Page 147 of Heart of a Villain

Yawning, Sayeda opened her eyes.

When she realized she was yawning and opening her eyes, she froze. Three packs of coffee, and she still fell asleep?

“Ei. Levantar.”

While her eyesight wasn’t 20/20, it was clear enough to make out a shotgun nozzle pointed at her face and five men in the room. One of them was standing on the chair with the supportive legs, working on getting Lorenzo down from the rafters.

“Levantar,” the same man repeated.

She stood.

He didn’t ask her to, but she raised her hands. Mo’s voice sounded from the recesses of her training memories:

“The element of surprise is your best bet here, Seda. Suss them out. Do they seem like the type who believes you can’t defend yourself? If not, use that to your advantage.”

“What’s your name?” the man asked, in Portuguese.

“Sayeda,” she said.

“Your name is not Juliana?”

“You want to see my ID?”

He scanned her disheveled appearance. “You have ID on you, truly?”

His fingers were close to the trigger.

Too close.

If she didn’t time this right, she would take a shotgun bullet to the midsection, and Ayesha and Adrían would kill her if she fucked around and died.

His interrogation continued. “Why are you out here?”

“I’m lost. I went camping.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. Why? Is that bad?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Where are you from?”

“I’m American.”

“Ah. Makes sense.”

Apprehension created a painful toiling in her stomach. These could be her last words, her last moments, whether or not she decided to fight for them. It only made sense that she, at least, tried to fight for them.

She held her breath.

Counted to five.

Then something whizzed by her ear, and the man’s head in front of her went from whole to half. In the same instant, arms appeared around the necks of two of the others, and in less than a full second, another arm lodged a knife in the men’s chests, right through their hearts. Another man took a bullet to the skull, and the last man received a blade that sliced him from one side of his neck to the other, through his neck, from behind.

Adrían.

Joel.

And, of course, Giorgio.

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