I stare back at her without moving, five feet from the cliff. All the guns in the world can’t truly put her in control of me.
“Get her,” Silvana orders.
Moisés grabs my shoulder, but I break his grip with the back of my forearm. Seizing the inside of his bicep, I swing his arm forward, and slide behind him. I’ve done this maneuver so many times I don’t even have to think about it.
But the next part ... If I try for a choke hold and use Moisés’s weight against him, I’ll drag us both over the cliff. Instead, I dig in my heels and shove him forward.
He falls to his hands and knees. His rifle swings on its strap, scraping the ground.
Shocked silence descends on the cliffside clearing. That’s when I realize I’ve messed up. I let muscle memory do the work my head should have done, and now I’ve tipped my own hand.
While Moisés stands, I glance over my shoulder just as something bobs to the surface of the river.
Maddie’s backpack.
Moisés grabs me again, fury burning in his gaze, and I jerk my arm from his grip.
“If you ever touch me again, you’ll pee sitting down for the rest of your life.”
Silvana aims her pistol at my rib cage. Her gaze is cold. “On your knees,princesa.” She points to the cliff. “There.”
“Do what you’ve got to do,” I say, counting on the fact that she can’t kill me. They took me hostage for a reason. “I’m not going to kneel.”
Silvana’s eyes narrow. She swings the pistol in Penelope’s direction. “Kneel, or I put a bullet in your friend’s head.”
Pen gasps. Tears fill her eyes. She stares at me as if I might actually let her die because she slept with my boyfriend.
Shewillpay. But not like this.
I walk backward toward the cliff, so I don’t have to turn my back on Silvana. Fear fuels my rapid heartbeat, but I clench my jaw and steady my steps. I glance over my shoulder again and again as the edge draws closer.
Pen and Domenica are pale with terror. Holden and Indiana both look torn, as if they can’t decide whether an intervention would make things better or worse for me.
“Kneel,” Silvana orders.
Less than a foot from the edge, I drop carefully onto my knees; then sit on my heels. My certainty that she won’t shoot me wavers as I stare at the barrel of her pistol.
“You!” Silvana shouts at Penelope. Then she turns to the rest of the group. “All of you. Join her.” When no one moves, she flips her pistol around and aims the butt at my face.
I flinch and close my eyes, bracing for the blow.
“Wait!” Indiana calls, and I look up to see him heading toward me. Rog escorts Penelope with one arm around her shoulders and Domenica follows right behind them, clutching the straps of her backpack so tightly that her fingers are white. Her expression is grim.
Holden comes last.
In spite of his bravado about taking action, he doesn’t know what to do when there’s a gun aimed at my head. When there’s a problem that neither his money nor his name can solve.
We’re lined up, kneeling on the brink of the cliff, execution style. Silvana waves her men forward, and they aim rifles at our heads.
I fight to steady my breathing. On the edge of my vision, Penelope’s chest hitches with panicked hiccuping and a high-pitched, terrified whine I don’t think she even knows she’s making.
We are going to die here, on our knees. Humiliated and defeated.
AndIam the one who brought us all here.
Silvana holds up one hand, fingers spread. My heart slams against my chest as her fingers fold one at a time, counting down the seconds until my death. “Five. Four.”
One of the gunmen smiles. Natalia shifts uncomfortably, and I notice that she’s not looking at any of us.
