Page 17 of Born of Vengeance

The one he couldn’t drink away. Couldn’t train out of his muscles. Couldn’t erase.

He’d woken up with the sun in his eyes, hungover and disoriented in a beachfront villa just outside Barranquilla. The night before had been a blur—too many drinks, laughter fading into static.

Ana was gone from the bed.

He remembered calling out. No answer.

He remembered stepping outside barefoot, into the sand.

He found her an hour later.

In the tree line, not far from the dunes.

Her dress torn. Her body broken. Eyes still open, staring at the sky like she was trying to escape into it.

Her hand was outstretched. As if she’d been reaching for him.

He dropped beside her, blood roaring in his ears. He didn’t cry. Couldn’t. He just held her, whispering her name, over and over.

He blamed the gang.

He blamed the system.

But mostly, he blamed himself.

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Rafael opened his eyes in the present.

The room was still.

He stood slowly, walked to the corkboard, and stared at Valderrama’s name.

He took a red marker and circled it twice—dark, deliberate strokes.

Then he wrote in sharp block letters:

No mercy. No deals. No hesitation.

He pinned the note beside the photo.

“I let you live once,” he said softly.

“Never again.”

Chapter 9 – Trap and Escape

Rafael watched the street from a third-story window above a shuttered pawn shop.

Below, the market buzzed with late-morning heat. Street vendors barked out deals, kids chased each other barefoot, and old music crackled from a nearby transistor radio. To anyone else, it looked like just another busy day in Barranquilla.

But Rafael wasn’t watching the market.

He was watching Jairo Ortega.

A man who smiled too much for someone with so much blood on his hands.

Ortega was Valderrama’s liaison for port security and one of the key middlemen in the trafficking network. Rafael had traced his pattern—every Thursday, same café, same time, same driver.

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