Page 62 of Fast Justice

“They want to move you into the orientation center tonight.”

Oceane looked up, frowning. “Is that safe? After what’s just happened?”

“It’s the most secure facility they have,” Hamilton answered. “No one but the Marshal’s Service knows where it is. You’ll be blindfolded anytime you come or go from the building, the same as me.”

Oceane didn’t answer, staring at Victoria for a long moment, then nodded once. “I have no one now,” she whispered brokenly.

Victoria’s carefully blank face filled with sympathy. With two quick strides she closed the distance between them and reached for Oceane, drawing her close into an almost protective hug, one hand cradling the back of her curly head. “I know what you’re going through,” she said while Gabe and Hamilton looked on, “and I know what it feels like to lose everything and everyone you ever cared about. But you haven’t lost everything.”

Oceane shook her head. “Yes, I have.”

“No. You’re still here. And you’re not alone, not even now, because I’m here,” Victoria said fiercely, this new connection between the two women instant and undeniable. “The two of us are not only going to get through this, together we’re going to figure out how to survive. And while we do that, we’re going to bring down theVenenocartel and make every last one of them pay for all they’ve taken from us.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The blood funneled out of Manny’s face when he got the news.

His fingers slackened around the wine glass. It crashed to the glazed Mexican-tile floor and shattered, sending up a spray of ruby liquid and tiny glass shards. Like blood and crystal teardrops.

“What?” he whispered, stricken, reaching forward to grasp the edge of the table to steady himself. Praying he’d heard wrong. Or at least misunderstood.

David, his trusted head of security, shifted his stance nervously and cleared his throat. “Anya finally died of her injuries on the way to the hospital.”

Finally? “What do you mean?”

He glanced away, as though unable to look Manny in the eye.

Manny’s heart tripped, then sped into double time. “What did they do to her?” he snapped.

“Montoya’s men. They sliced her up.”

His knees gave out. They were vicious, he knew that. Yet even he had mistakenly believed they wouldn’t dare touch anyone connected so intimately to him.

His ass hit the woven cane seat, his entire body wooden as he absorbed the blow. He shook his head, barely comprehending but there was something else in his bodyguard’s expression. A kind of dread mixed with pity that warned Manny there was more. Much more. “What,” he demanded. “Tell me. Is it Oceane?” Dear God, if anything had happened to—

“No, she wasn’t hurt, from what I understand. But Anya. They uh…”

His patience fractured. “Say it, goddamn it.”

“They raped her, boss.”

Nausea rippled in his belly, mixed with a toxic, blinding rage so strong that for a moment he couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. He imagined Anya, with her dark Caribbean skin and those inky spiral curls, her hazel-green eyes laughing up at him with such joy and trust and worshipfulness.

Fuck. No, this was too horrible. It was supposed to be a clean hit. Humane, without any fear or suffering on her part. He’d ordered Arturo to take care of it personally instead of Montoya and his men, for that very reason. Manny had ordered him to find out Anya and Oceane’s location from Montoya once he got it, then infiltrate and kill Anya with a single bullet to the back of the skull when she wasn’t looking. One shot, without her ever knowing he was there.

Instead, she’d been raped and butchered…

He swallowed back the bile that rushed up his throat, hot and acidic like the guilt now burning a hole in the center his chest. Anya. Sweet, beautiful Anya. “Montoya,” he ground out as the red haze of rage receded slightly. “I’ll kill him. I’ll fuckingkillhim.”

“He wasn’t there, boss.”

Manny’s gaze snapped back to his bodyguard, temporarily forcing back the blinding anger. “What?”

“He found the safehouse and alerted Arturo, but then Montoya left. He was trying to track down Oceane and wasn’t there when his men attacked. He’d ordered them to stand down, wait for Arturo. But they didn’t listen.”

His jaw worked, his hands flexing restlessly. They hadn’t listened because they were like a pack of jackals, hungry for the kill. “They’re dead men.”

“They were killed at the house. Along with Arturo. I heard Oceane shot him.”

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