25. Chapter Twenty-five #4
I spot him instantly, already moving, no hesitation, a Glock in hand, black steel flashing with ruthless purpose.
He fires without pause, dropping attackers with cold, terrifying precision, his face twisted, lethal, eyes wild with fury and violence.
My heart lunges toward him, desperate, terrified, clinging to his strength across the chaos.
Then, slicing through the madness, Lucia screams again, sharp and hysterical. My gaze snaps to her, frozen, vulnerable, caught in the open, eyes wide with terror, body shaking violently as bullets fly like angry hornets around her.
“Lucia!” Diego’s shout rips through the gunfire, savage and raw, propelling him forward with a desperation so powerful it steals my breath. He barrels toward his daughter, arms open, shielding her, body forming a barrier without hesitation.
Time fractures. Every heartbeat stretches into a lifetime, brutal and relentless.
Kane pivots sharply, firing instantly, one shot, two, three, each bullet finding a target, carving a bloody path toward Diego and Lucia. Blood splatters stone, screams echoing, chaos multiplying around us.
But then…
The single gunshot rings out louder, sharper, more devastating.
Diego jerks violently, eyes wide with shock and pain, staggering forward. Blood erupts hot and vivid, staining his white shirt crimson, spreading horribly fast. Lucia screams again, wretched, broken, voice tearing apart the very air around us.
“NO!” Kane’s roar fractures through the courtyard, guttural, anguished. He charges forward, firing again and again, dropping every man who dares stand in his way, his face savage and haunted.
Diego crumples to his knees, still shielding Lucia with the last of his strength, his expression a twisted mask of agony and fierce, undying love. Blood pools darkly, staining his hands, his daughter’s dress.
My chest splits wide open. Lena grips me harder, crying silently, her body trembling, terror radiating from her like heat.
Kane reaches Diego, hits the ground beside him, hands shaking violently as they grip Diego’s shoulders, desperate, frantic. “Look at me, Diego…fucking look at me!”
Diego’s head tilts weakly, gaze sliding to Kane’s, eyes dimming rapidly. “Lucia…Rosa… my girls…” His words slur, drowning in blood and agony.
“I’ve got them,” Kane rasps fiercely, voice cracking, the vow seared into his words, into his heart. “They’re mine now. I swear it.”
Diego’s eyes meet mine briefly, just a single heartbeat, burning with desperate, unspoken love. Family. Loyalty. The promise we always kept hidden. And then his gaze fades, fluttering closed slowly, peacefully, despite the violence raging around us.
Kane’s broken scream echoes through the night, raw and fractured, an animalistic sound, full of loss and fury and grief that tears into my soul and leaves it bleeding.
And just like that, everything we’ve built, every fragile hope we’d gathered, shatters around us, replaced by blood, vengeance, and a violence we’ll never escape.
I’ve never heard Kane scream before.
Not like this.
Not broken. Not devastated. Not like someone who’s just lost half his heart.
He cradles Diego’s body against his chest, blood soaking through his clothes, slick and vivid against his hands, pooling slowly on the pale stones beneath them.
Lucia clings desperately to Rosa, her white quinceanera dress streaked with crimson, ruined innocence, tangled curls stuck to her tear-streaked face.
Her sobs echo sharply, a child’s grief carving deep into my bones.
The courtyard is a blur of movement, a storm of voices, shouting, crying, cursing, as guards swarm through the wreckage, guns still drawn, family members staggering helplessly, faces streaked with dust and horror.
But it all feels distant. Unreal. Because nothing matters but the man kneeling in front of me, broken beyond recognition.
I don’t remember moving, don’t remember my feet carrying me forward, but suddenly I’m there on my knees beside him, fingers trembling as they touch his arm, voice cracking open. “Kane. Baby, please…”
He doesn’t hear me.
His forehead presses hard against Diego’s, eyes closed, lips moving in an anguished whisper too quiet for me to hear clearly, but I feel every raw syllable. His blood-slicked knuckles shake violently, grief and fury radiating off him in waves.
“Mi hermano… mi sangre…” he rasps, voice splintered, breaking around each word. “No te vayas, cabrón. No me hagas esto.”
My brother. My blood. Don’t leave me, asshole. Don’t do this to me.
My throat closes painfully, tears burning sharp behind my eyes as I cup his face, desperate, begging. “Kane, please. He’s gone.”
The word gone snaps something in him violently, brutally.
He jerks away as if my touch burns, rising swiftly to his feet, fists clenched, dripping blood. His eyes, God, his eyes, they’re hollow. Flat. Drained of everything but an empty, endless rage. He’s slipped somewhere far away, beyond reach, beyond reason.
