Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Ryan clocked the shadow within a few minutes of leaving the café. A man. Muscular build. Sunglasses, scruffy mustache, short sleeves. Walking slow. He didn’t look local: too pale and too polished. And he wasn’t sipping coffee or checking his phone. He was watching them.
Ryan adjusted his pace, letting Lucía move a step ahead. She hadn’t noticed; she was distracted, muttering something about offshore routing patterns.
They turned down a narrow side street lined with faded signs. The heat had pooled there, thick and slow. Laundry flapped from upper balconies.
The man turned too.
Ryan stopped at a rusted iron gate and bent as if to tie his boot. Lucía slowed, glanced back.
“What?” she murmured.
“Keep walking,” Ryan said under his breath. “Don’t look. We’ve picked up a tail.”
She stiffened but obeyed.
The man passed, trying to look bored. Then Ryan moved.
He stepped in fast, caught the man by the collar and shoved him into the wall. Not hard. Just enough to jolt the nerves.
“Why’re you tailing us?” Ryan hissed.
The man blinked, startled. Then his expression reset, like a soldier falling into protocol.
“I don’t know what you—”
Accent: American. Low-level Fed? Contract work? Hard to tell.
“Wrong answer.” Ryan pressed him harder. “Try again.”
The man winced. “I’m just a tourist. You’re out of your mind, man. This is assault.”
Ryan slammed him into the wall again, harder this time. “You’ve got a new watch tan, military cut, and boots that cost more than this whole street. Try again.”
The man gritted his teeth, eyes darting once past Ryan toward the open street. “I was told to observe only. No contact. Just eyes.”
Ryan narrowed his. “Not good enough.”
The man flinched but held his ground. “I’m not cleared to say more.”
Ryan’s voice dropped to something colder. “You’re not cleared to lie either.”
The man hesitated, too long. Ryan drove his fist into his ribs. The guy gasped, sagging under the blow.
“Who the fuck sent you?”
A pause. Then finally, through gritted teeth: “Gates. Tomás Gates.”
Ryan froze. Of course it was him.
That half-second of distraction was all the man needed. He surged forward, shoving Ryan off balance and driving a shoulder into his ribs. Ryan stumbled, pain flaring through his side where he’d thrown the punch.
The man twisted, landed a quick elbow to Ryan’s jaw, and broke free.
Ryan lunged, but the man was already bolting down the street, weaving between the laundry lines and startled pedestrians.
He didn’t look back.
Ryan swore under his breath and turned toward Lucía, who had just rounded the corner.
“What was that?”
He exhaled. “Not cartel. Worse.”
“Worse?”
“Government.” He winced, rubbing his knuckles. “Tomás Gates is in México. And he’s watching us.”
“I saw his name in a news brief,” she said, her voice tight. “Gates. He gave a statement about cross-border coordination. I didn’t think he’d be here, though.”
Ryan grabbed her elbow. “Come on. We’re not sleeping outside tonight.”
Ten minutes later, they ducked into a crumbling hostel off another side street, past a rusted bell and a bored girl at the front desk who didn’t ask for ID. Cash only. Room 12.
Lucía threw the bolt and dropped her bag on the bed. Ryan slumped into the only chair.
His ribs ached. His jaw throbbed. His nerves were screaming. It was too early in this run for surveillance teams and federal tails.
He looked up to find Lucía watching him. Her expression had changed. There was a small frown etched between her eyebrows. She looked almost…worried.
She stepped closer, eyes narrowing on the cut at the corner of his mouth. “You’re bleeding,” she said, voice lower now, more focused.
Ryan touched his lip with two fingers and looked at the smear of red. “It’s nothing.”
She didn’t move away. “Let me see.”
He hesitated, but didn’t stop her as she leaned in, brushing her thumb gently against his cheek to angle his face toward the light. Her fingers were steady and warm.
It was the closest they’d been since the cabin, and it felt different now. Her breath grazed his skin. His heart picked up speed.
Then she stepped back, clearing her throat.
Ryan shifted in his chair, trying to shake off the moment. “What the fuck’s in this ledger, Lucía?” he asked, voice rough. “Why’s it so damn important?”
She turned her head away and crossed her arms. “It’s hard to explain to…” she trailed off, but it was clear what she was going to say. To someone like you.
He gave her his best don’t fuck with me look. “I’m not an idiot. Try me.”
She sighed. “Think of it as a diary.”
He raised his eyebrows. “A diary?”
She nodded. “Except, instead of feelings, it’s full of blood money, false invoices, and ghost companies.” She looked back at him, meeting his eyes, but with a guarded expression. “My job was to make it look clean. Now, it’s a loaded gun.”
He exhaled, propping both his hands on the armrest. “Great. And it’s pointed right at us.”
The SUV idled in a patch of shade just off the main road, heat shimmering over the hood. Deputy U.S. Marshal Tomás Gates sat in the driver’s seat, field tablet resting on his knee, the screen flashing red:
Agent: SIGNAL LOST.
He didn’t swear. Just stared at the blinking alert for a moment, jaw flexing. Then he let out a slow breath through his nose.
“Inglis made him,” he muttered.
Carlos Reyes, his local tech liaison guy, was in the passenger seat. He gave a low grunt of agreement. “He’s ex-marshal. Instinct like that doesn’t retire, right?”
Gates didn’t answer. He was staring at a still image from earlier surveillance. It was grainy and sun-washed, but clear enough to make out a man and a woman, walking fast out of a gas station. One was Ryan. And the woman beside him…
Lucía Duarte.
She was angled away from the camera, but Gates knew. The way she carried herself—alert, precise, like someone who’d spent years waiting for the world to catch up with her—was unmistakable.
Reyes leaned closer. “So it’s really her.”
Gates nodded once. “She’s been off the map for years. Everyone assumed she was dead. Or protected. Or both.”
“What changed?”
“She left a trail.”
Reyes raised an eyebrow. “The ledger leak?”
“Not the first time,” Gates said. “There was something a couple years back. People called it the ‘Sinaloa Dumps’ Quiet leak, full of cartel financials. Disguised just well enough to be missed by the casual eye, but someone wanted it found.”
“Her?”
“No doubt in my mind,” Gates said. “She used to work for Javier Esquivel. She knew things. Things she tried to make public. The Sinaloa leak didn’t go far. Not enough proof, not enough eyes on it. It almost felt like a test run.”
“And now?”
“Now she’s doing it again. Smarter this time. And I think Inglis is helping her.”
Reyes looked sideways at him. “I thought you were just here for the kid. Noah.”
Gates didn’t answer right away. He just stared through the windshield at the dusty road ahead.
“I am,” he said finally. “But Lucía Duarte…she’s something bigger.”
Reyes studied him. “You really think she still has the full ledger?”
He closed the tablet. “I think she’s carried it with her every day since she ran.”