 1 and 2, take up firing positions at that location."
"Command 3 through 5, you'll be the decoys to distract the shooter."
"The rest of you, stay alert for that bastard!" Hawk hadn't forgotten about Jamie hiding in the truck.
"But he must not be killed…"
"I don't give a damn, just do your damn job," he ordered one after another. The mercenaries quickly moved according to his commands, once again displaying military discipline. If they had been mere hitmen, they would have started blaming each other.
But this was a mercenary group, and the soldiers executed their leader's orders in a disciplined manner.
Three of them moved at the same time.
Hawk and the rest stayed put, trying to pinpoint Dante's location.
Dante noticed the bait. One of the soldiers was visibly moving along the path leading to the truck where Jamie was hiding, making no effort whatsoever to take cover.
Dante aimed at him but didn't shoot.
The mercenaries' sudden shift in tactics made him suspect that something was off.
This behavior didn't even match that of a low-level hitman, let alone a trained soldier.
"Is this a trap?" Dante instantly thought.
After all, the best way to deal with a sniper was to try to lure him out.
Dante took his finger off the trigger.
He needed to assess the situation as a whole.
At that moment, he realized something. When he was still familiarizing himself with the terrain, he had gone the extra mile to memorize all the hiding spots and safe positions.
Judging by the mercenaries' positions, it wasn't hard to see what they were doing. "Two of them are heading toward my brother…"
Dante looked at their destination through his scope.
The weak spot that could bring him down was if they captured Jamie and forced him to surrender.
Reinforcements were on their way, but he had already given the enemy too much of an advantage on the terrain. Dante knew he couldn't allow a killer to get near his brother.
Without hesitation, he fired.
Bang!
One of the mercenaries heading toward the vantage point dropped to the ground.
The second mercenary didn't even stop.
He quickly got up and sprinted at full speed toward Dante's position.
Dante saw him but couldn't fire again immediately.
He needed to leave that spot, or his position would be exposed, and the others would start shooting at him.
This time, the mercenaries had closed in on him once again, but now, he had nowhere to hide.