Page 166 of Devil Mine

RockyRoad21

The day we first met in the kitchen for ice cream.

Multiple windows pop up, but the top one is a historical email from a batch of files I sent her. From what I can tell, it’s an approval for a wire transfer. The vendor is one I recognize – they were among those who told me they hadn’t been paid.

But when I see who signs the email, who authorizes the payment, who Tess discovered had betrayed me, my blood goes from chilled to frozen.

It’s a name I know well.

A betrayal that stabs a knife deep in my back.

???

Chapter Sixty

Thiago

As I make my way through the twisting hallways of the underground bomb shelter, I discover the depth of the betrayal. Half a dozen cartel members cross my path as I follow the blinking dot to Tess’s location. They seem surprised to see me.

I kill them all.

Without a second’s hesitation, they each get a bullet to the head or the heart. No thought, no emotion.

Just death.

They swore undying loyalty to me and broke that blood oath. Their deaths are meaningless, just like their lives were. I don’t mourn them as I step over their bodies and I forget them the second I leave them behind me.

The gunshots announce my presence, my furious, explosive arrival, as I get closer and closer to her location.

You want the advantage of surprise in warfare, but I don’t care. I’m too far gone to consider my own safety when I know Tess was taken by people she trusted only because I did.

One more corner and I’ll be at her position.

I turn it and cross the threshold into the large room where we once held Leone, my gun arm raised before me.

My heart comes to a terrified, abrupt stop.

Tess is on her knees, her hands tied behind her back. Her head is bowed and her hair hangs limply around her shoulders. Her mouth is taped shut. There’s a large emerging bruise on her temple.

Marco looms above her, pointing a gun down at her head.

Marco, who I’d protected and elevated through the ranks. Who I’d turned to for advice and relied on as a partner this last year and a half. Who I considered as close to a brother as I could.

He’s who betrays me.

And yet, I barely throw him a glance, because Tess is there and she’s hurt.

Nothing else matters.

She lifts her face and I see dried tears on her cheeks. Her eyes are hollow and scared, but they flare when they see me. Not with hope, with fear for me.

Emotion crushes my windpipe. My heartbeat thrashes resoundingly in my ears, deafening me with its franticthump,thump,thump.

When I see that gun pointed at her, I know what it is to die. A part of me shrivels up and withers away like ash in the wind. I struggle to catch my breath, my entire body in outright revolt at witnessing the love of my life at the mercy of another.

I look away.

I can’t look at her. Not without losing all focus, all objectivity. All ability to get us out of this.

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