For her.
The muzzle rises from my abdomen to the center of my chest.
A clean shot.Point-blank.
Paco’s expression doesn’t change—he’s already decided how this ends.
“Her handler,” he says quietly.“Name him.”
My heart hammers once—hard.Adena’s face flashes behind my eyes.I swallow, force myself to breathe through the pain blazing across my ribs.
I don’t move.“She doesn’t have a handler because she’s not working for anyone.She’s mine.You want to test her loyalty, you come through me.”
His brows lift a fraction.“See, hermano… that sounds exactly like something a man protecting a fed would say.”
I feel the tremor in my legs, the pull of gravity trying to take me down, but I lock my knees.“You really think Marquez would hire someone who left a paper trail?Think.If she can’t even hide herself from the feds, how can she hide anything for him?”
It’s a lie wrapped in enough truth to hold.A lie with no one here to contradict it.
Paco circles me slowly, gun never wavering.He stops behind me, close enough that his breath hits my shoulder.“Simone thinks she’s a rata.I think she’s right.”
I straighten as much as I can.“Simone is full of it.If Adena was a rat,” I say, forcing the words through my teeth, “she wouldn’t be marrying into this life.”
The muzzle snaps up again, right between my eyes this time.
Every sound in the warehouse blurs—the hum of the fluorescent light, the distant clatter of tools, the faint metallic scent of oil and blood.All I can think is:God, if this is it.Let me go out like a man.
“You still won’t give her up?”he murmurs.
I hold his stare.“She’snota rat.She’s the best forger Marquez will ever find.”
The silence stretches until my heartbeat feels too loud in my ears.
Then his finger tightens—a hair, a breath.
And I don’t flinch.
Because folding now would save me and murder her.
CRACK.
The round slams into the concrete beside my head, close enough that grit slices my cheek and heat brushes my skin.The ringing comes next—a high, metallic whine that pushes the world underwater.
But I don’t move.Don’t flinch.Don’t break.
Paco studies me with a slow, assessing tilt of his head.“Still nothing,” he murmurs.“Man takes a bullet to the wall and doesn’t blink.”
I breathe once, steady.“Not so smart, are you?”
The gun lifts again, sight lining up with the space between my eyes.“Last chance.”
“She’s not a threat,” I say, pulse hammering, voice unshaken.“She’s not working foranyone.And if she’s left Vegas, it’s going to be your head Marquez will want on a platter.”
The words hang there, thin as wire.
Paco doesn’t answer.He just watches me, eyes narrowing, like he’s weighing whether I’m brave… or already dead.
The men along the walls shift their weight.One of them exhales.Another lowers his eyes.
