Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Santiago was up before Julian, as he usually was. The coffee machine was on, the kitchen dark, the window showing nothing but white gravel and the slow bleed of light along the horizon.
His tension hadn't eased since Dante left.
He stood at the window, tracking the stillness outside—the empty driveway, the fence line, the absence of the stray dog that usually nosed through the yard at this hour.
“You didn't come back to bed,” Julian said behind him.
Santiago didn't turn. “Couldn't sleep.”
Julian stepped closer, his hand brushing Santiago's lower back. It was a quiet, grounding gesture that usually worked.
“Because of your brother?”
Santiago exhaled. “Because of what followed him here.”
Julian stilled. “You think someone did?”
“I think things like this don't just stop,” Santiago said. “Not for people like him.”
Julian glanced toward the front door. “We didn't see anyone. No cars, no—”
“I know.” Santiago's voice was tight. “That's what worries me.”
He turned then, meeting Julian's eyes, and whatever was in his expression stuck, because Julian's posture changed.
“Just pay attention today,” Santiago said. “Anything feels off, you tell me.”
Julian frowned. “Santiago—”
A dog barked somewhere down the street. One bark, sharp and loud.
Then nothing.
Santiago's spine went rigid. That dog never stopped at one. Never cut itself off mid-warning like that.
“Did you hear—”
The front door blew open.
The frame splintered inward, wood and glass collapsing together in a single violent instant. The sound was like a detonation, the kind of noise that empties your head of everything except the animal knowledge that something is very wrong.
Julian didn't have time to shout.
Santiago reached for the nearest thing that could serve as a weapon, but the motion barely started before a hand closed around the back of his neck and drove him forward.
His face hit the granite counter. The impact emptied his vision for a split second, and when the world came back it brought pain with it, hot and immediate, blood already filling his mouth. His hands scrabbled against the kitchen floor, trying to push himself upright.
Fingers tightened in his hair and yanked his head back, holding him in a grip that forced his spine into an arch. He couldn't move. He could barely breathe.
Santiago forced one eye open through the blur of blood.
Julian was on the floor. A woman had a knee braced between his shoulders, a blade held at his throat with the kind of still precision that made movement impossible. She wasn't straining, she wasn't even tense. She looked like someone performing a task she'd performed many times before.
Then Santiago saw the man standing over him.
Ferrera.
The recognition settled in with a feeling less like surprise and more like confirmation. The thing he'd been afraid of all night, finally given a face.
“Where is he?” Ferrera asked.
His grip tightened, forcing Santiago to meet his eyes. A boot pressed into the small of Santiago's back, firm enough to make it clear that resistance would not tolerated.
“I don't know,” Santiago said. His voice was rough but it held. “He left last night.”
Ferrera leaned closer. “Don't insult me. I've waited a long time for this conversation, and I'd prefer not to waste it on lies.”
Santiago's gaze shifted to Julian. The blade hadn't moved, but a thin line of red had formed beneath it.
Julian's eyes found his. There was fear there, but also trust, and the trust was worse, because it meant Julian believed Santiago could get them out of this, and Santiago was not sure that was true.
He couldn't win. He could only choose what he gave them.
“The girl,” the woman said. “Where were they going?”
Santiago let his breathing roughen, let the panic edge into his voice. “I don't know,” he said. “He didn't tell me where. He just said they had to get to the water.”
He held Ferrera's gaze and sold it: the desperate, half-useful confession of a man giving up what little he had.
“The water,” Ferrera repeated slowly.
Santiago held his breath.
Ferrera straightened, something clicking into place behind his eyes. “Texas has a lot of water,” he said. “You'll need to do better than that.”
The blade pressed closer. Julian's breath broke under it.
Santiago understood then, with a clarity that left no room for negotiation, that what he'd offered was not going to be enough.
Santiago felt the grit of the kitchen floor pressed into his cheek, every grain sharp against skin already slick with blood. The back of his head throbbed where the pistol had struck him, the pain pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
He tried to move his hands and felt the bite immediately.
Plastic dug into his wrists, cinched tight enough that even the smallest shift sent a burning pressure up his arms. His fingers were already tingling.
He forced his eyes open.
Julian was on his side a few feet away, wrists bound the same way, chest rising too fast. There was blood at his collar where the blade had caught him, a thin line that Santiago couldn't stop looking at.
“You have a nice home here, Santiago,” Ferrera said. “It's a long way from Torreón.”
Santiago swallowed against the swelling in his throat. “Take whatever you want. There's money in the safe. Just let him go.”
