Page 51 of Skull

A muscle twitched in Walker’s jaw. She slammed her fist on the table so hard Blade flinched. “Don’t test me,” she growled. Blade tried to press himself further into the wall, caught between desperation and terror.

Skull’s voice scraped through the tense silence. “The gap is our best lead, though. Pincho knows no one wants to step foot in that jungle. We’ll have no support, no backup, no ISR, and spotty comms, but only so much time.” He paused, thinking of Hazard and Leigh, who might already be suffering a fate worse than death. “We do it ourselves, or we don’t do it at all.”

Minutes later, they regrouped with Anna and Iceman in the mission planning room, a cramped space lined with monitors and pinned-up satellite images. Anna hung up from a brief call to the CIA, rubbing her temples in frustration. “They’ve got nothing else. We’re out of options.”

Iceman was flipping through a file, the phone still in his hand. “We have approval to go, but it’ll be a skeleton operation. If Pincho’s not in the gap, we might lose any chance of finding Hazard and Leigh in time.”

Walker closed her eyes for a moment, drawing in a steadying breath. “We have to go in. Now. This is all we have, and even Blade’s best guess is better than nothing.”

Skull surveyed the grainy aerial photos, the dense green mosaic of the Darién Gap glaring back at him. A thousand bad memories clawed at his mind. “If we’re wrong, that’s it,” he said, his voice low. “If we’re right, we might be going in blind anyway.”

No one contradicted him. They all felt the same chill of dread. Outside, the whine of a helicopter’s rotors cut through the night, and somewhere distant in the city, a dog barked. Time was their enemy, ticking away while Hazard and Leigh’s fate hung in the balance.

“This is our last shot,” Skull said. “We strike hard and fast. Minimum team. Zero backup.”

His gaze swept the tense faces around him. The plan was borderline suicidal. But if they wanted Hazard and Leigh alive, they’d have to gamble everything. One by one, they nodded, the unspoken weight of the mission pressing down on them like the humid Colombian air. They had no choice but to prepare, and to pray they weren’t already too late.

17

Pincho stood at the high,narrow window of her office in her mansion in the Darién Gap, everything she ever wanted within easy reach or order, absently fingering the pearl-handled pistol that had been a gift from her father, the infamous Nacho, or, as she and her mom had known him, Ignacio Siachoque.

The afternoon sun cut streaks of orange across the gorgeous Italian marble floor, forming jagged shadows that seemed to point accusing fingers at her. Her jaw was set, her eyes dark, looking out on the beauty of her domain.

They hadn’t checked in, and that was a very bad sign. She’d sent eight men to do away with one woman and two small children. The fact that they hadn’t called in dawned on her an hour ago, and she’d sent another group of men to investigate why. Her cell phone rang, and she pushed away from the window and answered. What she heard on the other end of the line made her mouth tighten.

They had failed. Her handpicked, well-paid, and brutal death squad were all dead. Not only did they fail to capture Blade, they hadn’t even managed to eliminate his wife and children. Pincho knew the implications of these slayings. The Americans, those fucking Navy SEALs.

Blade would undoubtedly share everything he knew now that his family was safe. Worse still, the United States government wasn’t delivering on its promise to free the man she loved more than life itself—her husband. Her bravado when she gave them seven days to produce him, seven days while holding their precious SEAL, and a US attorney had sounded so sure in her own ears.

Now, with the deadline nearly passed, dread knotted in her stomach. She clenched her fists around the pistol as though it were the only thing anchoring her to reality.

Her father-in-law, Hermano, with more lines of worry on his brow than she could remember, stepped quietly into the room. She had allowed him to minister to the SEAL, to keep him alive for her purposes only. He was a good man, and he had raised a good son, but neither of them would ever see their sweet and beautiful Angel again. Fury rose in her, fury and heartbreak.

He cast a desperate glance at her, then shifted his gaze to the men gathered by the door. Men ready to carry out her orders the moment she uttered them. She looked out the window, and her heart hardened, vengeance claiming what little goodness that had been there.

“You still have a chance, Pincho,” the older man pleaded, voice trembling. “Let the Americans go. Show them some mercy.”

She looked at him as though he’d spoken an alien tongue. Her brows furrowed, that anger climbing. “Mercy? For the people responsible for my father’s death? For the people who hunted my husband down? Who arrested him, paraded him in court like some animal, and then sentenced him to death? They’re the reason he’s rotting in a US prison. And they’ve lied to me, with their promises…their false assurances.” She stared at nothing, her heart empty. “They’re only alive because I waited for our deal to be honored.”

Her father-in-law took a shaky breath. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, ignoring the tension that rippled through her. “You aren’t like this,” he said. “I remember the day you married my son. You were?—”

“Happy,” Pincho finished, her voice dropping to a whisper. A swirl of conflicting emotions rose in her, tightening her throat. She closed her eyes, the memory of that moment overshadowed by years of bloodshed. “I was happy until all of this took over my life. Until Nacho, my own father, showed me what ‘business’ really meant. I was just a girl…I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

Guilt flared white-hot within her. She was no innocent. There were too many bodies, too many orders she herself had given in her husband’s name. There was no escaping the truth. Every day, she was the one signing off on brutalities that spread terror like a stain. But had it all been for nothing? Even the US government she had tried to leverage was more interested in waiting her out than actually freeing her husband. They had likely never intended to release him at all.

Her father-in-law still wouldn’t give up. “There’s another path. If you just let them go?—”

“No,” Pincho snapped, turning away and staring again through the window at the manicured lawn, and the patchwork stone road winding through the white and wrought iron gates outside. Tension clawed at her ribs. “I do that, and the next thing I know, the Americans will storm this place. They’ll come after me for kidnapping one of their SEALs and their US attorney…maybe for all of it.”

Her eyes flicked to the sliver of sky overhead, imagining the black helicopters that would descend if word got out. She had seen it happen before, blitz operations, no mercy given. She had never cared about her own safety until now, and the realization tasted bitter. She had lost her husband. And if he was gone for good, what was left?

She steeled herself, raised her hand. “Kill them,” she ordered, voice clipped, trying not to let her own tremor of regret seep in. She could feel the shock and disappointment radiating from her father-in-law, could almost see him flinch at her words.

“It’s over,” she continued, quieter now but no less sure. “We’ve stalled too long, and I can’t risk Blade telling them everything he knows. I can’t risk them using these two against me. End it.”

A murmur went through the armed men. They looked to one another, then to Pincho’s father-in-law, who shook his head as though silently pleading with them not to obey. His eyes brimmed with sorrow as he turned to Pincho one last time.

“Please,” he begged, voice breaking. “Lucia, don’t do this.”

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