Page 64 of Sinful
Helle's .380 comes up, pointing at the guy closest to her.
The room crackles with tension—everyone's finger on a trigger, everyone knowing that one wrong move means everyone dies.
"Helle," I say quietly, not taking my eyes off the men surrounding us. "We need to leave. Right now."
"Not without my father."
"We'll get him?—"
"He's here! They have him here!" Her voice cracks, raw emotion breaking through. "I'm not leaving him to die in this place!"
A voice comes from the back hallway.
Calm. Cold. Authority. "Nobody's leaving."
A man steps into view—older, maybe fifty, with salt-and-pepper hair and eyes that have seen too much violence and enjoyed it.
He's wearing expensive clothes, gold rings on his fingers, and he's holding a phone up like he's recording.
"My name is Javier Ruiz," he says, speaking English now with barely an accent. "Lieutenant for LosCoyotes. And you—" He focuses on Helle like she's a specimen he's studying. "—are Ivar's daughter. The little college girl who fucked Andrés. The one who made him soft, distracted."
"I didn't make him anything. He used me. That was his choice."
"Yes. He did. That was his job—get close to you, gather information, report back." Javier smiles, and it's the smile of a man who enjoys causing pain. "And then someone killed him. Shot him three times in a Houston alley and left him to rot. We thought it was your father. Revenge for the intel operation. But maybe—" His eyes sharpen, focusing on her with laser intensity. "—maybe it was you."
Helle's jaw tightens. Her grip on the .380 tightens too.
Don't say it. Don't fucking say it.
"Take me to my father," she demands instead, voice hard. "Let me see him, and we'll talk."
"Oh, we talk now." Javier nods to two of his men. "Bring the Road Captain."
The two men disappear down the hallway.
The silence while we wait is suffocating.
Then they return, dragging a man between them.
Ivar.
He's barely conscious.
Face swollen and bruised beyond recognition, eyes nearly shut from the swelling.
His body is covered in cuts and burns—methodical torture designed to cause maximum pain.
His left arm ends in blood-soaked bandages where his hand used to be.
But he's breathing.
He's alive.
Helle makes a sound—half sob, half rage, completely broken.
"Dad."
One of the men holding Ivar puts a gun to his head. Presses the barrel against his temple hard enough to leave an indent.