Ferrera didn't look at him. “I don't want your fucking money.” He gestured toward the hallway. “Check the rest of the house. People in a hurry always leave something.”
The woman disappeared down the hall without a sound.
Santiago tracked her absence, then forced his focus back to Julian.
Stay quiet. Stay with me.
Ferrera moved through the kitchen, unhurried, his fingers trailing along the countertop. He stopped at a framed photo on the wall of Santiago and Julian on their wedding day, laughing on a beach. He studied it for a moment.
“Where did he take her?” he asked, still facing the photo.
Santiago shook his head. “I told you. I don't know.”
Ferrera stepped forward and drove his boot into Santiago's ribs.
The air left him completely. His body curled inward, his mouth open on nothing, the pain spreading through his chest in sharp, blinding waves.
He couldn't breathe.
“Again,” Ferrera said.
Santiago forced his body to uncurl. He dragged in a breath that burned all the way down. Blood in his mouth again.
Don't say anything. Don't –
“They said something about a man.”
Julian's voice.
Santiago's head snapped toward him. “No—” It came out as a rasp.
Julian's eyes were wide, fixed somewhere past Ferrera, his breathing ragged, the panic rising in a way Santiago had been trying to hold back since they'd hit the floor.
“I heard it,” Julian said, the words rushing now, tripping over themselves. “Before they left. They said a name. Miller. That's all I heard. I swear, that's all.”
Santiago felt something drop out of his chest.
Julian.
Ferrera went still. “Miller,” he repeated.
He stepped closer to Julian and crouched, bringing himself to his level, and the shift from standing to crouching was somehow worse than the kick had been.
“Where?”
“I don't know,” Julian said, shaking his head hard enough that the cut at his throat reopened slightly. “Please. That's everything. We don't know anything else.”
Ferrera watched him for a moment, then stood.
He checked his watch. Then he looked back at Santiago. There was no anger in his expression, which was worse than if there had been.
“If this Miller turns out to be nothing,” he said, “I'll come back. And I won't be in a hurry.”
The woman reappeared in the doorway, giving a small shake of her head.
Ferrera nodded once. Then he walked out.
The house swallowed his footsteps. The remains of the front door shifted in the frame as it was pulled closed.
Silence.
Santiago lay there, the pain in his ribs constant, his hands numb behind his back. He turned his head slowly. Julian was staring at him.
“I'm sorry,” Julian whispered.
Santiago closed his eyes. Opened them.
“Next time,” he said, his voice steady despite everything, “you let me die first.”
The Sicaria stepped off the porch and pulled the door shut behind her, though it barely held in the ruined frame.
Ferrera was already in the rental, one hand draped over the wheel, tapping an impatient rhythm. She could feel the energy coming off him from across the driveway, even more volatile now that they were moving again.
She didn't go to the car. Instead, she reached into her pocket and removed a second burner phone—not the one Ferrera knew about. She turned slightly, angling her body away from the windshield, and dialed the single number stored in its memory.
The call connected on the second ring.
“Yes.”
The voice was soft, higher-pitched than you'd expect for a middle-aged man.
“The target has left the secondary location,” the Sicaria said, keeping her voice low. “He's with the woman. They're mobile.”
“Direction?”
“They referenced water before leaving. Given proximity and available routes, the Gulf is the most likely destination.” A beat. “And we have a name. Miller.”
The pause that followed was brief, but she heard the recognition in it before he spoke. “Miller,” he said. “I know that name. He's old Bureau. Witness Protection, originally, a legend in the program before he started selling his services privately. He has bolt-holes from the Delta to the Keys.”
The Sicaria waited.
“Find the car,” the voice said. “I'll find the man.”
The line went dead.
She held the phone for a moment, then powered it off and slipped it back into the pocket. Then she crossed the driveway and got into the passenger seat.
Ferrera turned to her immediately. “Well?”
“We have a lead,” she said. “Miller. He's a specialist, moves people who don't want to be found. My contact is pulling his file now.”
The word contact did what it was meant to do; it gave Ferrera enough to feel informed without giving him anything real. He didn't know who she called. He'd never asked directly, because asking would mean admitting he didn't already know, and Ferrera's pride wouldn't allow that.
“Where?” Ferrera pressed.
“Gulf coast, most likely. We use the cop to track the car. By the time they find their hole, we'll be behind them.”
Ferrera's jaw tightened, his fingers flexing on the wheel. Not with satisfaction, with something hungrier than that, something that had less to do with the operation and more to do with Castano.
“Good,” he said.
Gravel spat from the tires as they pulled away. The house shrank in the mirror behind them.