No he didn’t have a reason to kill me but these men did.
I remembered one of them sitting beside Ciro Delgado at the club. I’d made eye contact with him for half a second—just long enough to see the stone-cold killer behind his eyes.
Ciro didn’t forgive disobedience. Quitting The Sacrifice without their blessing would’ve been taken as an insult. Maybe he would make an example out of me. Maybe he’d kill me quick. That would be a mercy. But he didn’t run a mercy business.
The SUV swerved hard through traffic, throwing me sideways. My head smacked against the window. Every bump jolted me, heightening the panic rising in my chest. I tried to stay calm because freaking out wouldn’t help.
Time didn’t exist inside the bag as my thoughts ran wild. When we finally stopped, I sat there, disoriented. It could’ve been thirty minutes. It could’ve been an hour. Quickly, the door opened, and a hand yanked me out.
A couple of men roughly dragged me along. My bare feet stumbled over concrete, then stone. At some point, they lifted me up a couple of steps. A door creaked open, and a rush of warm, floral-scented air swept across my skin. This wasn’t some warehouse. This was a home.
My foot hit a threshold, and I stumbled, tripping and stubbing my toe. One of the men hissed something in Spanish, and then callused fingers grabbed the back of my neck and shoved me forward.
We continued moving through the house, eventually encountering a flight of stairs. They manhandled me, dragging me upward. We took a sharp right, their footsteps echoing off the walls.
Suddenly, we stopped. Without warning, a hand yanked my arm, spun me, and shoved me hard.
I hit the floor.
A door clicked shut, and a lock engaged.
Breathing roughly inside the bag, I lay still for a long time before I gathered my wits enough to sit up. Hands still tied, I bent my head toward my knees and worked the edge of the bag until it slipped off.
Light flooded my eyes as I blinked, trying to adjust.
My breath caught when I took in the sight of the beautiful room.
No cages. No chains. Just a massive canopy bed, velvet drapes, antique furniture, a chandelier above me, and a window with a wide view of large oak trees outside.
I sat up straighter, forcing myself to my knees and then pushing onto my feet.
Crossing to the window, I looked out onto a pristine lawn. A driveway extended from the house toward a fence off in the distance. There were guards everywhere—near the gate, patrolling the fence. All armed.
A door opened behind me.
I turned.
A middle-aged woman in a gray uniform entered. Her hair was neatly pinned back, her face bare of makeup, her expression fixed in a hard, unblinking glare.
She walked over to me, lifted my hands, cut the zip ties, and stepped back without so much as a crack in her icy demeanor.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” she said. “You’re only here for the day.”
I rubbed my wrists. “Is this Ciro’s house?”
She didn’t answer.
“Can I talk to him?”
Still nothing.
“Why did he bring me here?”
She glared at me. “Don’t use his first name. Ever. That kind of mistake gets your tongue cut out.”
My chest tightened. I nodded, swallowing hard. The woman stared at me for another second, then turned toward the door.
“You’ll be prepared for tonight’s events at nine,” she said. “Rest until you’re collected.”
