WITH A SWING OF THE HAMMER, Matias pounded a steel tent stake into the arm pinned beneath his boot. A normal man would’ve flinched at the godawful howls of pain. The man he used to be would’ve puked out his guts at the feel of tendons snapping beneath the crude impalement. But focused fury was his internal companion, a ruthless beast risen from the ruins of his former self.
Hazel eyes, identical to his own, stared up at him in pleading agony.
He swung again, burying the spike into flesh. Shredded screams fused with the damp air of the shed as metal pierced muscle and tissue, finding purchase in the dirt floor.
Four stakes secured Jhon’s arms and legs. The hooked heads protruded from bleeding holes, neutralizing any attempt to thrash free.
Matias removed the final stake from his pocket. The one that would end his brother’s life.
Luring Jhon to the abandoned farm was easy. Beyond the open doorway, thick foliage cloaked the mountainside, rippling toward a tributary of the Amazon River below. The blue haze of humidity filtered the sunlight and blanketed the atmosphere in a wet sheen.
The remote site in the Colombian jungle indulged his brother’s greed to expand cocaine production. The absence of witnesses made it an ideal place for Matias’ revenge.
With shallow breaths, Jhon blinked slowly, fighting to maintain consciousness. “Don’t do this.”
The same words Matias uttered the night he was ripped from his home. From Camila.
He was a world away from the Texan citrus grove where he spent the first eighteen years of his life. A world away from the girl he’d tried—and failed—to protect.
He pressed the stake against the hollow of Jhon’s throat, his voice an avalanche of gravel. “Why her?”
“She was—” Jhon wheezed past gritted teeth. “Something you cared about.”
“She was family!” And so much more.
Speared to the ground, legs twitching against the spikes, Jhon hardened bruised eyes. “I am your family.”
Only by blood, which stank of corroded iron and betrayal as it seeped into the soil.
Matias pushed on the stake, digging between corded sinews and breaking skin. “Where is she?”
Camila hadn’t contacted him in six weeks. The moment his phone stopped ringing, he knew.
A malicious grin cracked Jhon’s pallid face. “Sold.”
Slavery. That much he’d figured out, but it didn’t stop the torment from exploding anew and ravaging his veins with fire. “Where? Who has her?”
“She’s dead, little brother.” Jhon swallowed against the steel point, raising his chin to drive the stake deeper, taunting. “You’re chasing a ghost.”
A ghost with an invisible trail, likely smuggled to the farthest corner of the world, to be used, broken, and disposed.
The truth resounded in the empty chasm of his chest, a painful splintering quickly snuffed out by the nothingness that consumed him.
He was wasting his time with Jhon. His brother was too cunning, too loyal to the organization, utterly single-minded, and willing to die to protect the only secret Matias wanted.
So be it.
He reared back the hammer and struck the stake, slamming ten inches of steel through Jhon’s throat. The gurgling cough ended too soon. Just like all the others, his brother’s glassy-eyed silence didn’t soothe Matias’ hunger for retribution.
Jhon’s death was neither the first nor the last. In the months that followed, Matias sank deeper into the unforgiving armor of brutality. He belonged with the cartel, among the corrupted and the heartless, and used every resource available to search for her.
Obliterating men as despicable as himself provided an outlet for the rage he was unable to quiet. He understood the need to gut betrayers and decapitate adversaries, to torture for information, build stronger compounds, and effect armies. He became one of them, embracing their predatory existence and embodying a reputation that made the worst of his kind fear his name.
But it didn’t bring her back.
It didn’t bring back the citrus scent of her golden skin when she’d dozed with him in the grove. The way her shiny black hair whipped against her back as he chased her through knee-high grass. Or the spark in her brown eyes right before she launched a lime at his head. Slowly, his memories of her decayed.
Twelve months after her disappearance, she’d become a mirage in his wasteland, distorted at the edges and flickering out of reach.
He lay on his bed in the newly renovated Colombian compound, hands clasped behind his neck, eyes closed, trying to forget, if only for a few minutes. The faceless blonde between his legs helped with that, bobbing her head and working his cock to distraction.
His lower body clenched, balls aching and tightening as he strained for release. “Faster. Suck harder.”
She quickened her movements, the suction of her mouth hot and wet and—
A distinctive ring tone sounded from across the room. What the fuck?
“Did you hear that?” He jack-knifed into a sitting position and shoved her off his lap.
She dragged the back of a hand across her swollen lips.
The ringing echoed again, chiming a tune he hadn’t heard in a year, waking a phone only one person had the number to.
He vaulted off the bed. “Get out.”
With a racing pulse, he sprinted toward the dresser. Following the muffled bleeps, he dug through piles of weapons, papers, and clothes that scattered the surface. There! He grabbed it.
Unknown number.
His hand shook as he tapped the screen and accepted the call.
Dead air.
No, no, no. He missed it. Hitting the call back button, he rubbed a hand down his face. Come on, come on.
The screen flashed. Call failed.
Vicious rage tore through his body, inflaming his muscles. He spun and found the blonde taking her
sweet-ass time dragging on clothes, her gaze on his softening cock.
He grabbed a chambered .45 from the dresser, flicked off the safety, and aimed it at her head, his voice cold and lethal. “Get the fuck out.”
Eyes wide, she snatched her shirt from the floor and shut the door behind her.
He set down the gun and returned to the phone, deafening in its silence and still plugged in since the day he left it on the dresser. Call me back, goddammit.
It was illogical to hope. Camila was gone. Anyone could’ve accidentally dialed him. But wasn’t hope the reason he’d kept the number all this time?
He stared at the blank screen, willing it to come back to life.
A moment later, it lit up. Unknown Number. The cascading ring tone penetrated his chest, stabbing interior scars with excruciating precision.
Tempering his breaths, he answered. “Who is this?”
Silence. Then a soft exhale. “It’s me.”
He stopped breathing, every cell in his body screaming in denial. His countless enemies were insidious in their efforts to destroy him. How hard would it be to procure this number and impersonate her husky voice?
He lifted his arm, zeroing in on the white pockmark on the inside of his wrist. “How old was I when I got my first scar?”
“So paranoid.” A sigh ruffled through the ear piece. “Guess that means you still work for them.”
His jaw set, his tone clipped with suspicion. “How old?”
“I was…uh, six. So you were eight?”
He gripped the edge of the dresser, his rib cage tightening. But any one of their friends or neighbors could’ve been tortured for that information.
Relaxing his grip, he sharpened his voice. “Tell me how it happened.”