Page 7 of High

“Thio?” His jaw tightened and a tic started there. “Eres tú?”

“Yes, hermoso, it’s me.” I stepped forward, but he matched my steps backward and I halted. “What’s wrong?”

“What did you do?” he whispered, gaze darting to the dead soldier behind me. “What did you do? My papá is home. Did you kill him?”

“Of course not, although he deserves it.” My hands curled into fists at my sides and the thirst for more blood made my belly warm. I always got a sick pleasure out of taking the life of an enemy, something my own papá had first fed when I was seventeen, much to Mamá’s dismay. “I came to get you.”

He laughed quietly, but his eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them before, fury dancing in the brown irises. “You’re a little late, don’t you think?”

I sheathed my knife and then touched his shoulders, but he tensed. “I’m sorry, Manny. Papá wouldn’t let me come. He forbade it. I had to wait….”

“Wait until when?” Manny peered up at me pleadingly, and I knew what the next question was going to be before he asked it. “Tío Luis?”

I cupped his cheek and leaned forward until our foreheads touched. Pure pleasure shot through me at being close to him once again, in spite of the bad news I had to deliver. “He passed, hermoso. Santa Muerte guided him away from us.”

“How?” His shoulders shook and he hunched forward, closer to me. I couldn’t see him well in the beams of the flashlights, but his dark hair was longer than the last time I’d held him, and his curls tickled the skin of my face.

“We don’t have time to talk about this now. Come with me. I’ll take you home, away from here.”

“Thio… my father.”

“This has never been your home.” I kissed his temple and he leaned against me. The tenseness in his body bled away and he let out a barely there sob.

“It has been for the last four years. You left me here.” He ripped himself out of my grasp and gestured around the dark room. “This has been my cell since I called you. Locked away like a prisoner, and you never came for me. You didn’t even try. At first I could go out, but—”

“Listen, we don’t have time to talk about this.” The sounds of a scuffle carried to us from down the hallway and my men moved closer to the door. No one shouted, so I assumed our men came out on top. “We need to leave. Now. Before your papá does wake and try to stop us. Do you trust me?”

He blinked his big brown eyes at me. “I’ve always trusted you.”

“Then let’s move.” I curled my arm around his shoulders, and the mercenaries surrounded us like a wall, just as I’d worked out with them when we were planning the jailbreak. Manny was precious, and they would give their own lives to protect him, at least until we got to the other side of the border and back home.