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Nik’s mouth twitched. “Good. They didn’t beat the sarcasm out of you.”

I smiled into my whiskey as I took another sip.

“We found the tunnel before your kidnappers reached the exit point,” Rory said. “Once we knew where it ran, we had a direction.”

“The tracker came alive again near Hudson Air Services,” Nik added. “By the time the DarkMatter team reached the field, Delgado’s jet was already rolling.”

“Seconds,” Rory said. “We watched the bastards lift off.”

Lucian’s jaw tightened beside me.

I knew exactly what those seconds had cost him.

Nik tapped a point on the flight route displayed across his screen. “Delgado could hide in a tunnel. He couldn’t fly an international jet without leaving a trail. We pulled the flight plan and found the destination was SAL. Comalapa. Lucian was in Boston, so I called him as soon as we knew you’d been taken.”

“I was airborne for New York within minutes. By the time I landed, Nik already had men moving, and within hours we were on our way to El Salvador.”

“The problem wasn’t getting into the country,” Nik said. “The problem was getting close to Delgado without announcing exactly who we were and what we wanted.”

“He had the place locked down,” Rory said. “Airport people, police, locals—men willing to take his money and others who were simply afraid of him.”

Nik nodded. “Your tracker gave us a few intermittent hits after the jet landed, then went dark again once they moved you into the mountains. It gave us a region, not an address.”

“Did you ever figure out where Delgado’s compound was?”

“Eventually.”

Nik’s fingers tapped once against the laptop, and a map displayed the location. The compound sat buried inside a maze of mountain roads and dense forest. No wonder they’d had trouble getting close without announcing themselves.

“We turned enough local people to narrow the area. By the time Ciro made his proof-of-life call, we already had a scouting team watching the finca from outside the perimeter.”

That surprised me.

“You were that close?”

“Aye,” Lucian answered quietly.

“Close enough to know you were in hell, but not close enough to get you out cleanly.”

The proof-of-life feed came back to me—Ciro standing beside the chair, Marcela climbing onto me in front of the camera, my brother and Nik on the other side watching it happen.

“We had the assault team ready, but then Marcela shot Ciro on a live fucking feed and the entire compound started eating itself.”

Lucian leaned forward, forearms on his thighs.

“We had no clear picture of who was loyal to Ciro, who belonged to Marcela, who was trying to get the hell out, or how many civilians and workers were caught inside. Going into unfamiliar mountain terrain with multiple armed factions shooting at each other would’ve been chaos.”

“And chaos is not a plan,” Rory added.

Lucian nodded. “Especially when the hostage we came for could’ve been moved. Once the feed died, we had no confirmation that you were still in the dungeon. If we stormed the compound while someone moved you out another gate, we’d be committing men to the wrong target.”

“Then your tracker started registering again farther down the southern slope,” Nik said.

“And by the time you called us from the chapel,” Lucian said, “we finally knew you were alive, free, and moving under your own power.”

I took another swallow.

“Barely.”