Bloodbound Bride of the Cartel

Prologue – Matías

The jungle hums with life, its tangled vines and towering canopies rustling with unseen whispers—secrets carried on the wind, murmured by creatures hidden in the shadows.

The convoy moves in a slow, deliberate crawl along the dirt road, blacked-out SUVs cutting through the dense Amazon underbrush.

The night is saturated with the sweet loamy smell of wet earth that serves as a cover for the vehicles that huff toxic exhaust with every mile they venture deeper.

I sit in the second vehicle, my fingers drumming restlessly against my thigh, my gun warm against my palm.

Instinct keeps me alert, despite the late hour.

I scan the trees, watching the way the mist clings too low to the jungle, floor.

Something doesn’t feel right. I can’t place my finger on why, but the niggling feeling won’t accede to evidence to the contrary.

Up ahead, in the lead SUV, Tomás is relaxed—too relaxed. Always too relaxed, my princeling brother. His elbow is visible, nudged out the open window, a cigarette dangling between his fingers as he smirks into the night.

“You feel that?” I hiss into the radio.

I’d told him this wasn’t a bright idea. What reason was there—good reason, at least—for movement in the middle of the night, in multiple vehicles? I should at least be with him. He’s a terrible fucking shot.

Static crackles. Then his voice pours out the speaker, amused. “Feel what, hermano? The fact that we’ve run this route a hundred times, and it’s always the same? Riveting stuff.”

I don’t reply to that. What the fuck does a hundred times have to do with the hundred and first?

I think it, but don’t bother to reason with him through a fucking radio.

Tomás won’t listen anyway. What does it matter that I’m the one tasked with protecting him?

He is still the one in charge. Exalted firstborn son and pompous heir, as if we aren’t Irish twins.

We both have our duties; his don’t comprise of taking my concerns into account.

It’s the spiel I’ll get spat in my face if I push.

I don’t need to hear it from him again.

I just turn my gun in my hand, feeling out its divots and edges, the tactile practice grounding me. The irony isn’t fucking lost on me, when part of my unease is attributed to the man slotted into Tomás’ car tonight.

The younger guards and I follow closely enough behind Tomás in the front vehicle that I can see the outline of David Beltrán sitting stiff-backed beside him.

The dim glow from the dashboard catches the hard lines of his face.

He doesn’t belong here. He’s a businessman peddling weaponry, not a soldier who can be trusted to use them if need be.

Of course, our mother insisted Tomás humor him, and Tomás denies her nothing, ever, eternally latched to her teat, so here Beltrán is: in the car with Tomás while I guard from a distance, not privy to whatever deal my brother deigns to make next.

Oh, and then there’s the fun fact of David Beltrán being Tomás’ father-in-law to be, provided Tomás doesn’t run his waifish angel of a daughter off first.

A small mercy: at least he’d agreed to wear a wire so I could listen in.

I can hear as well as watch Tomás exhale smoke into the night, the cherry of his cigarette flaring.

He turns to David. “Our father would’ve liked you,” I hear him muse.

It isn’t true—but Tomás will say any number of things, true or not, to charm a snake.

“You’ve got that same quiet arrogance he did.

The way you act like you know better than everyone else. ”

David doesn’t respond.

“You should keep it within reason, though,” he continues. Tomás glances at me through the side mirror. His eyes crinkle. I know he’s grinning without having to look at him. “You wouldn’t want me to unleash my soulless monster of a brother on you, would you?”

More like, My brother, the only one not afraid to get his fucking hands dirty.

I stare at his reflection, our late father’s eyes on Tomás’ face, lit up in humor at my expense, forever.

I don’t react. I’m too used to Tomás’ jabs to let them get under my skin.

It isn’t as if he hasn’t stated a fact. We both have our roles to play.

He can say such things, like he has before.

It is enough that they are always mostly in jest and always expelled with that easy confidence of a man who has never needed to fight for his place.

Before long, Tomás has successfully coaxed the arms dealer into eating out of his fucking palm, like they all eventually learn to. I let their conversation blur to background chatter.

I look away, out into the trees. The night is too quiet. No insects. No rustling leaves. Just the steady hum of the engines, the crunch of tires over damp earth.

Something is wrong.

Then, a syncopated flicker—a rustle of movement high in the canopy. A nightjar’s clapping wings take off, too abruptly, out of left field.

A second flicker. My breath stalls—just enough for instinct to scream in my bones.

I inhale sharply. “Stop the convoy,” I order down the radio.

“What?” Tomás huffs, sounding irate. Arrogant bastard.

We don’t have the fucking time for this.

A hard, rankled edge cuts into my words. “Stop the fucking convoy, Tomás. We’re under att—”

All I catch is a glint of metal flashing in the darkness before it all detonates.

Fuck. It’s too late. Too late, too late, too late.

The explosion rips through the night in a deafening roar that swallows everything.

The lead SUV is consumed in an instant, flames licking hungrily at the jungle, the metal frame twisting and groaning under the force.

The blast wave slams into us, the impact so violent it lifts our vehicle off its wheels before gravity drags us back down.

My head snaps forward, my vision seesawing between pitch black and the blinding inferno of chaos surrounding us.

There’s no reprieve before gunfire erupts.

