by Pam Godwin
As he shuffled to stay upright, she stabbed him again in the same spot. And again. She must’ve hit cartilage or bone the second time because the knife stuck, slipping from her fingers as he stumbled backward.
He stared at the protruding weapon in his shoulder, his eyes wide with shock. “Why?”
“You’re pure evil. You don’t belong here. Not in this world. Not among children.”
His hip bumped into the table, knocking it aside, and he dropped to the floor.
The vicious pounding in her chest overpowered her relief. She needed answers.
Kneeling beside him, she squeezed his throat and held him immobile. “I know what you do in the middle of the night.”
His eyes blinked rapidly, and he slapped an uncoordinated hand at the knife in his shoulder. Half of his shirt was red, and the puddle beneath him was growing. The artery in the armpit supplied blood to his extremities and sat close enough to the heart to drain him quickly. He didn’t have much time.
“Give me the locations of the commanders involved in the smuggling of those kids.”
“I sent you to the gringos as a test.” The cords in his neck strained beneath her hand, and his English grew sloppy with his pain. “I didn’t care about them. I needed to know who you were.” He switched to Spanish. “I challenged your loyalty to see who you would pick. Them or me.” His eyes watered with tears. “I thought you chose me.”
“You sick son of a bitch,” she seethed. “If you wanted to test me, all you had to do was tell me you were raping and killing children. You would’ve found out real quick where my loyalties lie.”
He held still, staring up at her, eyes locked. A twitch skipped along his clenched jaw that had nothing to do with the knife in his shoulder. He was disappointed with her. Furious. Flames roared in his gaze, ready to ignite everything around him.
Well, fuck him, because her rage blazed hotter. The inferno inside her wasn’t explosive or out of control, but it burned mighty and strong at the end of a two-year wick.
The acidity of her wrath resided in her stomach, waiting to be spat from her mouth in a string of venomous words. But she wasn’t going to say them. She was going to stab all her hurt and disgust into his dying body.
She slapped a hand over his mouth and yanked the blade from his shoulder. His jaw worked beneath her palm, roaring without sound. His back bowed and spasmed, and more blood flowed from his wounds.
With the knife secure in her fist, she let her fury flood out all at once. The blade came down, fast and relentless, over and over into the lower quadrants of his abdomen.
Though he was screaming, her hand trapped the noise as her other jabbed and twisted the blade, gouging countless holes, goring and mangling. To draw out his death, she avoided the liver, spleen, and big veins that were higher up.
He probably only had seconds left, but she wanted to make fucking sure he felt every single one of them while staring into her eyes.
Her arm moved like a disembodied appendage, separated from her soul. What she felt wasn’t human. It wasn’t her. The mindless need to kill brutally and ruthlessly… It warped her mind and laced her veins in fire. She was intoxicated with it. And terrified.
She dropped the knife and stared down at the mutilated remains of his lower abdomen. The bloodbath sickened her and thrilled her.
“Vera Gomez,” he whispered.
Her heart stuttered. “What?”
“Your sister.” A macabre smile pushed through his agony-soaked expression. “She smuggles them for me. All the pretty little girls.”
Her breath stopped and restarted as her mind tried to separate the information. “You found her? She’s alive? Wait… She works for you? She would never—”
His mouth formed words, but no sound came out. His eyes lost focus, blinking slowly as he stared at nothing. Death moved in, stealing the answers she desperately needed.
“Where is she?” She slapped his slack face, knocking his head to the side. “Answer me!”
“With…” His tongue lolled in his vile mouth, dying with his words. “Your brothers.”
He fell silent. No breath. No movement. Eyes glazed and unseeing.
Dead.
Hector La Rocha was dead, and her sister was alive.
Vera’s alive.
A sob of relief burst from her throat. She gulped down the next tearful exhale and pushed to her feet, teetering and stunned to the bottom of her stomach.
Vera was smuggling children? She was the one Martin and Ricky were looking for? And the Mexican military…
They arrested Tula because of mistaken identity.
Vera wasn’t mixed up in this. She would never do anything to harm innocent people.
She couldn’t think about this right now. Blood was everywhere, trailing a gruesome path from the record player to his prone body. It splattered her black shirt, coated her hands, and clotted in her hair.
She needed to get out of there.
Racing to the sink, she scrubbed off the evidence. Clothes, skin, hair—all of it received a furious rubbing until only a few damp spots remained on her shirt.
She didn’t spare a glance at the body as urgency propelled her to the door. The scariest part wasn’t over.
She still had to walk out of Area Three without raising suspicion. With any luck, Hector’s death wouldn’t be discovered until she was on her way to the United States.
The corridor would be busy at this hour. The moment she stepped out there, she would have to put on her game face. Business as usual.
A few deep breaths helped her steady her hands. Then she opened the door.
Garra and Simone stood a few feet away. Their conversation fell silent, and both heads turned in her direction.
She glared at them—because that was what she would normally do—while reaching behind her, blindly trying to find the handle and close the door.
In two long strides, Garra was in her space. His hand went to her cheek, and he pulled back a red-smeared thumb.
“What did you do?” he whispered angrily.
