Page 28 of Gabriel

Me: I’m going dark. Keep tracking Jet. And don’t do anything stupid.

Luis: That’s your job.

Me: Love you too.

Luis: Go get her, tiger. Try not to get shot.

I smirked, slipped the phone into my thigh holster, and parked at the edge of the path.

The jungle greeted me like a beast with open jaws—humid, dark, and alive. The air tasted like wet moss and decomposing leaves. Crickets whined in the distance and sweat bloomed across my spine as I moved low and fast, boots silent against the soft mulch.

I reached the backpack and crouched beside it.

No tripwire. No pressure plate. Just dirt, duct tape, and a hand-stitched patch that saidProperty of Amara. She’d left it behind not because she was careless, but because she didn’t want to be weighed down.What is she planning?

Gunfire cracked the humid air like a whip, and I dropped to my haunches.

I was moving before the shots’ echo died, pushing deeper into the brush, thorns dragging at my sleeves, vines slapping my arms. The canopy darkened overhead. I could barely hear my own breath over the pounding in my chest.

She was close.

I forged ahead, tunneling my vision, and burst into the clearing seconds later.

The scent of copper hit first, followed immediately by carnage.

Four bodies on the ground—throats opened and bullet wounds leaking blood into the packed earth. Their guns were scattered like bones, and beside them, a rusted shipping container with its doors flung wide stood empty.

I saw chains. Broken manacles. The scene felt fresh.

Human trafficking was like a hydra. You cut off one head and two more slithered out of the dark. You didn’t win. You just delayed the next monster. And dammit, sometimes it felt like the monster was winning.

And in the middle of it all was Amara, standing like the final act in a Greek tragedy.

Blood streaked across her shirt, fingers still curled around her gun. Her chest rose and fell in sharp bursts. Her eyes were glazed over, not with fear, but adrenaline.

She didn’t see me at first. Her mind was still inside the violence, her body still humming from the kills.

And for a moment, I didn’t move.

I just watched her in the way one might watch a rising fire and wonder whether to douse it or let it burn the world down.

Then she turned. Ever so slowly. The barrel of the gun lifted with the instinct of a soldier, not a civilian. Not that it surprised me, considering her lineage and training.

Her eyes locked on mine and froze.

And still, I smiled.

Not because I liked her looking bloodied, feral, and magnificent, but because I knew, in that instant, she would rather have faced a battalion than me.

Amara

The jungle didn’t hide secrets. It buried them alive. But no secret stayed buried forever.

I found the location Elira had pinned, and scouted the area. It didn’t take me long to run into something. It was Jet’s Berkin bag, his initials still visible on the leather. I recognized it instantly because it was the same one I had. It was Elira’s gift to us—and herself—for last Christmas. Of course, Jet had moaned and groaned that no sane man would ever use that bag, but apparently he’d been using it.

Inside it, I found Jet’s satphone.

I didn’t have time to power it up, nor did I want to alert anyone of my—or my brother’s—location, so I rushed to shove it all into my backpack and clear out of here before being spotted.