My arm looped around his throat, silencer pressed against his skull, one quick squeeze and he was gone. His body slumped to the floor, dead before he knew what hit him.
Jacob gutted another one at the far end of the corridor, muffling his grunt with a steady hand as the blade tore in deep. He eased the body down silently, blood pooling against the polished stone. We moved methodically, room by room, cleaning house. One by one, the guards were eliminated. The orchestra played on in the ballroom, masking the quiet death spreading through the compound.
On the second floor, we glimpsed someone from our past—Johnny boy. I didn't have time to worry about how and why he was there. He wasn't dressed like the rest of us. No mask, no tux. He looked lost, glass of whiskey in his hand, eyes wide as if he couldn't believe the surrounding massacre.
He turned the corner and froze when he saw Jacob standing over two fresh corpses.
He didn't know us, but we knew him.
His glass slipped from his hand, shattering on the floor.
"Wait," he whispered, voice shaking.
"I'm not part of this. I never wanted—"
I stepped out of the shadows, my silencer leveled at his forehead. His hands lifted in surrender, eyes pleading.
"Please…I wanted nothing to do with him, I swear. Even though he's my uncle, I had no part in this. I didn't even know he was into this crazy shit."
His uncle? I had no idea what the kid was talking about. For a moment, I saw it….the truth in his face. The kid wasn't built for this life; I believed that, but he bore Hector's blood, and leaving him alive meant leaving a thread to be pulled later. He could rebuild the entire operation from the ground up, and that isn't a chance I wanted to take.
I pulled the trigger.
He dropped like a rag doll, his lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling. Jacob gave me a long look, but didn't speak. He knew as well as I did….loose ends got people killed.
His brow furrowed, eyes still pinned on me.
"We must have missed that information somewhere. The kid doesn't even look Mexican."
I shook my head. "I had no clue he was related either. What are the fucking odds?" I shrugged, not giving a shit. "Fuck him. Let's go," I said.
We stepped over John's body and kept moving. By the time we circled back toward the ballroom, the halls were silent. Fifteen men gone without a whisper. The CIA's muffled reports confirmed the outside was clear as well.
Inside the locked gentlemen's room, Kitlyn and Becca were waiting—safe, for the first timein a month, and Hector was tied up, powerless. The communication crackled as we checked the last hallway.
Zach's voice was steady and concise.
"Outer guards neutralized. Cottages secure. Repeat…cottages secure. Survivors coming out."
Through the open windows in the hallway, I could see and hear it…the chaos spreading outside. Shouts, muffled gunfire, boots pounding across the dirt as the men who once thought themselves untouchable, tried to run.
Some dropped their weapons and bolted into the trees, scrambling like rats from a sinking ship. Others were cut down before they even made it twenty steps. The whole ballroom was oblivious to the chaos spreading across the compound. The orchestra masked every sound, an ideal cover to finish the job.
Jacob and I stood by the window, keeping a watchful eye on what was going on. And then came the voices.
High-pitched, terrified, dozens of them.
Girls spilled out of the cottages barefoot, clothed in rags….walking into the floodlights.
Mexicans, Americans, Asians, Eastern Europeans….Hector didn't care where they came from, as long as they could bring him a lot of money. What a scumbag. I had something special waiting for his ass once I got Kitten and Becca out.
"Medical inbound," a CIA voice said over the comms.
"We've got buses staged on the road. Police are clearing them through."
Jacob and I still paused by the window, watching as the first ambulance pulled up the driveway. All sirens were off.
We still had shit to do. Uniformed medics piled out at the gates, a good distance from the entrance of the mansion, rushing toward the girls who stumbled and sobbed as they were herded to safety. Mexican Feds followed, rifles raised, pushing through the grounds surrounding the compound, corralling any of Hector's men who threw down their weapons.
