Sally #2
“But not anymore?” he asked, eyes still trained on Mateo behind her.
She shook her head in answer.
“Pity,” José said as he cocked the hammer back on his pistol.
Mateo shouted something unintelligible. Sally heard the sound of him moving behind her, trying in vain to close the distance and throw himself in front of her.
José pulled the trigger.
Papa? That was her last thought before the sound of the gun clicking cut through the jungle.
Clicking … but without the report of a gunshot.
José was empty. Something she realized with a sad desperation she was grateful for.
He cursed, threw the gun at them, then ran off into the thick foliage of the jungle. Mateo put a hand on her shoulder, asked her a question, shook her when she didn’t reply, then ran off after José.
He would have killed you. Either because you refused to obey him, or just so he could take a shot at the man behind you.
He pulled the trigger. The sounds of the jungle whooshed through her ears, mixing with the rushing thrum of her blood.
Her entire body felt as if it had fallen asleep, steeped in numbness.
She knew her father was a treacherous coward. She’d never held her breath for his affection or approval. He’s sent her to do dangerous jobs before, but danger was just a part of the life they lived. However, she’d never thought he was capable of killing her outright in cold blood.
That absolute bastard. Fury washed away numbness and Sally’s rage filled her. She pumped her legs to run after Mateo and José.
As she ran through the jungle, she saw signs of the two men’s frantic chase—churned up mud, snapped twigs, trampled ferns—before catching a glimpse of color and movement ahead.
She raced to catch up when she heard the loud bark of gunfire.
Two shots, definitely from their direction, then silence.
She burst from the underbrush, leapt over a fallen tree, and landed feet away from the two men struggling and wrestling in the mud and greenery.
José must have hid, waited for Mateo to get near, then jumped him.
Her father would have fought to wrestle Mateo’s gun away.
It must have gone off during the initial scuffle.
Neither of them had the pistol now, both of them resorting to their fists, feet, and elbows.
Sally saw the gun nestled in some underbrush only a few feet away from them.
José surged forward, moving with the speed of a man who’d spent his entire life committing violence. They collided—a mess of limbs and grunts and the wet sound of fists on flesh.
Sally watched them wrestle, two men rolling through mud and leaves, each trying to get leverage, to get on top, to get their hands around the other’s throat.
José was older but had the advantages of experience and of being uninjured.
Mateo was younger but had been mortally shot less than an hour ago and was bleeding from a gaping wound somehow being held together by magical tape.
It should have been obvious who would win.
It wasn’t.
Mateo was on his back with José’s knees on his chest. Her father used his girth to pin Mateo to the jungle floor as he hammered at Mateo’s face with his meaty fists. The younger man was limber enough to bring his legs up behind José, and he hooked them under her father’s arms to stop his assault.
There was a moment of a stalemate. José struggled against Mateo’s legs, not wanting to give up his dominant position on top, but not being able to punch the younger man anymore.
Mateo wasn’t able to use his fists to effectively strike José’s face, but he was doing his best to wriggle out from under the large man.
They cursed and spat and raged at each other while Sally watched …
Then she picked up the pistol.
The weight of it was familiar—José had started teaching her how to shoot when she was barely nine.
He’d made her practice until she could hit a target from a dozen yards.
“A woman in this business needs to know how to defend herself,” he’d told her.
What he’d really meant was, “A woman in this business needs to be useful.”
She raised the gun and aimed it at her father.
“José,” she screamed.
Both men froze.
José looked over at her. Blood ran from his nose, dripped from his split lip.
He smiled—that same smile he’d given her when she was seven and she asked if he loved her before revealing her mother had died tragically in an accident.
It was a greasy and ingratiating smile. Now she questioned everything about this man.
“Put the gun down, Sally.”
“Let him go,” she ordered.
“He’s an operative. A spy. He’s been lying to all of us for years.” José’s voice was reasonable, patient, the voice of a father explaining something simple to his slow daughter. “He was never going to choose you. You know that don’t you? He was using you. Just like he used all of us.”
Mateo’s face flashed with surprise, but the revelation meant little to her.
“Let. Him. Go,” she gritted out.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” he said with a scoff. “You don’t have it in you. You’re too soft. Too weak. Just like your mother before she died.”
The words hit her like a slap.
Just like your mother.
Sally’s finger found the trigger.
“Sally—” José’s voice had lost its patience. Now it was sharp with warning. “Don’t make a mistake you can’t take back.”
“The only mistake I ever made was listening to you.” She took a breath.
“You taught me to shoot. You taught me to be useful. You taught me that to succeed in this business, you have to do what needs to be done.” Another breath.
“I’m doing what you have always wanted me to do.
I am putting the man I choose in charge. ”
“You stupid—”
She pulled the trigger.
The shot cracked through the jungle, sent birds exploding from nearby trees, echoed off the canopy and came back hollow. José’s body jerked once then went still. He fell sideways into the mud and didn’t move again. Blood trailing down his face from the near perfect wound on his forehead.
Sally lowered the gun. Her hands were still steady.
Mateo rolled away from José’s body. When he looked up at Sally, his eyes were wide. Shocked. He started to speak. “Sally—”
She turned the gun on him. “Did you love me?” The question came out calmer than she felt. “At any point, did you ever love me?”
Mateo pushed himself to his knees, hands raised, palms out. His shirt was ruined with blood and mud. “I cared about you,” he said carefully. “I still care about you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.” The word was quiet. A final nail in the coffin she felt was her heart. “I didn’t love you. Not the way you wanted.”
Sally nodded. She’d known. Of course she’d known. But hearing it was different than knowing it.
“What was your plan?” she asked. “After you killed José, what? You take over Nox in his place? Report to the syndicate or whomever your masters are?”
“What my assignment originally was is irrelevant at this point,” he said.
He kept his arms outstretched, fingers splayed, palms facing her.
It only confirmed what her father had said before he died.
“Tonight I made a deal with somebody. My end of that deal is to kill José and I handle Nox a little longer.”
“Well.” She nodded to her father's body. “You’re welcome.” She still had the gun trained on Mateo.
“Sally, I'm sorry—”
“Do not apologize to me,” she said quietly, the words laced with years of pain. “You lied to me … And you're sorry?”
Mateo shook his head. “That's not what I was apologizing for. Sally, I'm sorry you had to pull the trigger. Nobody should have to kill their own father.”
This infuriating, lying, idiot, she fumed as she trained the pistol on him. He's genuinely sorry and that shouldn't matter to you.
But it did. It did matter.
Because despite everything, she still loved him.
Sally sighed and lowered the gun slightly. “He was a shit father anyways. That much wasn’t your fault. What else did the deal entail?”
“They take Gabriella away. To safety.”
She scoffed at him. “And you believed that?”
“In my defense,” Mateo said with a shrug, “I thought I was as good as dead when I made the deal. I thought I was pulling a fast one over on the guy.”
“This is your friend with the miraculous band-aid?” she asked as she lowered the gun again, this time tucking it into the waistband of her pants.
“One and the same,” Mateo said. He approached her warily, as if he still expected her to draw down on him again.
Sally looked at the man she once considered her father for the last time before turning her back on his corpse and walking back towards the compound. “I have an idea, Mateo, that I think will work out for all of us. Let’s go chat with this friend of yours.”
She was tired of being led by men who abused and hurt her. She was ready to rule her own fate.
Mateo seemed to sense the change. “Does it involve a woman in power?”
She smiled sweetly over to him. “And a man who has an unfortunate accident in a few months, after training her on how to run Nox.”
Mateo laughed at that. “Can’t fucking wait.”