Chapter 10
Twenty-two years old
Tijuana, México
The island was quiet in the way only cartel territory ever was – unnaturally still, like even the wind knew better than to linger.
I was twenty-two and already the head of the Mexican Cartel for over six years, but tonight I felt older than my bones.
The jungle pressed in around the compound, thick and black, cicadas screaming somewhere beyond the torches lining the perimeter.
The ocean was invisible, but I could hear it – waves breaking against rock like a slow, patient countdown.
Earlier today, Zane had arrived with a gift I’d been waiting on for a very long time.
Zane Takashi was a nineteen assassin I’d found two years ago; sharp-eyed, unreadable, lethal in a way that felt almost quiet. Former Yakuza. Independent now. Dangerous not because he was reckless, but precise.
I hadn’t hired him to kill anyone.
I’d hired him to take someone alive.
And he’d finally delivered.
I’d waited a long time for this moment. Six years of blood, strategy, expansion, patience.
A man who had made me an orphan and a king in the same day.
José Víbora, head of the Colombian cartel, was a hard man to find for a reason. But if there was anyone on this Earth with enough patience and determination to hunt someone down, it was me.
I stood on the terrace overlooking the ocean, cigar lit between my fingers. Below me, guards made their rounds, rifles loaded.
Zane emerged from the shadows and stopped beside me, resting a hand on my shoulder.
“Ready to put a bullet through his brain?”
I exhaled slowly, smoke curling around us, and shook my head. “I’m not going to kill him.”
Zane raised a brow.
I smiled, looking into the ocean’s never-ending waves.
“Not for a very, very painful long time…”