Godless (The Ferrymen #2)

Prologue

"This is a waste of time," Rafael said, nose wrinkling at the warehouse's stench of piss and fear. My son pressed closer to me, his eleven-year-old dignity warring with disgust. "I don't need a companion."

"You need something." I kept my voice neutral, but my patience had worn thin.

In the six months since his mother's death, Rafael had become a ghost haunting his own life.

Finding Gabriel face-down in the pool just three days after we'd buried his mother had shattered something fundamental in my son.

Books and silence had become his only refuge, and every therapist in S?o Paulo had failed.

Now we stood in José's warehouse at the docks, my last desperate attempt dressed up as paternal concern.

"Ambassador Olivera!" José's gold tooth caught the harsh fluorescents as he waddled toward us, arms spread wide like we were old friends. "You honor my humble establishment."

His establishment was anything but humble. The man ran half the child trafficking through Rio's ports, though he preferred to call it "private adoption services." The concrete walls sweated in the afternoon heat, and somewhere in the darkness, a child whimpered.

"You said you had something special." I pulled out my handkerchief, dabbing at the sweat beading on my forehead.

"Sí, sí! Very special. Perfect for your son." José's gaze slithered over Rafael, who straightened under the scrutiny. "The age you specified. Fully trained, very obedient. Not like the street rats, you understand? This one, we've had him for years. Civilized him."

Rafael frowned at the word ‘civilized’.

"Bring him," I said.

José barked orders in Portuguese. Chains rattled in the darkness, followed by shuffling feet. Two men emerged, and between them…

The boy couldn't have weighed more than forty pounds.

Seven, maybe eight years old, dressed in clean but ill-fitting clothes that made him look like a doll someone had tried to dress up.

They'd bleached his hair white, probably to deal with lice, giving him an otherworldly appearance.

But it was the leather muzzle strapped across his lower face that gave me pause.

"He’s muzzled like a dog." Rafael's voice carried a thread of interest, the first I'd heard in months.

José laughed. "A precaution, young sir. Sometimes he forgets his training. But watch!" He snapped his fingers. "Ajoelhar!"

The boy dropped to his knees instantly, eyes fixed on the ground.

"Stand." José's command brought him back up. "Turn around."

The boy rotated slowly, displaying himself like livestock. The chains connecting his wrists to a collar around his neck clinked softly. Everything about him screamed control, conditioning, broken will.

But his eyes… They still held a streak of defiance.

I'd seen that look before, in board rooms and back alleys, in men who survived by becoming whatever their environment demanded. This boy wasn't broken; he was waiting.

"Can he speak?" I asked.

"Oh yes! Very smart. Knows Portuguese, some English." José puffed up with pride. "Show them your English, menino."

"Hello," the boy said through the muzzle, muffled but clear. "Nice to meet you."

Rafael stepped forward, and everything changed.

The boy's entire body went rigid. His nostrils flared behind the leather, and his eyes locked onto my son with an intensity that made José's men step back.

Rafael moved closer. "What's your name?"

The boy didn't answer. His breathing quickened, chest rising and falling in sharp bursts.

"His name is whatever you want," José said quickly, sensing the sale slipping. "We call him Capeta."

“Capeta?” Rafael gave José a sharp glance. “He’s a boy, not a devil or a dog.”

"Take off the muzzle," I said.

José's face paled. "Senhor, I don't think—"

I pulled out my wallet, fingering the bills inside. "Unless you've been lying about how well-trained he is?"

Greed won over caution. José nodded to his men. "Slowly, eh? And you, Capeta. You be good, eh?"

The buckles loosened. The muzzle fell away, revealing a delicate face that belonged in a Renaissance painting, not a warehouse.

Rafael extended his hand, all practiced politeness. "Hello. I'm Rafael Olivera."

The boy stared at the outstretched hand like he'd never seen one before. His tongue darted out, wetting his lips. Then, slowly, he reached out with his chained hands.

"Careful," José warned. "Sometimes he—"

The moment their skin touched, the boy lunged, sinking his teeth into the inside of Rafael’s forearm. Rafael screamed, trying to pull away, but the boy held on with desperate strength, blood welling around his lips.

José's men rushed forward with cattle prods.

The boy released Rafael and scrambled backward, chains tangling as he pressed himself against the wall.

He wasn't cowering though; he was protecting his prize.

Blood painted his mouth red, and his eyes had gone wide and wild, fixed on Rafael with that same terrible intensity.

"Idiota!" José snatched up a rod himself. "You ruin everything!"

"Stop." I knelt beside Rafael, who clutched his arm to his chest, tears streaming down his face. The bite was deep but clean. It would scar.

"I'm so sorry, Ambassador," José babbled. "He's never... I'll dispose of him. No charge. My apologies, my deepest—"

"How much?" I asked, pulling out my handkerchief to wrap Rafael's hand.

José blinked. "Senhor?"

"For the boy. How much?"

"But he... he attacked your son!"

I looked at the child pressed against the wall, blood on his mouth, eyes still locked on Rafael with that consuming focus. The intensity went beyond aggression or hunger and into something else entirely: obsession. The kind that could be shaped, directed, weaponized.

"Yes," I said. "He did."

The boy's breathing had steadied. He watched me wrap Rafael's wound, tracking the red spreading through white cloth. When our eyes met, I saw intelligence there. Calculation. He knew he'd just signed his own death warrant, but he'd done it anyway for one taste of my son's blood.

This was absolutely fascinating.

"Thirty thousand," José said, desperate to salvage something. "American. And you take him now, as is."

"Twenty. And you throw in the muzzle."

"Pai!" Rafael protested, voice thick with pain. "He bit me!"

"Yes." I finished wrapping his hand, then stood. "And you're the first thing he's wanted badly enough to risk everything for. Isn't that interesting?"

Rafael stared at me as if I'd gone insane. Perhaps I had. But as I counted out bills, I felt something click into place. Not the plan I'd come with, but something better.

The Pantheon had been pressing me to find new recruits. Young ones who could be molded from scratch. I'd resisted, focusing on my legitimate work. But this boy was perfect. Not a companion for Rafael, but something else entirely that would belong to me.

"What will you call him?" José asked as his men prepared the boy for transport, muzzle back in place.

I looked at my son, who despite everything, couldn't stop staring at his attacker. Then at the boy with his bloodstained lips and wild eyes.

"Lorenzo," I said. The name came from nowhere, settled into place like it had been waiting. "His name is Lorenzo."

As we left, Rafael walking ahead in sullen silence, I felt Lorenzo's gaze boring into my son's back. The focus was extraordinary; the potential even more so. I'd told Rafael I was getting him a companion.

I hadn't lied. I'd just been thinking too small.

Lorenzo would be so much more than that.

The Pantheon would be pleased.