Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
AMALIA (PRESENT)
“Lalla Ines, I swear it wasn’t me,” Mehdi sputtered, his voice rising an octave. My silence weighed heavily on him—it always made them squirm—so he added, “Please, I didn’t tell anyone where the drop would be.” The panic in his voice grated my nerves and I played around with the idea of killing him to save myself another fifteen minutes of interrogation.
The only reason I hadn’t yet was because I needed him alive for answers.
I released the bridge of my nose and flicked my gaze up to where he was hanging, blood pooling under him from the latest cut I inflicted him with.
His oily hair stuck to his damp forehead, his skin was pale from the blood loss and he was in his signature tracksuit. Chains encircled his wrists which were tethered to the hook that extended from the ceiling.
My eyebrow quirked up at his plea. “Spare me your lies, Mehdi,” I said, cleaning my nail beds with the bloodied curved dagger. “I only told a few people. You happened to be one of them and all the others are dead.”
Whatever color he had left drained from his face at my statement, the reality of his fate sinking in.
Metal scraped against concrete as I stood up from the chair I’d been sitting in. Cold indifference settled over me like a second skin as I walked over to the wall of his cell and pressed the button that controlled the hook from which he was hanging. The loud, clanging sound rattled against the walls and Mehdi’s pleas rose.
“Please, Lalla Ines. I promise it wasn’t me!”
“Beg all you want. I like it,” I taunted. “You’ll tell me what I need in a few seconds so I can go back to enjoying my breakfast before it was rudely interrupted.”
I had barely taken a sip of my coffee when Hamza, Omar’s underboss, came over to tell me they’d finally caught Mehdi, who had been on the run for the last five days.
I usually dealt directly with Barrera, but since his son Mateo had died recently, he’d been a little unstable, to say the least. He kept making rash decisions and snapped—or shot, depending on his mood—at anyone who disagreed with him.
Even, or should I say especially , when they were right.
We’d been having issues with our cargo over the last few months and this man right here was our leak. Every time we’d struck a deal with the Dutch and scheduled a drop to acquire the guns they provided us with, Alaoui’s soldiers, Barrera’s biggest rival, had magically shown up, stolen our cargo, and killed our men in the process.
The Alaoui cartel usually dealt in trafficking, but for some reason, over the last few months, they’d been stealing the guns the Dutch provided for us in exchange for access to our ports.
After a few failed drops, I’d decided to leak the information about our next fictional exchange to the few men I suspected were stupid enough to spill the information to any rival cartels that were interested for a couple hundred dollars.
“Please, Ines.”
I snapped my attention back to him. “What did you just call me?” I asked as I strode closer, stepping into the blood-stained concrete, and pointed my knife at him.
“I… I’m sorry, Lalla Ines,” he blabbered when I slid the bloodied tip down to between his fourth and fifth rib, right where the apex of his heart was. He closed his eyes as I pressed lightly. “I… I didn’t mean… Wallah ? 1 I didn’t say anything. I… I can help you…”
He kept going on and on, but I tuned the rest of his words out.
God, were men exasperating when their lives were on the line. The lies, the pathetic pleas to save their skin. But the more they begged for their lives, the guiltier they were.
And the more I enjoyed terminating them.
An irritated sigh left my lips. “Stop making false promises. I already know it’s you. I just need you to tell me who from the Alaoui cartel you’ve been leaking the information to.” I pressed a little harder and blood bloomed on his already soiled white shirt from the force. “You can either be a good boy and tell me, or I can make you tell me.” I twisted the knife slightly to help with penetrating his skin. “And trust me, you don’t want that.”
He recoiled when I made eye contact and fear emanated off his skin.
I reveled in it.
Being undercover for this long changed you, whether you wanted it to or not. After killing the amount of people I’d killed for Barrera, the darkness had skewed my sense of morality and blurred the lines of why I was actually here.
In my time here, the information I’d collected had ranged from how much it cost to pay off corrupt officials to how to efficiently slit someone’s throat, something the Bureau definitely hadn’t taught me before sending me here.
Over the years, I’d kept convincing myself that despite the innocence that had perished at my hands, I was serving justice.
By all means necessary, right?
I’d been undercover working for Barrera as his sicario for almost three years now and spent the last five before that making a name for myself as one of the most feared hitmen in Morocco.
I knew Barrera wouldn’t hire a woman to work for him, so I had to do everything I could to convince him I was the best person for the job after his previous hitman was killed in an accident.
And that bastard had been a tough one to kill.
