Chapter 3
ELENA
My eyes stayed locked on Vin.
They refused to look anywhere else.
Not at the door.
Not at the two men standing by, ready to drag me out and end me without hesitation.
Only him.
Only Vin.
The same boy I had found all those years ago.
Broken. Bleeding. Alone.
Nine years old with eyes that had already seen too much.
I could still see it like it had happened yesterday.
The scrub brush behind my father’s estate.
The way the wind had carried the scent of blood before I even saw him.
The cave—dark, shallow, hidden just enough to be missed.
And inside it...
Him.
A small body pressed into the dirt, shaking but silent—like he had already learned that making a sound only brought more pain.
I had been eight.
Too young to understand what I was stepping into.
Too soft to walk away.
I remember crouching in front of him, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure he would hear it and bolt.
But he didn’t.
He just looked at me.
Those eyes—dark, hollowed out in a way that didn’t belong to a child.
Too old. Too careful.
And still... fighting.
Not loudly.
But in the way he held himself still, like giving in wasn’t an option he would allow.
I didn’t move any closer at first.
Didn’t reach for him.
Something told me he would run if I did.
So I stayed there, quiet, letting him look at me, letting him decide I wasn’t something else sent to hurt him.
Seconds passed. Maybe longer.
Then, slowly—so slowly it almost didn’t happen—the shaking eased.
The blood and bruises—marks that didn’t look like accidents—covered his body, and something in me ached in a way I didn’t understand.
I tore the hem of my dress and pressed it gently to his skin, wiping away what I could.
My hands shook the entire time, but his didn’t move.
He just watched me—too still, too quiet for a nine-year-old boy.
“Does it hurt?” I remember asking.
He shrugged.
Not no. Not yes. Just... nothing.
Like the answer didn’t matter anymore.
I gave him water.
He hesitated before taking it, like he was waiting for permission that wasn’t there.
Even after the first sip, his eyes kept flicking toward the cave entrance, sharp and alert, like he expected someone to come crashing through at any second.
He never said who did it.
Not when I asked.
Not when I tried again, softer.
His whole body would go tight, his shoulders locking, his gaze dropping somewhere far away from me.
So I stopped asking.
And we talked about other things instead.
Small things at first. Names. How old we were. Nothing that could hurt.
He answered in short pieces, like every word had to be dragged out of him, like speaking too much might cost him something.
But I kept going, filling the quiet when it stretched too long, saying whatever came to mind just to keep him there—with me, not wherever his thoughts kept trying to pull him back to.
Slowly, he started to stay.
Hours passed without either of us noticing.
The light at the mouth of the cave shifted from bright to gold, then softer, then dim.
Shadows stretched longer, folding in around us until the world outside didn’t feel real anymore.
And in that small space, something changed.
He stopped flinching every time the wind moved.
Stopped glancing at the entrance like he was counting seconds.
At one point, I said something stupid—about the moon, about how I thought it followed people who needed it—and he looked at me like he didn’t know what to do with that.
Then, after a second—he smiled.
It was small. Careful. Like even that was something he wasn’t used to.
But it was real.
And I remember thinking how strange it was, that a boy who looked like that—who carried that kind of silence in him—could still smile at all.
We stayed there as the night settled in, the cold creeping through the ground beneath us.
I moved closer without thinking, until our shoulders touched, then closer still when he didn’t pull away.
He was still tense. Still guarded.
But he didn’t move from me.
And that felt like trust.
The kind you don’t name because you’re afraid it might break if you do.
For those hours, whatever had been done to him loosened its grip.
Not gone—but quieter.
Held back by something as small, as fragile, as not being alone.
So I stayed.
Because even at eight, I understood it in a way I couldn’t explain—if I left, it would find him again.
Whatever had put that look in his eyes... it would come back.
And I couldn’t bear the thought of that.
Of him going back to it.
Not after he had started to breathe a little easier beside me.
Not after he had smiled.
I don’t remember when sleep took me.
Only that I must have trusted the quiet enough to close my eyes.
But when I woke—
The cave had fallen into a different kind of silence.
Not the careful, shared kind.
This one was hollow. Empty.
Like he had never been there at all.
My hand reached for him instinctively—
Nothing.
Just dirt.
My eyes snapped open.
Panic hit instantly.
I sat up too fast, scanning the cave, my heart slamming wildly against my ribs.
“Vin?”
No answer.
Only the echo of my own voice.
Then I saw it.
Blood.
