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Marcela glanced down at Rafael’s body before looking back at me.

“Put the gun down, pet.”

The rifleman’s finger flexed and then settled more firmly against the trigger.

My attention dropped briefly to Isabella.

She was still beside Rafael, the little backpack strapped over both shoulders. Her kitchen knife lay on the concrete near her right thigh, close enough to reach if she could get her head out of the nightmare she’d been dropped into.

Rafael’s pistol lay a little farther away, the leather strap with the service door key beside it.

“I won’t ask twice,” Marcela sneered with that fucking smug smirk she had.

She had that arrogance back in her voice. Same one she’d used in New York when she thought a navy suit and a stack of legal papers made her untouchable. Apparently watching Ciro’s brains hit a dungeon wall had done wonders for her confidence.

I lowered the pistol.

“Good boy.” Marcela’s mouth curved with satisfaction. “All the way on the ground.”

Christ, I was going to enjoy killing her one day.

I placed Ciro’s gun carefully on the concrete beside Rafael’s pistol.

To Isabeast, it probably looked like surrender. To me, it put both pistols within reach if anything shifted the odds in our favor.

I raised my hands slowly.

Marcela looked entirely too pleased with herself.

“You should enjoy this part, Isabeast,” I said. “Things have a habit of going to shit for you right after you think you’ve won.”

Mateo’s mouth compressed into a hard line.

Marcela gave a quiet scoff. “Still convinced Volkov is going to save you?”

“Nik doesn’t need to save me from you.”

“No?” She swept one hand toward the compound, where another burst of gunfire cracked somewhere beyond the loading yard. “Look around you, Lachlan. Ciro is dead. I have access to his accounts, political contacts he spent decades buying, and enough armed men loyal to me to get exactly what I want.”

“Half the compound is trying to kill you.”

“I don’t need every illiterate gangster and cartel thug Ciro kept on his payroll.” Her voice sharpened. “That was always his mistake. He thought power meant owning the most guns and terrifying the most peasants.”

Interesting.

She straightened and smoothed one blood-speckled cuff of her white blouse as though we were standing in a Manhattan courtroom instead of beside Rafael’s body.

“I have men who have already chosen me. I have money Ciro never understood how to use properly and connections in places he could barely reach. Courts. Banks. Politicians. People who wouldn’t have allowed a man like him through the front door without someone like me making him presentable.” Her chin lifted. “What happened here today is messy. Temporary. I have much bigger plans than spending my life ruling a mountain full of MS-13 trash.”

“You really think those men are loyal to you?” I asked.

“They chose me over Ciro.”

“No. Some chose the money you gave them. Some chose the free pussy. Some chose Mateo. A few probably chose whichever side they thought would still be standing by dinner.” I lowered my hands a fraction, relaxed enough to make the insult conversational. “You’re confusing people you bought with people who’d die for you.”

That finally cracked through her self-satisfaction.

The tendons in her neck drew tight, and she pressed her lips together hard enough to pull at the stitches I’d left in the corner of her mouth. Her fingers went to the blood-spattered cuff again, smoothing fabric that was already flat. Once. Twice. The same polished little correction she’d probably made a thousand times before walking into a courtroom or an expensive room full of men she needed to impress.