“Bring up the blueprints to Cortéz’s home. We need a clean path in, a silent extraction, and a way to transport him out without detection. We’re not walking in blind.”
“Already ahead of you,” Foster says, shaking his head. “Only an idiot lets a legitimate construction company build their narco-palace. Blueprints always end up in a system somewhere. Don’t worry, brother. There are no blueprints of our compound. I made sure of it. Well… that’s not entirely true. Thereareblueprints. They’re just not real.”
I chuckle. Smart bastard.
With a few quick clicks, the table lights up.
Blueprints flicker across the display…walls, blind spots, heat-scan overlays, ventilation shafts, escape routes, load-bearing columns, weak points.
Every secret of Cortéz’s fortress spread open.
And the more we see…
…the more determined everyone becomes.
My heart kicks hard against my ribs.
War is coming. And we’re bringing a fucking army.
A slow, hungry smile curls across my lips as I lean back in my chair.
“Oh, boys…” I drawl, unable to help myself. “This is going to befun.”
Chapter Fourteen
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When I was a child…probably ten, maybe not even that old…I learned the first lesson that shaped the man I became:
Love doesn’t stay. But pain does.
My dad split before I was born. My mom… she tried. God, she tried. But loving her was like hugging a bomb. Some days she was soft, braiding my hair she refused to cut because she said it made me look like “her warrior.” Other days, she’d forget she had a son at all. Forget to eat. Forget to sleep. Forget I existed until her demons reminded her.
She struggled with addiction. Pills. Alcohol. Anything she could get her hands on. I didn’t understand it then. I just knew she had bad days and worse days, and I learned to survive both.
One night, one of the bad ones, she locked herself in the bathroom. Wouldn’t answer. Wouldn’t speak.
I sat outside the door for hours, talking to her about anything I could think of, telling her how much I needed her, begging her not to leave me.
She didn’t answer.
Days later, the cops came.
I found out later that the mailman called them, complaining of an odd smell coming from inside the house.
That day, everything inside me cracked when I saw the sheet-covered body being carried out.
After that, I bounced. Foster homes. Group homes. Temporary beds. Temporary families. People who wanted a paycheck, not a kid.
I learned how to charm my way into safer situations.
How to flirt to get what I needed.
How to make people laugh so they wouldn’t look too closely at the cracks.
It became my armor.
Humor. Flirting. Being the guy who never took anything seriously.
