Desperate Justice

Prologue

It had been a good day to be alive, until the moment a bullet zinged through the air and sliced his neck.

Another bullet pierced his abdomen. Blood, so much blood.

Rafael Jones Rodriguez struggled to hold a hand over the crimson seeping between his trembling fingers. Nearby, two FBI agents lay dead. They’d been caught in a nighttime ambush by local crime lord Hector Hernandez.

Sirens blared in the distance. Have to live. So much to live for. But he knew the odds. Knew he was bleeding out.

Rafe rolled over to his back, staring at the endless stars in the black night sky. He tried not to think of the dead agents and their families lost in grief. Or his family, and how they would weep and wail. Or Sofia. He promised to attend her quinceanera next year. His goddaughter would be crushed.

Cold, he was so damn cold. Pain faded as he shivered. Damn it, he was too young to die, but those sirens were far off. Each breath rasped out in short, jagged bursts as he thought of how precious and wonderful life was...and how he was going to lose it.

“Stay still. It’s okay,” a sweet voice murmured. “I’m going to take care of you. You have to stay still.”

An angel hovered over him, her features blurred. Guess this is it. At least I get an angel to escort me to Heaven, instead of a demonic chaperone to Hell.

Rafe closed his eyes to surrender to the inevitable.

“Don’t you dare die on me, you bastard. Not after everything I’m doing to save you. Damn it, stay awake!”

An angel with a foul mouth. Rafe’s lips edged into a slight smile.

“Diablo,” he murmured, fighting to stay awake.

As he felt himself slipping into the darkness, he heard more swear words, and the firm touch of an angel who knew what the hell she was doing.

Maybe, just for today, he would live after all...