Page 12 of Gabriel (Legacy of Heathens #4)
Gabriel
T he moment Amara set foot on Colombian soil, my phone lit up.
One quiet ping. That was all it took.
She had vanished in Paris alongside Elira, but I’d cast a wide net, weaving digital threads across continents and setting up algorithms to track her.
Facial recognition from a shuttered customs checkpoint outside Buenaventura had finally tripped the alert.
Too quiet to be intercepted by anyone else. Loud enough for me.
A second later, Luis called and I answered the phone.
“Did you see it?” he asked without preamble.
“I did.”
“I’m about an hour out. Want me to intercept?”
“No,” I said, cutting him off with a tone sharp enough to slice through his worry. “I’m already here. I’ll follow her myself.”
“Alright. Be careful.”
The line went dead.
I left a half-smoked cigar curling wisps of blue gray into the warm air and two untouched glasses of twenty-year rum on the table, signaling the abrupt end to a meeting with one of my most volatile distributors.
His face had contorted with confusion when I stood, phone in hand, and walked away without explanation.
I didn’t owe him one. Not when Amara was on my territory.
Amara was a woman wrapped in strength and fire with a legacy that royalty would be envious of. But none of it mattered to me. The only thing that fascinated me was the woman underneath it all, with deepest blue eyes and full, soft lips that tempted me.
And now she was in Colombia.
My home.
I pulled up the interface synced to my local surveillance net. My men had already triangulated her position. A dusty road on the fringe of la jungla near the Valle del Cauca. Someone had dropped her off at the edge of the jungle and she was now on foot heading inland.
She’d been clever bypassing checkpoints, likely rotating SIMs and using false documentation when docking her yacht. But clever wasn’t enough. Not here. Everything that happened on this territory got reported back to me, including the visitors that were trying to stay under the radar.
I started the Jeep, the engine growling to life beneath me, and followed her pin along the winding dirt roads that snaked through the underbrush. The scent of loam and petrol soaked into my collar. A storm was crawling across the mountains and the wet season clung to everything.
Ten minutes later, I watched her dot disappear from the road and veer into the forest.
The girl must’ve ditched her bag before crossing the tree line.
My phone buzzed again.
Luis: Don’t touch that backpack. Could be rigged.
Luis: I should be there, but I know you want her all to yourself.
Me: I’m not trying to marry her, Luis. I just want to know why the hell she’s here.
Luis: Maybe she missed your pretty face. Beauty aside, don’t touch the pack. Could be a bomb.
Me: I’m not an idiot.
Luis: You’re a man. That’s dangerously close.
Me: And what does that make you? Keep texting and I’ll leave you in a shipping container with a bag of expired plantains.
Luis: Generous.
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 said Property 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.