Page 1 of Echoes and Oaths
CHAPTER 1
The assassin, Jinx, settled into one of the deep leather chairs on the private jet waiting for him at the Colorado airstrip. The hum of the engines vibrated beneath his boots, a steady pulse like a heartbeat in the belly of the bird. He exhaled slowly, stretching his legs out as the aircraft's cabin lighting cast a dim glow over the polished wood and sleek, minimalist interior.
“We’re waiting on two more passengers, sir. Then we’ll be on our way. I was told they’d been delayed and to wait for them.”
Jinx barely inclined his head, acknowledging the pilot’s words with a flick of his fingers before closing his eyes. He already knew where they were headed. The place that had consumed over three years of hislife. The place that had nearly killed him more times than he cared to count.
Venezuela.
The memory of that mission uncoiled in his mind. He could still smell the damp rot of the area where he’d lived. The bite of gasoline-stained, dusty dirt roads lingered at the back of his throat. He remembered the thick, oppressive heat clinging to his skin like an unseen second layer and the sweet scent of rotting fruit left out in the sun.
Jinx had set foot on Venezuelan soil for the first time three years ago. It had been a world he’d learned fast. Bloodstained currency, drug cartel murders, treaty betrayals, and unrelenting violence dominated the country.
Getting into Montoya’s organization had been an exercise in extreme patience. No one simply walked into the inner circle of Venezuela’s most powerful drug lord. Montoya was more than a kingpin. He was a choking presence that stretched over an empire built on drugs, dead bodies, and the need for relentless control. A monster wanted for decades of bloodshed, corruption, and ruthless gathering of intelligence through murder and intimidation. The Council had spoken. Montoya was targeted.
Numerous assassination attempts had been madeagainst Montoya by rival cartels, military units, and even the fractured remnants of his own government. Each failure had only made him more paranoid, more ruthless. He’d turned himself into a mirage. The man had slipped between safe houses, moving like dust through the cracks of a shattered nation.
Jinx’s mission from his organization had been clear.
Infiltrate. Eliminate.
Guardian Security had given him no deadline, no restrictions. Take out Montoya. Whatever it takes. As long as it takes.
So, he started from the bottom, slipping into the underbelly of Montoya’s empire. He’d become a mercenary-for-hire, a nameless trigger-man in a world that ran on blood and bullets. The street dealers, the enforcers, the small-time smugglers, they’d been expendable to Montoya. They’d also been Jinx’s ticket in. He’d done his job. He’d become what he hunted.
His first job had been simple: escort a drug shipment through cartel territory to a safe house near the Colombian border. Montoya’s enemies had been waiting. They had insider information. Leaks from someone close to Montoya. Jinx hadn’t hesitated to use every resource he had. Brando’s satellite feedshad given him the upper hand. His rifle had done the rest.
Two bodies had been left bleeding on the roadside. A third had been taken down with an impossible shot. The jungle had swallowed the man's guttural scream before he could radio a warning.
The cartel lieutenant overseeing the shipment had been impressed. That single job had earned him a promotion. Six months later, he’d no longer been just another disposable trigger-man. He’d been accepted, although not trusted.
Months later had come the test.
The man feeding information to Montoya’s rivals had been caught. Montoya’s lieutenants had demanded a public execution. A warning. A lesson. Jinx had been handed a gun, the cool rifle stock pressing into his palm like a brand.
Jinx was sure they thought he’d stall or fail. That, as an outsider, he wasn’t made of the vengeance they needed at the highest levels. He was more. He was a Shadow. He was the personification of death and would not be stopped from completing his mission.
“Show your loyalty,” Tomás Ortega had said, his dark eyes flashing with fear before becoming unreadable as he tilted his chin toward the kneeling man. Jinx hated Ortega with a passion that burnedhotter than the sin-stoked fires of hell. The man was a weasel, spineless and utterly cruel. The man’s façade of malevolence hid the weakness that Jinx saw in the man. The slime of his depraved and degenerate actions camouflaged Ortega’s innate spinelessness. He only attacked the weak, the injured, and easy targets. How could he be the only one to notice the coward hiding in plain sight? The man’s presence today was another swallowed helping of distaste and hatred he consumed in order to complete this assignment.
Ortega blinked and then narrowed his eyes. “Well?”
Jinx turned to stare at the traitor. The lines between necessity and morality had blurred long ago. The man had not been an innocent. He’d not been guiltless. He’d caused the deaths of many men. Granted, they’d been bad men, like those who’d surrounded him. But that day, the man had been a pawn in a larger game.
He’d lifted the rifle, pulled the trigger, and handed the weapon back to Ortega. The traitor had slumped forward, his blood soaking into the dirt. Ortega had given him a single nod. Jinx had passed the test.
From there, his ascent had been calculated,methodical. Montoya’s organization was a machine of power, and Jinx had been a part of its gears.
Montoya’s lieutenants were hardened killers, ruling their piece of the empire. Everyone had watched him. The enforcers who made problems disappear tested him. The inner circle, five men who had stood beside Montoya through blood and war, had taken notice. Jinx had been under a microscope. But Montoya himself had remained untouchable.
Until Jinx had found a pathway forward.
His fingers flexed, remembering the moment everything had shifted. The moment the impossible became possible.
He opened his eyes, his gaze shifting to the darkened runway outside the jet’s window.
The woman’s name was Lucía Delgado.
Montoya had kept her hidden, a secret mistress tucked away in the shadows of his empire. She hadn’t just been a kept woman. She’d been a liability. Lucía had said she was an afterthought he controlled with expensive gifts, whispered promises, and the ever-present threat of what would happen if she tried to leave.
