Page 143 of Heart of a Villain

The driver, dazed, opened his door, got out, and called out, asking if she was all right. Before she could answer, she noticed him dash to the side just as another jolt came from the same sedan, pushing the cab toward the edge. If she survived this encounter, she would never have anything to do with cabs in Brazil, ever again.

The sedan reversed.

She slipped the backpack straps over her shoulder and clasped the belted end around her stomach. Next, she strapped her seatbelt in tight. The bridge wasn’t too high, and with the way the car was moving, there was a chance of her falling right side up, but she needed to avoid smashing her head on the ceiling upon impact.

A third hit came, and this time, she heard the engine revving, pushing the cab until the back wheels were hanging off the side of the bridge.

The phone lit up.

A voice came through the speaker: “Received impact notification.”

“Julien!” she screamed, her throat going raw. “Sayeda! In cab! Going over edge! Bridge! Bridge!”

Suddenly, she was weightless.

An eerie splash followed as the cab landed, wheels first, in a body of water she couldn’t identify—because Adrían forgot to add it to his godforsaken map.

Yet, during several training sessions, Mo had taught her that cars didn’t sink as quickly as what was on film and bullets didn’t truly travel well underwater.

She hoisted herself out of the window and immediately fell backward into the water. A strong current pulled her along, and she remained submerged for as long as she could, praying harder than she’d prayed in a long time that she didn’t come face to face with a caiman.

Or worse, an anaconda.

When her lungs began to burn and squeeze, she came up for air and swam for the nearest embankment. In the distance, emergency vehicle lights flashed on the bridge, but she couldn’t make out much else; in the chaos, she’d lost her contact lenses because of-just-fucking-course.

“The phone.”

She searched through the bag three times.

The phone wasn’t inside.

Then, as if taunting her, she finally looked behind her. Under a canopy of trees, a dirt trail with a natural grass median welcomed her into the rainforest. All sorts of foliage she would never be able to name covered the ground, and a wet, earthen scent clung to the air.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She staggered to her feet. “I’m gonna die. I can’t…I’m gonna die.”

Life then gave her a pair of imaginary balls for the sole purpose of twisting them when she heard men’s voices riding the wind, and they didn’t sound like emergency personnel.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE

“Why the fuck are you still screaming?” Adrían asked, tipping back his wooden chair. “No one can hear you. This place has been abandoned for a while. Plus, they’re just tiny cuts between your fingers and toes, and you’re here yelling like a little bitch.”

There were cuts.

And missing fingernails that he “jimmied” off with sticks of bamboo. Then, he’d treated the cuts with salt and lemon juice, all while Lorenzo was suspended, upside down, impaled on rusty metal hooks.

For that, he was screaming?

What about what he’d done to Sayeda?

Lorenzo’s eyes rolled around in his head. “Please…”

“Please, what?”

“Please don’t kill me.”

“What the fuck?” Adrían set the chair legs on the ground. “Is that the kind of man you think I am? A killer? What is it they say in those old Southern American movies I’ve watched with Sayeda? ‘My, my Lorenzo, I do declare.’”

---