Page 77 of Imperfect Desires

He looks up at me, then at the gun, then back again. His throat bobs.

“Maybe...” he mutters, his voice thin. “Maybe someone I know worked on it. I don’t touch that kind of job anymore.”

“Name.”

He hesitates. I take a step forward.

“Mendes,” he blurts. “Carlos Mendes.”

Time freezes.

Rage detonates in my chest.

I hit him with the hilt of my gun. He yelps, stumbling into the wall. Before he can recover, my fist connects with his mouth. The crack of bone and spray of blood and teeth are deeply satisfying.

He collapses to the ground, groaning.

I crouch down, grab his shirt, and yank him close.

“If you’re lying to me,” I growl, “pray I never come back here. Because next time, I won’t be this friendly.”

He nods quickly, blood dribbling down his chin.

I leave him on the floor.

Outside, the city is loud, but inside me—it’s louder.

I close my eyes and breathe in hard, nostrils flaring as I try to calm the beast in me from clawing its way up my throat. My fingers twitch at my sides. My jaw aches from how tightly I’m clenching it.

Carlos Mendes.

The name tastes like ash in my mouth.

It’s been over twenty years since I last heard it spoken out loud, but it’s never really left me. Not after what he did. Not after what he nearly did.

I was just a kid then. Fourteen. Running dope across the city for crumbs and pocket change, desperate to survive. Mendes took me in—not out of kindness, but because he saw another body to throw into the fire. I was fast, quiet, and stupid enough to believe loyalty meant safety.

Then a parcel went missing. Twenty grand’s worth. I didn’t steal it—but that didn’t matter. Mendes tied me to a chair in a warehouse and beat me bloody. Told me he was going to put a bullet in my head.

I would’ve died there. Forgotten. Another broken kid.

But Viktor came.

He came in like vengeance incarnate, paid the debt in full, and pulled me out of hell with his own hands. And just like that, my life was no longer Mendes’s to destroy. It belonged to Viktor. And I’ve never looked back.

But Mendes…

He’s a ghost I buried. One I never thought I’d see again.

This world we live in—it’s violent, it’s ruthless, but there are lines. Even among wolves, we keep to our territories. You don’t reach into another man’s family. You don’t touch his blood.

Mendes broke that rule.

And now?

Now I’m going to break him.

Before I go, I dial the one man who needs to know.

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