Her fingers caught the door behind her, pulling it closed as Simone crowded in, pushing it open.
“That’s blood.” Simone examined her up and down before angling his head to see into Hector’s cell.
Her stomach dropped, and her knees wobbled.
The body lay around the corner, but the goddamn evidence was on her face. She couldn’t talk her way out of this. She needed to run.
“I got a bloody nose.” She tried to squeeze past them, but multiple hands caught her arms and dragged her back inside.
The door shut with finality, closing her in and sucking all the air from her lungs.
“Get your hands off me!” She kicked and thrashed as they hauled her toward the crime scene. “Let me go!”
And there it was. Hector’s body lay in a pool of red, eyes open, with a hundred mangled knife wounds in the abdomen.
“Holy Mother of God.” Simone stared at the bloody corpse, stunned. Then his tawny face turned red-hot. “You did this.”
“Garra.” She twisted in his arms, prepared to beg for mercy from the only man in Jaulaso who might actually listen. “Please, let me explain.”
His nostrils flared, and his fingers bit into her back.
Desperation drove her hand to his hair. She gripped hard, touching him for the first time as she put her face in his. “Please, don’t hurt me again.”
Something moved in his eyes, a soft pulse at the centers, that seemed to humanize his entire expression. He opened his mouth to speak, but his attention darted to Simone behind her.
As she turned, Simone drew a large knife from his boot and lunged for her.
She had no time to react before Garra shoved her out of the way. She landed on her back beside Hector’s body, her breath frozen as Garra crashed into Simone.
They went down in a tumble of fists, rolling across the floor with the knife swinging around them. She scrambled back and dug in her feet to run. Until her gaze snagge
d on the blade beside Hector’s leg.
She didn’t think beyond the need to kill Simone. He’d held the flashlight, watched the violence. He needed to die.
With a surge of adrenaline, she grabbed the knife and spun toward the fight.
Simone was bigger, stronger, and had the upper hand as he flipped Garra onto his back and fell on top of him. She saw her chance and raced toward them.
Holding the knife with the sharp edge angled down, she stabbed it deeply and firmly into the back of Simone’s neck. When his body jerked, she yanked hard on the hilt, dragging the blade toward the spine and severing everything in its path.
Simone collapsed on Garra’s chest, covered in blood and instantly dead. She pressed her fingers to the pulse point in his neck, just to be sure.
Fuck.
She’d just killed another cartel member.
Garra didn’t move beneath the body as he watched her closely, his eyes stark and unblinking. Then his lips pulled back with a hiss, exposing blood-stained teeth.
“You’re hurt?” She couldn’t see much of him beneath Simone and all the blood.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Never.” The intensity of his conviction pulled her to her knees.
She shoved the body, and Garra released a roar of agony. As the weight fell away, she saw the knife.
Buried to the hilt in Garra’s stomach, the eight-inch blade had gone all the way through him. He would be dead within minutes.
Against all logic, an ache of compassion swelled in her throat.
“Some letters came for you.” He heaved a breath, choking on a mouthful of blood. “Forms you needed to sign to complete your transfer.”
“What?” A fresh wave of fear crashed over her.
He knew about her desertion? For how long? Had he alerted the cartel? Would they be waiting for her as she tried to leave?
She bent over him. “What did you do?”
“I hid them from everyone. Forged your signatures and sent them back to the consular.”
“Why?” Her head jerked back. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to know I…”
“What?”
“I love you.”
She blew out a breath. Didn’t matter that he was dying. She couldn’t pretend to give a fuck about that sentiment. “Do you know what Hector was doing to children in the sewer room?”
He looked away and coughed out a string of blood. “I didn’t condone it and never helped him with that.”
Disgust burned in her gut. “How did he get them into Jaulaso?”
“They’re drugged. Put inside crates. Brought in with shipments of firearms.”
Firearms? Hector and his men had conversations about those shipments in every meeting. Had they been talking about trafficking humans right in front of her?
She clenched her hands. “You did nothing to stop it. Makes you just as guilty as the rest of them.”
With a slow nod, he closed his eyes and let his head loll.
“You’re not dying yet.” She gripped his jaw and forced his narrowed gaze to hers. “Where’s my sister?”
“With your brothers, but you can’t—” A gulping breath rolled his eyes into the back of his head.
“Garra!” She shook him until he refocused on her.
“Can’t go after Vera. Hector’s sons… They’ll know what you did. They’ll avenge him.”
“They know who I am? They’ll recognize me?”
“Yes. Stay away. They’ll kill you.” His hand fell to his pants and flopped around his hip. “The bag…my pocket. Take it. Show it on your way out.”
His eyes closed, and his breathing slowed to a stuttering wisp. She was losing him.
“Where is Vera? Give me a location. A town. Anything.”
He parted pale lips but didn’t open his eyes. “C-C-Calaaa—” The rest of it died on his last breath.
Calaaa-what? Off the top of her head, she couldn’t think of a town in Mexico that began with those syllables, but she would have plenty of time later to research it.
Shoving her hand into his pocket, she removed a plastic baggie of heroin. “Show this on my way out?”
