Chapter 11
The office's heavy double doors gave way with a monumental crash when I kicked them open, the fine wood cracking and slamming violently against the plastered walls.
Jurandir Falc?o sat in his executive chair, whiskey glass frozen millimeters from his lips, his silent celebration of the auction abruptly interrupted. The old man blinked in surprise, but the mask of untouchable patriarch quickly slid back into place—arrogant and cynical.
“Have you lost your mind, Jo?o Bento?” he bellowed, rising with the deliberate slowness of a man who believes he owns the world. “There are hundreds of guests out there. What's the meaning of this savagery?”
I didn't answer. Air tore through my lungs. The dried blood on my knuckles—cut from punching the gravel where her phone had been crushed—burned, but it was a pain numbed by the animalistic fury coursing through every fiber of my body. I crossed the room in three long strides.
Before Jurandir could open his mouth again, I grabbed him by the collar of his starched shirt.
The force of the impact sent the leather chair toppling backward.
I slammed his back against the trophy shelf, sending silver cups and picture frames crashing to the floor in a hellish cacophony of shattering glass and metal.
“Where is she?” My voice came out as a rough, primitive growl—unrecognizable even to me.
“Get your hands off me, you weakling!” Jurandir snarled back, trying to shove my arms away, but my brute strength caught him off guard. Fear finally surfaced in those gray eyes. “You've lost your mind!”
“I found the truck, Father!” I screamed, pressing him harder against the sharp wood of the shelf until I could see the vein in his neck throbbing. “I saw the overturned car in the ravine and recognized Nicanor's boot print stamped in the dirt! What flooded pit did you drag her to?!”
The patriarch stopped fighting. A narrow, perverse smile began to form on his thin lips, confirming my worst and most terrifying fear.
The man who fathered me was nothing but a cold monster, drunk on his own power, convinced that money and the Pantanal's lawlessness would shield him from any retaliation.
“I only did what you didn't have the courage to do, Jo?o Bento,” Jurandir spat, his words dripping with venom.
“You were going to let that whore destroy our family.
Threaten my empire with government paperwork.
She's already vanished, kid. Piranha food in the wetlands. Nicanor clears the pasture so the real heirs can walk without dirtying their boots.”
The confession exploded inside my head like a grenade.
I released his collar with a violent shove.
I spun and, with one sweep of my arm, cleared the solid mahogany desk.
The computer, crystal bottles, leather folders, and the merger contracts I had just signed flew through the air, crashing against the masonry wall and reducing the office to absolute destruction.
The whiskey pooled across the Persian rug like dirty blood.
Jurandir retreated, alarmed, bracing himself against the broken shelf as I advanced again, finally standing at my full height before him.
“Your empire died today,” I decreed, my voice so low, lethal, and implacable that it made him swallow hard. “The son who strained at your leash no longer exists, Jurandir. I'm no longer your heir. I no longer recognize your blood.”
“You're nothing without Fazenda Falc?o!” he shouted, trying to recover his false authority, though terror was creeping across his aged face. “If you breathe one word about this, I swear I'll...”
“You swear what? You'll send Nicanor after me?” I interrupted, taking a step forward, my eyes burning with a blind promise of violence.
“Listen carefully, because I'm only going to say this once.
If one drop of her blood has been spilled in your waters, if she's not breathing when I find her, I swear on my own soul I'll burn this ranch house down with you inside.
I'll destroy every cent you ever stole, tear this operation apart piece by piece, and watch the Federal Police drag you handcuffed through the dust!”
I turned my back on the man I used to call father and walked out of the destroyed office.
Country music and laughter from the tents still echoed outside the main house. In the hallway, I crossed paths with Isadora, who was holding a champagne glass. Her eyes went wide at the sight of my filthy shirt and bloodied fists.
“Bento? What happened? The merger...”
“The deal's off. Get your things, get your family off my land, and go to hell,” I shot back without breaking stride, ignoring her shocked cry.
I marched straight to the security room at the back of the main house, where the radio system and satellite phones were running.
I locked the iron door from the inside, sealing myself off from the disgusting party still going on just meters away.
The submissive heir in expensive suits had been left behind on the shattered glass of Jurandir's office floor; the man who sat in that chair was covered in sweat and dust, filled with deadly resolve.
I grabbed the phone and dialed a direct line to S?o Paulo—an exclusive number for an elite private security firm run by Rocha, a former special ops soldier I'd worked with off the books in the past, deliberately kept hidden from my father for emergencies the Pantanal couldn't handle.
The phone rang twice before a rough voice answered.
“Rocha.”
“This is Jo?o Bento Falc?o,” I said, my voice tight with raw, unrelenting urgency. “I want your best tactical team at my ranch. Now!”
“Mr. Falc?o? Has there been an attack on the property? Do we need to call the local police?”
“Forget the local police—half of them are on my father’s payroll.
You work for me. I want high-powered spotlights, interception weapons, trackers, and at least six fast boats rigged for flooded terrain,” I ordered, tapping my fingertips on the metal table, my mind mapping out the most remote areas of the Pantanal.
“A foreman named Nicanor kidnapped a woman and dragged her into the wetlands. Time is running out.”
“That’s a massive search area, doctor. It could take days.”
“We don’t have days, Rocha!” I bellowed, veins bulging in my neck, panic battling to overtake rage.
Rosário’s terrified face flooded my thoughts, and the idea that she could be hurt, scared, struggling to breathe under the mud, was driving me out of my mind.
“I’ll pay triple, quintuple your contract.
I’ll pay whatever you demand to drag your best men out of bed.
Get the helicopter to the southern border before dawn. ”
“Understood. We’ll be airborne in twenty minutes with scanning equipment. What are the rules of engagement, sir?”
I closed my eyes for a split second. The image of Jurandir smiling in the office collided with the boot print pressed into the dry earth where Rosário had been ripped from her vehicle. I’d tried to play fair my whole life, and it had almost cost me the woman I loved.
“The order is rescue at all costs—no limits,” I decreed, opening my eyes, my soul plunging into the darkness necessary to survive that empire and annihilate its rats. “And if Nicanor crosses your path... I don’t care if he comes back breathing. We’re going hunting.”