24. Chapter Twenty-four #2
The dockyard shudders beneath my feet, worn wood and rusted metal groaning like bones about to break.
Ocean water slaps the concrete pilings rhythmically, counting down like a clock toward slaughter.
The wind slices through gaps in the fencing, sour with rust, salt, and gasoline, sharpening my senses, honing my violence.
The entryway looms silent ahead, shadows yawning wide like a mouth filled with teeth. Too quiet. Too controlled.
I step forward.
Inside, the hallway is dim, lights sputtering and flickering like dying breaths. Broken glass crunches beneath my boots, the sound deafening in the suffocating quiet. My heart is slow, steady, pumping ice through my veins, body taut with lethal precision.
Then…
A sound. Small. Choked.
A whimper, thick with fear.
Hers.
My entire body locks, every muscle rigid, tension carving deep into bone as I turn the corner.
There she is.
Camille.
She’s on her knees, shivering on bare concrete.
Her clothes are torn, thin fabric stained and shredded, wrists zip-tied cruelly tight.
Dark bruises shadow her skin, raw marks that ignite an inferno inside my chest. She’s breathing too fast, eyes wide, wild fixed desperately on the man crouched inches away, falsely soothing, hiding the venom behind gentle words.
Rojas.
He brushes his fingers across her cheek, the gesture sickeningly intimate, possessive, wrong.
My stomach twists savagely, violence roiling hot beneath my skin, blind, searing rage consuming everything else.
I surge toward the door…
A buzzer screeches overhead. Electronic locks click loudly. I freeze, fists clenched.
Rojas turns lazily, his smile calculated, cruel. Behind him, two men step forward, weapons poised, too close to Camille’s trembling body. She sees me, eyes flashing wide with fear and hope and defiance.
She doesn’t lower her chin, even now.
“Ah, Rivera,” Rojas purrs, voice smooth, utterly amused. “I wondered how long it would take.”
His gaze narrows in cold triumph. “Let’s make this simple. Hands up, weapons down, or I teach you exactly what fear feels like.”
His hand slides up Camille’s thigh, slow, deliberate.
Higher.
My vision narrows to a single deadly point.
My pulse slows to a near-stop, blood roaring deafeningly in my ears.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” I snarl softly, murder edged in every syllable.
He grins wider. “Or you’ll do what?”
His man grabs Camille violently, hauling her upright. She cries out once, sharp, breaking my fucking soul. She fights them, screaming my name desperately, her voice cutting through me like shattered glass.
But I’m trapped.
No door, no obvious entry, just reinforced glass separating me from her, her terrified eyes, pleading yet defiant, locked fiercely onto mine.
Rojas grips her jaw hard, forcing her gaze toward me.
“Watch, Rivera,” he murmurs. “This is what surrender looks like.” Rojas turns her face toward the glass with a mock tenderness that makes my fucking skin crawl.
His fingers dig into her jaw, smearing dirt and blood like she’s a thing he owns, a trophy he plans to shatter just to spite me.
Camille doesn’t look away.
Not from me.
Not from him.
Her eyes stay locked on mine, wide with terror, but still fierce. Still demanding I don’t fall to pieces. Still daring me to be the monster I told her I am.
Rojas leans in. His lips brush her cheek, too close, too slow.
Then he kisses her.
It’s brief. Intentional. A fucking challenge.
Camille flinches, but not away. She turns into it.
And bites.
Hard.
Rojas jerks back with a snarl, blood suddenly streaking his mouth. “You little bitch...!”
His hand snaps out.
The slap cracks like a gunshot, echoing through the chamber.
Camille crashes to the concrete, a ragdoll, stunned and winded. Her shoulder hits first. Her head slams the floor next.
My vision reds out.
He moves before I can, drops to his knees, grabs a fistful of her hair, and yanks her up again like she’s weightless.
“You think you’re strong?” he growls, voice guttural now, stripped of the smug composure. “You think he makes you safe?”
She gasps, breathless, dazed, but still fighting. Her hands strain against the zip ties, legs kicking, screaming, thrashing as he slams her back down again, harder, until her cry turns raw and strangled.
And she fights.
God, she fights.
I slam my fist into the glass, once, twice, rage splitting through my knuckles, useless, caged.
My knuckles bleed against the glass.
He climbs on top of her, straddles her, pinning her down with his full weight. She’s screaming my name, kicking, fighting with everything she has left, and I can’t fucking touch him.
Can’t get to her.
Can’t tear his throat open with my hands the way my body is begging to.
Rojas looks up at me, still straddling her, still pressing his forearm into her throat like it’s a game. He’s smiling, sweating, wild-eyed now, but still smiling.
