Great. Her first impression of me is that I’m a fucking idiot, completely clueless about what I’m doing. Perfect for my plan, but humiliating for me.
“Get it together,” I mutter under my breath, forcing the embarrassment down and shaking it off before stepping out of the van to follow her.
The bike rests against the curb, gleaming faintly in the light. She strides toward it with effortless confidence, every step measured and unshaken. I catch up, lift it off the stand, and unclip a helmet, offering it to her.
“¿Adónde vas?Where are you going?”
The voice makes both of us spin around. At the back of the van stands the other prisoner, her hands no longer cuffed—probably a courtesy of the menace beside me. She looks disoriented, her brown hair plastered to her forehead with a mix of sweat and grim. Stray strands cling to her face, partially veiling her vision, yet she doesn’t seem to notice. A deep crimson stain spreads across her uniform, almost certainly from the guard I shot.
“Eres libre.You’re free,” June says, setting the helmet on the seat, her lips curling into a smile that never touches her eyes. “Puedes ir a donde quieras. Puedes hacer lo que amas.You can go wherever you want. Do whatever you love.”
The prisoner raises a trembling hand to her mouth, her wide eyes shimmering with unshed emotion. She stares, as if the words are too heavy, too impossible to fully process, and her mind struggles to catch up with what she’s just heard. “Pero... no lo quiero. No sé qué hacer.But... I don’t want it. I don’t know what to do,” she forces the words out, her voice trembling and cracking on the final syllable, betraying the raw emotion she’s trying to suppress.
The smile fades from June’s face, replaced by a harder, more unsettling expression. Before I can react, her hand darts to mywaistband, snatches my gun, and fires—a single shot to the woman’s forehead. The sound reverberates through the street, making me flinch, my ears ringing from the impact.
With an unnerving calm, she slips the gun back into my waistband as if nothing had occurred, her eyes lingering briefly on the still-warm body. Then, with a quick slap to my chest, she snatches up her helmet. “I offered her a way out, and she refused,” she states flatly, her voice devoid of any emotion.
I nod sharply, forcing my legs into motion. Swinging onto the bike, I fasten my helmet and press my foot to the gas. Her arms wrap around me, gripping tightly, her body radiating a warmth that feels almost obscene against the cold, lifeless bodies we left in our wake.
Fuck.
She’s a goddamn sociopath, completely void of remorse. I force my eyes onto the road, but her unnerving smile keeps flashing before me, a silent warning of the danger that clings to me like a small shadow.
What she did… It terrifies me as much as it fascinates me. I lower my visor, pressing forward, the engine’s roar blending with the chaos in my mind. Thoughts and emotions surge like a violent tide, each one heavier than the last, weighing down my head as I speed away from everything left behind.
Being an independent woman, traveling the world and taking lives to blow off steam is the best job I could have imagined. Exciting, well-paid, and endlessly engaging, it’s work that never bored me and never frustrated me. Yet even this life has moments that make me question everything. One of those moments came when I found myself locked in one of the worst prisons in Mexico, trapped for a week instead of just a couple of days, all because of the reason I’m about to uncover.
Getting close and killing the snitch wasn’t hard—not like rotting in my cell, with no air conditioning, surrounded by four walls that smelled of piss, blood, and something I’d rather not name out loud.
Cane never allowed anything like that to happen. He was always anything but the kind of person who failed a mission or changed the rules mid-game. A part of me even started to wonder if the bastard wanted to get rid of me.
But that theory didn’t last. It never would have made sense anyway. I’m the best of the best, and Cane trusts me—loves me, even. Sure, he can be a rare douchebag at times, but that’s just the way men are, and I try not to let it pierce my overly sentimental heart.
A crack forms in the thick fog of my thoughts, a deliciously low voice drifting into my ears from behind me. The man sent after me has to be the most awkward person I’ve ever met. At first, I could think of nothing but carving a fresh pattern into his perfect face, ruining something so annoyingly gorgeous.
Funny how everything he did before didn’t affect me at all. As a person who works for The Order, he’s pretty unimpressive—sloppy and distracted, as if always flying in his own little world. But if he’s here, that means he plays a particular role.
I ignore whatever he’s saying and slam my palm against the right door. The grit and grime smear across my skin instantly, but I barely register it—dust and mud can’t make me any filthier than I already am. My clothes cling to me, soaked with sweat, the stench seeping through the thin, cheap fabric. The neckerchief does nothing to mask my greasy hair, and with every passing second, the irritation crawling up my spine grows sharper, tighter, and fucking unbearable.
I’ve always had to stand out—my appearance, my presence, every little detail a statement. Otherwise, nothing I do matters. But right now, I’m far from hitting that mark. I blend into the gray, unremarkable crowd, invisible in a way that makes my blood boil.
I step into the rundown apartment, pressing my lips into a thin line as my eyes track the cockroaches scuttling mere inchesfrom my boots. The walls and ceiling shed peeling paint like brittle skin, and the rotten wood groans and creaks beneath each careful step we take, as if warning us that it could give way at any moment.
“You could’ve chosen something a bit more impressive,” I say mockingly, not even waiting for him to show his face. I have a knack for feeling this man’s energy from a long distance.
Cane steps out from the other room, his arms splayed to the sides, a barely detectable grin on his face. My bottom lip trembles, and I have to suppress the squeal threatening to break through.
“I wanted to match your appearance today,” he says, a smile spreading across his face. With his teeth showing, the little wrinkles near his eyes bloom, giving his explanation a sharper edge.
Asshole.
Without a single word, I launch myself from the spot, my legs pumping as I close the distance in a heartbeat. In the next instant, I collide with him, my arms wrapping around his shoulders with a sharp, resonant smack. He staggers back, caught off guard, before instinctively wrapping his own arms around me, grunting with the effort as our bodies lock together in the sudden impact.
No matter what he does, I can’t hold onto anger toward Cane. He’s the one who’s been by my side through every low and every high, the one who found me when I was unraveling, and painstakingly shaped me into the woman I’ve become today. He did everything to ensure I survived in this unforgiving world, stripping away my naivety and flimsier moments of weakness, molding me into someone capable of navigating a life as merciless as ours.
“I thought you’d left me there,” I whisper, drawing back slightly as my fingers dig into his shoulders. My gaze locks ontohis, and, as always, I’m captivated by the depth of his eyes—dark brown, almost black, like an endless void that nothing could ever fill. Shadows cling to the contours of his face, the lines beneath his eyes almost as deep as their color, while a faint layer of stubble traces the strong angles of his jaw.
It’s a relief to see that he hasn’t been enjoying himself while I was trapped there. That’s one of the reasons I love Cane—he feels alongside me, and my pain, my struggle, every moment I endured, has left a mark on him too.