Not a drop. Not a stain.
A trail—dragged, uneven, smeared into the dirt as if something had been pulled away against its will.
It led out of the cave.
And disappeared into the dark.
My stomach dropped.
“No... no, no—”
I scrambled after it, hands slipping against the dirt as I followed the dark streaks across the ground.
“Vin!”
My voice cracked.
I didn’t care.
I ran.
Barefoot.
Through brush and stone and shadow.
Calling his name again.
And again.
And again.
Until my throat burned. Until my lungs screamed.
Until the sun began to rise.
But he was gone.
Gone like he had never been there at all.
No body.
No sign of a struggle.
Just blood. And absence.
I searched until my legs gave out.
Until I collapsed in the dirt, shaking, choking on something that felt too much like grief for someone I had only known for hours.
But it didn’t matter.
Because those hours had changed something.
They had stayed.
Buried deep.
Like shrapnel lodged too close to the heart to remove.
And every night after that—
I replayed it.
Every word. Every look.
Every promise he had made in that quiet, broken voice.
“I’ll find you again.”
“I’ll protect you.”
“We’ll be together when we’re grown.”
Lies.
Or maybe—
Just things a broken boy needed to believe.
And now—
Here he stood.
Alive.
Not a boy anymore. Not even close.
He towered in front of me like something carved from war itself.
Broad shoulders stretched beneath the black suit like it had been made to contain something dangerous.
His jaw—
Sharp. Hard.
His mouth set in a line that promised nothing good.
And his eyes—
Those eyes.
Still dark. Still intense.
But no longer broken.
No longer searching.
They had become something else entirely.
Cold. Calculating. Deadly.
The kind of eyes that decided who lived and who didn’t—
And didn’t lose sleep over either.
His hair was shorter now—cut close, precise, every strand in place.
Everything about him radiated control.
Power rolled off him in quiet, steady waves.
Even the men by the door—the short one barely holding back his fury, the tall general with polished authority—didn’t look like protectors.
They looked like weapons.
Waiting. Watching. Ready.
For his command.
And I knew—without a doubt—if he gave the word, they would kill me without hesitation.
Still, I didn’t look away.
I couldn’t.
Because beneath all of it—beneath the suit, the power, the violence—I still saw him.
The boy in the dirt.
The one who had smiled at me like I had given him something he didn’t know he needed.
His gaze didn’t waver. Not even for a second.
“Just tell me one thing.”
His voice was low—quiet enough not to need volume to command attention, yet it filled the space anyway.
It filled me.
“Do you still desire me the way you did back then?”
The words hit too hard.
Like something sharp sliding between my ribs.
I froze. Completely.
My breath caught somewhere in my throat.
Desire?
Back then—
I hadn’t even understood what that meant.
All I knew was that I hadn’t wanted to leave him.
That I had stayed. That I had cared.
But now—
Now the word meant something else entirely.
Something dangerous.
Before I could answer—he stepped closer.
Closing the distance between us like it meant something.
Like it mattered.
“Because if you do...”
His voice dropped.
Darker. Lower. More dangerous.
“...I’ll cancel this wedding right now...”
Another step closer.
“...and make you my bride.”
My heart slammed violently against my chest.
Wait—
What?
My thoughts scattered, chaotic and unsteady.
Wedding.
Bride.
His wedding.
It all clicked at once.
The crowd I had passed. The decorations. The music.
The tension in the air.
This wasn’t just any day.
This was his day.
He was the groom.
And he was standing here—Covered in control and quiet violence—Offering to throw it all away.
For me.
For a girl who looked like this—
Sweat-soaked. Hair tangled.
Clothes stolen and worn thin.
A shadow of something that used to be whole.
I swallowed hard.
My pulse refused to slow.
This didn’t make sense.
None of it did.
My life hadn’t made sense for a long time.
Not since everything had collapsed.
Not since my father died in that plane crash—an explosion that stayed in the headlines for months.
A crash that didn’t just take him... but my mother and my brother too.
My life turned completely upside down after the tragic loss of my family.
I joined the CIA in a desperate attempt to fill the void they left behind—anything to keep the emptiness from swallowing me whole.
That decision led me onto a mission with a team of twenty-one operatives, tasked with capturing one of the world’s most dangerous men.
Al Chapo.
The CIA’s most wanted.
A terrorist. A mafia hybrid.
A man who didn’t just destroy lives—he erased them. Even now, his name makes something inside me tighten.
The mission was a disaster.
We failed.