“Tell me, Rivera,” he pants, blood smeared across his mouth from where she bit him, “what’s it like to watch someone else fuck what’s yours?”
My jaw cracks as I clench it. Vision blurring at the edges, fury climbing to a place beyond rage, something ancient, something feral, something that doesn’t fucking speak. It devours. It burns.
He’s touching her like he doesn’t know I already marked her with blood. With fire. With me.
I don’t breathe. I calculate.
Because Camille’s still watching. Not sobbing now…staring. Her eyes lock with mine and tell me everything I need to know:
Don’t fall.
Don’t fold.
Don’t give him anything.
Be the monster I know you are.
And that’s when I smile.
Just a flicker.
The kind of smile that means death. That means this ends here, badly, for everyone who ever dared breathe near her.
I reach under my vest. Pull the detonator. Cold plastic. One press.
The eastern wall detonates three stories below concrete and steel erupting in a thunderous explosion. Sirens scream to life, lights burst, alarms shriek.
Rojas flinches.
So do his men.
That single second?
Is mine.
Two shots.
Head. Throat.
The guards drop without a sound.
I breach the override. The glass groans, retracting fast.
I move.
Fast.
Deadly.
Camille coughs, tries to roll, but she’s pinned, so I grab him by the collar, wrench him off her with every ounce of force I have, and slam him into the nearest wall.
His skull cracks against the metal, blood spraying. He hits the floor hard.
“Stay down,” I whisper to Camille. My voice is wreckage. Shaking.
She doesn’t listen. She crawls to the corner, dragging her battered body behind her, but she keeps her eyes on me.
She wants to see this.
Rojas coughs, tries to rise.
I kick him back down.
He’s bleeding now. From the mouth. The nose. One eye swelling already. Still trying to smile through cracked teeth.
“You blew a hole in your own compound for a woman,” he spits.
I step over him.
Look him in the eyes.
And aim.
“Yes,” I say coldly.
And then I shoot him in the other knee.
He screams.
I crouch.
“You’re not dying yet,” I murmur. “You’re going to feel it. Every second Camille spent terrified. Every bruise. Every scream. Every breath.”
I look back at her once, just to be sure.
She’s still watching.
Still fighting.
Still mine.
And now, I show her what that means.
Rojas groans beneath my boot, blood already pooling beneath him from the bullet wound in his knee.
It’s not enough.
Not even close.
“You should’ve killed me,” he spits, face twisted in pain.
“Oh, I will,” I whisper. “But not before you understand what it means to touch what’s mine.”
I crouch slowly, pulling the combat knife from my vest.
It’s not the gun that makes a man beg.
It’s the blade.
I slice through his belt first. Then his shirt. Tear the fabric away until he’s bare-chested, heaving, trembling beneath me.
I want him exposed. Stripped.
“Camille,” I say softly, “isn’t my weakness.”
I carve the first line across his ribs.
Deep.
Deliberate.
He screams.
“She’s my reason.”
Second cut…just below the first.
He thrashes, blood soaking through his waistband, turning the floor beneath him into a spreading halo of red.
“And you?” I murmur, dragging the blade up his shoulder, slow, letting the tip pierce skin and leave a trail of crimson. “You’re nothing.”
Another gash, this one vertical, down the center of his abdomen. Not fatal. Not yet. I want his breath to stay caught in his throat. I want his lungs to seize, his vision to blur from blood loss, but not give out.
I want him aware.
He sobs now, twitching, shaking, lips trembling like he wants to beg.
“You think making me watch her bleed would make me surrender?” I whisper into his ear. “No, cabrón. You made me remember who the fuck I am.”
I take the blade to his hand, knuckles, fingers, methodically peeling skin from the bone like slicing fruit.
He screams louder now.
Pitches higher.
It’s music.
I glance over my shoulder once, only once, to check the corner. She’s out cold now, tucked in the shadows, blanket wrapped around her. Joaquin is with her now, guarding her with his life.
Good.
She doesn’t need to see this.
No one does.
I press my blade beneath Rojas’s eye, just enough to make him still again.
“Last chance,” I growl. “How many men? How many cells?”
He doesn’t answer.
So I take his tongue.
One quick, brutal motion. His scream is wet, gurgled. Beautiful.
I wipe the blade clean on his ruined shirt, then pull my sidearm and press it against the gaping mess of his abdomen.
“You die slow,” I whisper. “Alone. Afraid. Like every little girl you ever sold. Like every life you traded for power.”
I pull the trigger once.
Twice.
Three times.
Until his face is unrecognizable.
Until the floor is thick with blood and silence.
Until nothing is left of the man who touched my girl.
I stand slowly, chest heaving, drenched in sweat and crimson, and toss the gun aside.
The war is far from over.
But this battle is done.
And I won.
Camille