Confusion morphed to understanding. The drugs were her ticket out of Area Three. Unlike Martin and Ricky, she was a cartel member. She would need a reason for leaving the area.
“Thank you for helping me.” She patted Garra’s lifeless chest and shoved to her feet.
She ran to the sink, cleaned away the blood, and double-checked her face.
Then she left. Out the door, through the corridors, and into the common area. Her body operated on a flood of adrenaline, racing her heart and pushing away the fear.
An armed inmate stopped her at the door to the exit. “Where are you going?”
“Delivering something for the boss.” She pulled the baggie from her pocket and held it up.
He gave it a glance and nodded.
Then he opened the door.
Sunlight baked her eyes as she stepped into the outdoor courtyard and hurried to the other side. It’d been two years since she walked this path, naively following the prison guard that Hector had sent for her.
Only one month ago, Martin and Ricky crossed this same yard.
Where were they now? Did they miss her? Would they try to find her? How would they even know where to look?
She had no way to contact them. No way to tell them she was leaving.
None of this was a revelation. When she made the call to process her transfer, she knew it meant she would never see them again.
As she entered the central part of the prison, she dropped the bag of heroin on the floor and made her way through the filthy halls.
She’d killed Hector La Rocha.
Vera was alive.
She was returning to Arizona.
All of this should’ve lifted her spirits and carried her faster to the door. But it was overshadowed by longing and heartache.
She should’ve never fallen in love. But she did. Times two.
Nothing would ever compare to the three months she had with them. They were the touchstone of human integrity. A taste of a full and vibrant life. They were the real deal. Her deepest sorrow. Her greatest happiness.
She’d carried two-hundred dollars into Jaulaso.
Two years later, the only thing she carried out was a broken heart.
It had been there for three months—this exhausting, unstoppable anger that kept Martin awake at night. He lay in bed at the Restrepo headquarters and twined his fingers through Ricky’s hair, trying to quiet his raging thoughts.
They’d been in Colombia for three fucking months, and no one could tell them anything about Tula. They didn’t know if she was protected by La Rocha Cartel, unharmed, or still alive.
Hector La Rocha was dead. It was all over the news two months ago. The reports claimed he was brutally murdered in his prison cell, along with his closest men, Garra and Simone. As for who had done it? That mystery was still being investigated.
Maybe it was an inside job by one of the inmates in Area Three. It could’ve been an attack by the González Cartel or one of the enemy gangs.
But deep down, Martin knew.
Tula had found a way to kill the cartel boss. If Martin weren’t so fucking angry with her for risking her life, he would’ve been beaming with pride.
Three dangerous men.
Murdered.
He couldn’t begin to imagine how she’d done it or what had prompted her. But whenever the scenario played out in his head, he couldn’t see past his blinding rage and fear.
Just because she wasn’t listed among the dead didn’t mean the cartel hadn’t retaliated in the two months that followed. There had been multiple prison riots since Hector’s death. Chaos had erupted in fires, gunfights, and prisoner breakouts.
The news didn’t report the names of the casualties from the Jaulaso riots, and none of Martin’s resources had been able to obtain
that information.
Everything was on lockdown. The entire city was up in arms over the death of their leader, and the Mexican government was scrambling to keep the prison contained. There were talks about shutting Jaulaso down.
Where was Tula during all this? He couldn’t stop imagining her holed up in that foul cell, alone and unarmed, while the prison burned down around her.
He gritted his teeth to the point of breaking. His shoulders ached with endless tension. Animosity saturated his blood with acid—burning, seething, poisonous.
He was infuriated with the Mexican military for putting an innocent schoolteacher in Jaulaso. He was outraged with the Mexican government for ignoring his pleas to release her. He was pissed at Matias Restrepo for refusing to negotiate another deal that would send Martin back to prison.
And he wanted to strangle Cole Hartman for making promises he had yet to keep.
When he and Ricky left Jaulaso three months ago, they went straight to Cole. The retired military-spy-secret-agent—whatever Cole was—had been able to spring Van and Lucia out of a Venezuelan prison within one week. Yet he couldn’t give Martin a single update on Tula after three months.
Cole said the turmoil in Jaulaso had delayed his progress, but he would find her and get her out. He just needed time.
There was fuck all Martin could do about it, and that was the root of his fury. He was enraged with himself more than anything. He shouldn’t have left her.
The only thing keeping him from mentally snapping was the man in his arms.
Ricky carried his own anger with a quiet intensity that Martin envied. Even in his devastation over leaving Tula, Ricky had been able to wrap a blanket of calmness around Martin and cool them both down before they lost their shit.
He used that same calmness to control Martin’s unhinged aggression during sex.
Martin was nowhere near cured of his PTSD. Hard, rough fucking triggered him every time, but Ricky never gave up on him. He’d figured out how to battle Martin’s demons with a soft rumbling voice, sensual caresses, and assertive eye contact. Didn’t matter how deep in the past Martin fell, Ricky always pulled him back.
Even now, as his best friend slept beside him, he felt his rage give way to the patience that seemed to radiate from Ricky’s presence.
