We stop somewhere in Panama to refuel.After that, sleep comes in snatches, a nod against the seat, a dream that’s filled with a teenage Dove who gazes upon me with love in her eyes.I wake to the phantom feel of her small pinky finger wrapped around mine and the stronger reality that her life now sits in the cartel’s unmerciful hands.
I spend the waking hours cleaning my mind the way I clean hard drives.Overwrite, overwrite, overwrite until the old traces are no longer relevant.I run scenarios, door codes, safe houses, and the names of men who might try to kill me.
Around midnight local time, the pilot announces our descent into Bogotá.
My palms slick with sweat, not from fear, but from focus.Whatever this place demands, I’ll bear it.For her.
As the wheels slam onto the runway, Cole shifts toward me.“Welcome to enemy territory.Smile for the cameras.Everyone’s watching.”
The plane slows, and the engines wind down to a chilling hush.The door opens, letting in the humid night reeking of diesel and tropical rot.
I stand, roll my shoulders, and follow Cole down the stairs and onto a tarmac lined with armored SUVs and armed silhouettes.
No passports.No customs.No uniforms with crooked badges.This isn’t an airport.It’s a checkpoint for the damned, owned and operated by the Restrepo cartel.
Cole’s hand lands on my shoulder, heavy and brief.“Frizz will take you from here.”
Then he’s gone, swallowed by the hum of turbines.
I turn, and a man unfolds himself from the back seat of the lead SUV.A young, slender man built of bones and shadows, his pressed black suit clinging to edges and hollows.And his mouth…
Holy fuck.
Thick black thread crisscrosses his lips, puckering the corners into a mockery of a smile.The stitches aren’t neat, too human for a doctor, too practiced for an amateur.
His blue eyes bore into me, unblinking and shockingly bright.Eyes that have seen more than a lifetime’s worth of nightmares and decided to collect them instead of forget.
He opens the door and motions me into the car, his movements deliberate, graceful even, but his presence frosts the air.
I climb into the back seat, and he joins me, shutting the door.The lock clicks, and the driver hits the accelerator.
What fresh hell am I racing into?
The city unfurls outside the tinted glass, and Frizz sits perfectly still beside me, hands clasped on his lap.Black gauze wraps his wrists with thin white thread biting into the fabric.
When he turns his head, the stitches on his lips gleam wet.New.
My insides shrivel.“Did the cartel do that to you?”
His mouth flattens into a hard line of anger, bunching the threads.
“Self-inflicted?”I lift a brow.
His lips relax as he hums softly, almost a whistle, emitting a twisted little tune that sounds cheerful until it isn’t.
Christ.Please tell me he isn’t singing “Dead Babies” by Alice Cooper.
Yeah.He definitely is.
The melody continues on a loop, crawling under my skin and getting comfortable there.
My mind scrolls through every file, every dossier I’ve scraped from cartel archives, and comes up empty.Nothing.No Frizz.No mention of a torturer with a knitted mouth and Edward Scissorhands vibes.
That’s not oversight.It’s intentional.Someone buried this man so deep that even the infamousVigilantecouldn’t find him.
I keep my eyes forward.“I assume a conversation is out of the question.”
A sound escapes him, a muffled exhale through the stitches.Not quite laughter.Not quite breathing.He looks away, watching the streets blur into the jungle-dark outskirts.
