Page 75 of Fast Vengeance

“Only wanted to protect you,” he moaned, his grip on her hand frantic, bringing her focus back to him. “When I couldn’t anymore… Had to get you back… Any way I could.”

“I know. I know,” she soothed, not knowing what else to say. Much as she hated him, he was still her father. She would not leave him here to die on the beach. It wasn’t how she was wired. Not even with everything he’d done. “Be still, now. We have to get this bleeding stopped.”

“No. Too…late,” he rasped out.

She squeezed his hand. “It’s not.” She thought she saw shadows moving along the bluff. Could anyone see them? “Help!” she called out. “Someone help us!”

He tugged on her hand. She glanced down into his face. “El Escorpion,” he managed, and turned his head to spit out a mouthful of blood. “Know…who.”

She stilled, her heart thudding as his words penetrated the fog of panic swirling in her brain. “You know who he is?”

His lips moved, his eyes glazed with pain and a despair that sent a shiver ripping down her spine. “Ins…surance. F-for you.”

He was going to tell her the name so she had leverage to use to protect herself with if need be. Because he knew he was dying.

Tears clogged her throat. He was such a complex, confusing man. Making her hate him one moment, and acting like the protective father she remembered the next. Damn him.

Shoving all that aside, she leaned her head closer to his mouth. The name was critical in helping bring down the Veneno cartel. “Who is el Escorpion?”

“D-Diaz,” he gasped, his body writhing in the sand. Trying to escape the pain while his blood coated his torso, coating her hands, her lap as it seeped into the sand beneath them.

“Diaz,” she repeated.

“F-Fernando…Pa…Pascal…”

Fernando Pascal Diaz. The head. The man behind this whole evil empire. The man ultimately responsible for all the terror and devastation she and her family had suffered.

Her father groaned and went slack in her arms.

No. She shook him once. “No. No, you stay with me,” she ordered sharply, her voice cracking as a tear landed on his face. You can’t leave me too.

“I…love you,” he whispered, his body growing heavier on her lap. “Always h-have.” He took a horrible, rasping breath, choked. “Please… For…give me…”

She couldn’t answer for a moment, her throat was too tight, too many conflicting emotions tearing her apart inside. “Shush,” she ordered at last. “Don’t talk anymore.”

His eyes slid shut. His body went slack.

“Dammit, no!” She bent over him, cradling his upper body, commanding him to hang on.

Then a sound registered through the torrent of emotion crashing over her. Someone was yelling her name from behind her down the beach.

GABE’S HEART LURCHED to a halt when his gaze landed on the bodies crumpled up on the beach.

Oceane.

All he could see was her bent over someone. A man. The front of her light-colored shirt was covered in black.

Blood.

“Oceane!” His boots thudded on the sand as he raced for her. God, if she’d been shot—

She looked up, locked devastated eyes on him. “Gabe,” she cried out, the pain in her face crushing his chest. Nieto. She was cradling her father.

He skidded to his knees beside her, took her face in his hands, scanning her for injury. She was his number one priority. “Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice urgent.

“David. Nieto shot him,” she whispered brokenly, and turned back to bend over her father. “He’s unconscious.”

Gabe pulled her upright by the shoulders, forced her to look at him. “Oceane. Are you hurt?”

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