Page 174 of Forbidden Fate

I’ve got money.

It’s in a Colombian bank. Under my real name, which is not the name on my bogus passport.

If only I’d banked in Sweden or the Grand Caymans. What the hell was I thinking?

I get into the car and leave the parking lot.

Once I’m away from the airport, I stop at the first gas station I see. I grab two burner phones, an energy drink, some snacks, and a road map. I miss my smartphone and GPS, but that’s no longer my life.

I unfold the map. It’s about two and a half hours to Austin, and another hour after that to the Bellamy Ranch near Summer Creek along the border.

I know the Bellamy Ranch. I’ve been there. I’ve staked it out. I know the roads near it. The fence lines. I know which service roads see fewer vehicles. Which cameras are obvious and which ones aren’t.

I saw more of that ranch in the few weeks I was in Texas than most of the Bellamys have likely noticed in years.

It’s strange how familiar and foreign Texas feels at once. I spent weeks here on a job.

Watching.

Waiting.

Following orders.

Now I’m back, and the job has changed.

I’ll protect Robin whether she wants it or not.

I tighten my grip on the steering wheel.

I won’t take Robin’s choices from her.

I won’t demand that she forgive me.

I won’t ask her family for mercy.

But if Vega is coming—and he is—they need to know what I know.

All of it.

And if telling them means one of her brothers puts a bullet in my head before nightfall, so be it.

I replay every word Robin said to me before she left.

I can’t in good conscience use my family’s money to help a man whose actions could have easily killed my own flesh and blood.

She said we were even. That we had no future.

We may have no future, but we’re not even.

I took from her before I gave anything back. I helped put her brother in the hospital and then took her from Texas to Colombia.

She owes me nothing.

I still owe her.

I’m not coming to fix what I did. I can’t. It’s unforgiveable.

I’m coming because Vega isn’t finished.