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Flash met Dagger’s eyes, jaw tight. “He’s a dead man walking. Doesn’t even know it.”
Dagger didn’t answer, but his glare said everything. Cold. Lethal. Final.
Then the side door of a dingy cargo van slid open, and they drove. Then switched vehicles again. She caught a glimpse of their surroundings. A derelict industrial complex, broken glass crunching underfoot and an acrid smell of burned chemicals lingering in the heavy air. Another ride, this one looking less comfy. Her heart sank. They were clearly being shuffled around to avoid detection.
“Load ’em up,” Langford barked. “We’re behind schedule.”
They jammed Flash inside first, then forced Dagger to follow. Their eyes met, one heartbeat’s worth of reassurance.
Langford sneered from the open door. “Everyone in. Move!” he snapped at his men.
Quinn felt the beat-up van rock on its suspension as the goons clambered in around them. Then the door slammed shut, plunging them into a stale darkness lit only by a single dangling bulb. Outside, an engine roared to life. The vehicle lurched forward, jostling Quinn and banging her knees against the metal floor.
“All for one,” Langford repeated snidely from the front, “one for all.”
She wished she could spit at him. Instead, she focused on the pulse in Dagger’s neck, on the anger blazing in Flash’s eyes.We’re alive. We fight. We’ll make them pay.She inhaled, letting that razor-edged hope fuel her battered spirit as the van rumbled into the night.
Lechuza froze mid-step,her body going still as stone. The whisper in her earpiece was faint, distorted slightly by static but unmistakable.
“Flash…taken. Langford…Herrera.”
Her breath caught. Cold rage surged through her bloodstream, precise and piercing, as if her body instinctively recognized the threat before her mind could fully process it.
Flash. Taken. Byhim.
Her jaw clenched, teeth grinding so tightly her molars ached. Herrera. That bastard. The man who’d stripped her bare, mind and body, and tried to break her in every way that mattered. The horror Flash had dragged her back from. Now… Flash was inhishands.
“No,” Lechuza said, voice low and deadly.
That was all.
Bagh, walking ahead through the dense jungle undergrowth, turned sharply. His eyes lit with vindication at her tone. Ryu, silent and steady as always, inclined his head in solemn understanding. Neither of them asked for clarification. They didn’t need it.
“We hunt,” she said, her voice hard and sharp with purpose. “My brothers, we move now.”
The jungle around them buzzed with life, crickets chirping, cicadas humming, the thick, wet scent of earth and moss hanging heavy in the night air. But all Lechuza could hear was the echo of Herrera’s name and the image she couldn’t shake, Flash, bloodied and bound, surrounded by ghosts from her nightmares.
Not him.Not the one man who had pulled her broken body out of a hellhole and never once looked at her like she was weak. He had carried her, clothed her, stood between her and every threat, and never once asked for anything in return. He had given her back herdignitywhen she hadn’t even known she’d lost it.
Now he was the one in chains.
Her fists curled tightly at her sides. She would not let Herrera have him, not Flash, not Dagger, not Quinn, not anyone else. She had bled on jungle floors for less righteous causes. But this? This was justice wrapped in vengeance.
Bagh checked his rifle, expression grim and focused. “Coordinates?”
“They’re moving northeast,” she said flatly, eyes scanning the thick trees beyond. “Langford’s men are with him. That means Herrera’s playing a longer game.”
Ryu stepped beside her, calm but ready. “What’s our game?”
Lechuza looked forward, every movement coiled and lethal. “Justice.”
They moved as one, ghosting into the trees, weapons drawn, silent and sure-footed across the damp terrain. She didn’t know how many they’d have to kill to get Flash back, but she’d count them one by one.
He didn’t know Ryu or Bagh. But they were hers. Now? By proxy, they were his too. Flash had savedher,now she would return the debt in blood.
No one touched what belonged to Lechuza and walked away breathing.
Not Langford. Not Herrera. Not this time.