Killing a cartel man was already not the easiest task, but killing a sicario was a bitch. They didn’t have a routine and were suspicious of everyone. Although getting him alone and vulnerable wasn’t an effortless mission, I’d finally done it because men always had a weakness.
I’d found his just in time to strike and finally get my in with Barrera.
After coming for many key players in his territories, I’d finally been able to put myself on Barrera’s radar and he’d requested a meeting. He didn’t meet with anyone unless they made themselves valuable and hard to kill.
And that’s what I’d been across every region in the country.
Feared and respected.
Even if that came with a price.
My morality.
After that, the only thing I had to do was charm him off his feet and make sure no one else would take the position I’d worked years for. That ended up being easy because who would expect a woman to be behind all those murders?
Bringing Barrera down would cement my career and I needed to prove myself. Especially after rumors of me sleeping with a superior started roaming around the Academy while I trained there.
Cries grated against my ears and I snapped my attention back to my latest prey. Tears stained his bloodied face—a result of the previous session he’d had with Hamza—and snot dripped down his nose and over his mouth, landing on his soiled clothes.
My mouth twisted in disgust at the sight and annoyance pricked under my skin.
“Stop fucking crying. You know you’re dying, so just tell me what I need to know.”
“ Allah y hafdek Lalla Ines ? 2 , please… I’m sure we can come to an agreement,” he sniffled, desperation coating his voice.
My ears perked up because desperation always led to bargaining and he was about to finally reveal what I’d been looking for.
“I can even get you information from Zak—” He slammed his mouth shut and my lips twitched.
There he goes.
“Did you mean to say Zakaria? As in Alaoui’s underboss?”
Thinking he finally had bargaining power, Mehdi said, “J-just let me down. I’m sure you can be reasonable and we can discuss this.”
I didn’t answer right away. I pretended to think about his offer, even though there was no way I was trusting him. The audacity he had to think him snitching to rivals then turning on them would make me consider keeping him alive and giving him a second chance.
There was no such thing when it came to the cartel, especially Barrera’s.
Besides, if you couldn’t be loyal to the hand that fed you, you could never be trusted again.
He must have taken my silence as his saving grace because when we locked eyes, hope swarmed in his brown irises.
But I gave him a cold smile and that same hope instantly faded. His eyes widened as blood pooled out of his lips.
Mehdi was lucky Barrera wasn’t here today and I was hungry because his death would’ve been a much lengthier process otherwise.
I left my knife inside his chest cavity until his head slumped forward and the stench of urine filtered through my nose.
Thank fuck I don’t have to deal with cleanup.
When the room quieted down and Mehdi took his final breath, I pulled my knife out of his body. A warm gush sprayed across my front and I looked down at my once white tank top, now painted in red.
I rolled my eyes and scoffed in annoyance—I’d just changed.
I reached for the pocket of Mehdi’s tracksuit pants and retrieved his phone with the tips of my fingers, avoiding the large stain soiling the front. Using the tip of my dagger, I lifted his face and let the device scan it.
Once it unlocked, I let go and his head bobbed down. Zakaria didn’t need to know Mehdi died yet, so might as well use it to my advantage.
I wiped my dagger onto the fabric of his pants before sliding it back into its sheath strapped to my thigh. After I stepped out of the cell, I ordered the two soldiers guarding it to call the cleanup crew.
Once I was back in the courtyard, I plopped back into my seat and reached for my untouched tea glass. The now cold liquid had barely touched my lips when Hamza’s voice chimed behind me.
“Did you get what we needed?”
I let out a sigh when he plopped in the seat on the other side of the round tiled table. He grabbed a handful of qrishlat ? 3 and popped them in his mouth.
“It wasn’t him, so we’re back to square one,” I lied, dumping the tea back into the teapot and pouring myself another glass.
Hamza grunted his discontentment. “Fuck. I was so sure he was the one.”
I sipped on the hot tea and tore a piece of msemen ? 4 . “Yeah,” was my only reply before dipping the flatbread into melted butter then honey and bringing it to my mouth.
“Well,” he said, standing from his seat and making his way toward my seat. “I’ll relay the information to Ra’is ? 5 and with all of them dead, hopefully the Alaouis stop stealing from us.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder. “And take a shower before our meeting. You smell like death.”
“Noted,” I replied and returned to eating.
1 ? I swear.
2 ? God I’m begging you Ms. Ines.
3 ? Miniature Moroccan shortbread cookies.
4 ? Moroccan flatbread.
5 ? Means “leader” or “chief” in Arabic and is the title Barrera’s men call him.