Javi storms toward us, breathless, gun still gripped tight, expression grim and ruthless. “Twelve confirmed kills, three wounded, the rest scattered.”
Joaquin’s voice is ice-cold fury, lethal promise in every word. “They won’t make it far.”
Kane doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even acknowledge them.
Instead, he turns slowly, every muscle in his body coiled, vibrating with restrained violence.
He steps forward, gaze fixed ahead, silent, deadly.
And then he walks each step deliberate, heavy, unstoppable toward the darkness, toward vengeance.
Toward war.
Kane
I can’t feel my fucking hands.
They’re numb, shaking, drenched in Diego’s blood, blood that should never have been spilled. Blood I failed to stop. My pulse pounds violently in my ears, sharp and relentless, drowning out every rational thought. This was my fault. My responsibility.
I should’ve anticipated it. Should’ve seen it coming a mile away, tightened security, shifted patrols, something. Anything. I should’ve known.
Instead, Diego is lying dead. Shot down in front of his wife, his daughter. In front of me.
And Camille…God, Camille. She stood frozen, watching death tear through our family, clutching her stomach like she could shield the fragile life inside her from this brutal, relentless storm I’ve brought into our world.
They wanted to deliver a message.
Now I’ll send one back written in blood, sealed with vengeance.
I storm down the corridors, every step echoing violently, boots pounding the floor, adrenaline and fury driving me forward. Guards flatten themselves to walls, eyes downcast, not daring to speak, barely daring to breathe as I pass.
They know this look. They’ve seen it once before, years ago, when I lost my father.
Blood slicks my palms. Rage turns my vision red at the edges.
I slam open the steel doors of the war room. Javi and Joaquin are already there, faces set like stone, grim and waiting, their expressions confirming what I already know: this means war.
Maps glow ominously, satellite images flickering overhead, infrared tracking heat signatures like deadly ghosts across a screen. They both turn toward me, prepared for orders, knowing better than to question.
“I want names,” I demand, voice edged in broken glass and steel. “Every single bastard connected to the men who set foot here tonight. Every fucking one.”
Javi’s fingers fly instantly over the keys, fierce determination in each keystroke. “On it.”
“Start with every last Reyes associate who’s still breathing,” I bite out sharply. “Then bleed the Serbian line dry. Drag out every Eastern Bloc connection they have, cut every pipeline they’ve built.”
Joaquin’s voice is cold, quiet, deadly. “They won’t survive the night.”
I lock eyes with him, unflinching. “They shouldn’t survive the fucking hour.”
The screens blur, faces, numbers, locations, targets, all morphing into a single, ruthless goal:
Annihilation. Absolute and merciless.
When I’m done, even their ashes won’t remain.
I grip the edge of the table, knuckles white, Diego’s blood flaking beneath my fingernails, staining my skin. For a heartbeat, silence crushes the room, heavy and suffocating.
Then I raise my eyes slowly, meeting Javi’s hard stare. “Send someone for Diego’s body. He doesn’t stay here.”
“Where to?”
“Colombia.” My throat closes around the word, grief slicing sharp and savage. “Bury him next to our father. Give him the respect he fucking earned.”
Javi nods, jaw clenched tight. “And Rosa? Lucia?”
“I’ll guard them myself,” I growl, each word bitten out like a vow. “Every goddamn second until this ends.”
Camille’s face flashes vividly in my mind, tear-streaked, terrified, pleading my name, desperately trying to hold me back from the cliff I’ve balanced on my entire life.
But tonight, I’m done balancing.
Tonight, I’m diving headfirst into the darkness.
Camille
The house feels wrong.
Too quiet. Too heavy. The silence swallows every sound, muffling even our shallow breaths.
It shouldn’t feel empty, there are too many people for that.
Too many guards pacing restlessly at every door, every window, shadows armed to the teeth.
And Diego’s family, his shattered heart, spread out through the compound like pieces scattered in grief.
I sit with Rosa and Lucia, hours passing in slow agony.
Three bodies pressed close, linked only by numb hands and unspoken devastation.
Lucia hasn’t spoken since they took her father away.
She stays curled into Rosa’s side, eyes blank, unfocused.
Every now and then, her small frame shudders violently, tremors she can’t control.
Rosa’s face is stone, tears dried on her cheeks, eyes staring blindly at nothing.
Marisol and Reina drift like ghosts through the hallways, holding onto each other like lifelines, their faces haunted, broken. Sisters who’ve lost their protector, their anchor. Reina’s whispered prayers bleed softly into Marisol’s quiet, choking sobs, the sound heartbreakingly raw.