I barely register what’s being shouted over the ringing in my ears.

The radio is a mess of voices, frantic and disjointed.

I push myself to move. Searing agony screams in my shoulder as I reach for my weapon.

Dislocated, I diagnose. There’s no time.

Smoke billows, acrid and asphyxiating, the scent of burning rubber and flesh spreads through the vicinity.

A wave of nausea grips me, relentless and suffocating, as the pain burrows deep, twisting my stomach into a tight, unbearable knot.

Tomás. He is my only thought. My brother. I need to get to—

“Tomás!” I can’t help the strangled cry.

Biting back a wounded wail, I shove the door open with my good shoulder, slamming hard, over and over, until I’m stumbling onto the dirt road. My knees nearly buckle, but I grit my teeth and push forward. There’s no choice. I have to get to him.

Already, the wreckage of the lead SUV is devastating, the vehicle barely visible through the rising flames, bodies scattered around it like broken dolls.

The shadows slither between the trees, swift and precise, their movements cutting through the dense foliage like blades.

This is no mere ambush—it is a hunt, a calculated execution.

Branches snap underfoot, leaves rustle with each shift, but none of it matters over the roaring fire and the ticking inevitability of the car about to explode.

The jungle is alive with sound—distant calls of the wild, the crackling of heat against metal—yet the real predators move through it, undeterred, closing in.

A bullet ricochets off the side of our vehicle.

I duck on instinct, raising my gun.

The jungle devours the muzzle flashes, flickers of death swallowed whole by the dense, suffocating dark. But I can feel them—phantom eyes burrowing into my skin, tracking every breath, every twitch of movement, unseen but undeniable.

Then—another burst of gunfire.

Glass shatters, razor-sharp shards spraying like a deadly mist as the windshield explodes.

A choked gasp cuts through the chaos, and before I can turn, he’s down.

One of my men crumples beside me with a sickening thunk, his body jerking once before going still.

His throat is a ruin, a gaping mess of crimson spilling into the mud, drenched into the earth like an offering to whatever gods rule this bloodstained jungle.

Survive. Fight. Kill.

I move low, using the SUV as cover, my finger tightening on the trigger.

A silhouette emerges from the tree line, raising his rifle.

I don’t hesitate. One shot to the chest, another to the head.

He crumples without a sound. I turn, scanning for Tomás.

There is no time. He was in the lead vehicle. He has to be—

A scream tears through the dark. Raw and guttural.

I whip around just in time to see him dragged from the wreckage, his body limp between two masked men. His face is slick with blood, his chest barely rising.

“Tomás!” I scream again, throat raw with soot.

My brother, my brother… I lurch forward, but pain explodes in my leg, white-hot and unforgiving.

The intensity pleats my legs beneath me with the cry of a wounded animal, brought to my fucking knees.

The agony is—fuck, the agony. My mind is shattered.

My hands are slick. I can no longer tell if the blood is even mine or not.

The gun slips out of my grasp, careening to the wayside.

I strain to reach for it, panting through the shockwaves of torment.

A boot slams down on my wrist, crushing it into the dirt; I hear the bones give with a vile crunch before I can begin to process what’s occurred.

There is a deafening shriek. It takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from me.

The world tilts, spinning in a haze of fire and blood.

I taste iron, thick and warm, coating my tongue as I force myself up, my fingers digging into the dirt.

My body protests, pain eviscerating its way through my leg, my face slick with something wet.

I press a shaking hand to my cheek, and when I pull it away, it comes back crimson.

My blood, then, I think fuzzily.

Then: Tomás.

In some sick stroke of serendipity, that’s when I hear my brother howl in anguish.

It takes everything in me to lift my cheek from the ground.

Through the fire and smoke, and the useless tears now streaming down my face, I can see him.

He’s on his knees now, primed for execution.

A gun is pressed against his forehead. There is a plea that lives and dies in my swollen throat.

My brother. There is a gash in his forehead already, and he’s blinking against blood, held up and made to watch on.

David Beltrán lies crumpled beside him, his body twitching as blood spills from his mouth.

The jungle devours his gasps, drowning him in its eternal silence.

Maybe he was trying to negotiate. Trying to talk his way out of this.

He never understood that men like us don’t get mercy.

It doesn’t much matter anymore, does it?

It is futile and I know it, on some level; nothing could stop me from crawling towards Tomás, fighting every screaming muscle. I never get a chance to reach them. In front of my very eyes, the masked man holding Tomás cocks his head, and without a word—

BANG! David’s body jerks, then slumps, lifeless.

Tomás cries out. A wounded, animalistic sound. A sound I never thought I’d hear from him. But it’s short-lived.

The gun shifts again.

A second shot splits the night.

Tomás’ body folds forward, his head snapping back, blood spraying the dirt.

I don’t remember moving. One second, I’m kneeling. The next, I’m on my feet, stumbling, lunging, roaring, my hands reaching for a weapon that isn’t there. Another crack of gunfire rains down. A jagged, searing pain claws through my face—splitting skin and shattering bone in its wake.

My vision goes white, a deafening ringing destroys my world.

The impact slams me back into the earth.

For a moment, I swear I hear the familiar drawl of Tomás’ voice: "Heavy is the head that wears the fucking crown, Mat."