Chapter 14
The deafening roar of helicopter blades sliced through the predawn darkness at the small Aquidauana aerodrome, mingling with the humid wind sweeping in from the plains.
Five days had passed since I found the wrecked pickup, and I hadn’t slept more than a few minutes at a stretch since then.
I was leaning against the hood of my truck, mud-caked shirt clinging to my body, studying a topographic map spread open under the headlights.
Rocha and his tactical team were already geared up—rifles slung over their shoulders, bulletproof vests strapped on—waiting only for coordinates.
The problem was that the Pantanal was a dark green ocean.
There were hundreds of abandoned retreats, river islands, and dead-end channels where Nicanor could have hidden Rosário.
Every second that ticked by, the air in my lungs felt like shards of glass.
That’s when the headlights of three black armored SUVs came tearing down the access road, braking hard just meters from our perimeter.
Rocha raised his hand, and the four men on my team flicked off their safeties in one synchronized motion, training their weapons on the incoming vehicles. My blood ran cold. My first thought was that Jurandir had sent the rest of his thugs to stop me.
I pulled the gun from Rocha’s waistband, thumbed off the safety, and took two steps forward.
The door of the first SUV swung open. The man who stepped out wasn’t wearing hired muscle’s clothes or mud-caked boots.
He wore an impeccable dark suit, custom-tailored, and had the bearing of someone accustomed to toppling empires without so much as blinking.
He ignored the guns aimed at his head and walked toward me.
“Lower your weapons. We didn’t come for a shootout, Jo?o Bento.” His voice was deep, controlled, lethal—cutting through the roar of the helicopter rotors. “I’m Henrique Castillo. Lawyer. And judging by the mercenaries around you, I presume you’re not acting on your father’s orders.”
The name registered. Castillo. One of S?o Paulo’s top criminal defense attorneys.
The rear door of the vehicle opened next. A woman stepped out, flanked closely by two private security guards. She had dark hair loose around her shoulders, wore a heavy coat against the wind, and her eyes held a quiet but unshakeable fury.
“My name is Maria Rita,” she said, stopping beside the lawyer. Her voice didn’t waver, even with my team’s rifles trained on her. “We are the P.O. Box 104 network. And we know exactly where Rosário is.”
The world stopped spinning. I lowered the gun slowly, my hands shaking uncontrollably.
“Where?” My voice came out as a ragged growl, desperation shattering the mask of coldness. I lurched toward her. “Where is she?!”
Maria Rita’s security guards stepped forward, blocking my path, and Henrique planted himself firmly between us, his dark, cold gaze boring into me.
“You won’t take another step until you convince us you deserve that information,” Henrique fired back with the authority of a man who dictated the rules.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “We received her distress letter yesterday morning. The message reached us after being smuggled out by a cook who escaped from captivity. In the last thirty hours, we chartered a jet to Campo Grande, contacted the Federal Police, and confirmed the coordinates—because the women this network protects don’t die in some colonel’s mud. ”
“Then give me the coordinates!” I shouted, my voice cracking, my gaze darting from the lawyer’s face to the woman beside him. “They’re going to drown her! Nicanor could kill her at any moment!”
Maria Rita didn’t back down. She looked me up and down with a sharp empathy laced with deep contempt.
“The letter also described what happened at the auction, Jo?o Bento,” Maria Rita said, and every word was a surgical blade to my chest. “You stood on a stage in front of the entire state and treated her like trash. You called her a pathetic mistake. You turned your back on her and kissed the hands of the family that bought your silence. Why should we hand over the location of a woman in captivity to the very man who threw her to the lions?”
Shame and agony collided, buckling my knees.
My body couldn’t bear the weight of what I’d done. The gun slipped from my fingers and hit the gravel with a hollow thud. I dropped to my knees on the wet tarmac, ignoring my men, ignoring the relentless lawyer and the pride of my surname.
“Because I thought I was saving her,” I whispered, a sob tearing through my throat, tears streaming down my dirt-streaked face.
I looked at Maria Rita, pleading with everything I had left.
“My father pointed a shotgun at my head the next morning. He said if I didn’t go through with that damn engagement, Nicanor would drown her in the river and I’d be the one responsible.
I destroyed her heart because it was the only way to keep her breathing!
I humiliated the only woman I’ve ever loved so she’d take the truck and get off this ranch alive! ”
I doubled over, bracing both hands on the cold gravel.
“I didn’t know the old man was lying, or that they’d ambush her on the road.
” My voice shattered into a violent sob.
I lifted my face, cheeks wet with tears.
“I swear on my life, I’ll burn this entire state to the ground, I’ll kill my own father with my bare hands, but I will not let my Rosário die!
Please. I’m begging you. Tell me where she is. ”
Silence descended over the airstrip, thicker than the fog.
Henrique and Maria Rita exchanged glances. The lawyer’s distrust wavered. Maria Rita seemed to read the raw, shattered truth in my desperation. I imagined she knew how to recognize when a man had died inside to protect the one he loved.
She nodded slowly to Henrique.
Maria Rita walked around the security guards, came over to me, and knelt on the gravel so we were eye to eye. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, stained with dust and moisture.
“Célia spent the night rowing downriver and managed to flag down help on the road at dawn. She got this to one of our contacts before being taken to the federal police station that Henrique has already secured,” Maria Rita explained, her voice gentle but laced with steely urgency.
She unfolded the paper in front of me. “Read the letter, Jo?o Bento. Read it and understand why your desperation needs to turn into focus. Now!”
I grabbed the paper with hands that trembled violently. Rosário’s handwriting was rushed, crooked, the pen tearing through the paper with the force of her panic.
I read about the captivity. I read about the water rising and Nicanor’s promise that there would be no body left. Air came into my lungs in sharp, cutting bursts, and my chest ached as if it were being pierced by fire.
But when my eyes reached the last line of the message, my heart stopped beating. The entire universe froze.
“I think I’m pregnant. If this letter reaches someone, please... don’t let them take my child too.”
Pregnant!
The word wasn’t read; it detonated inside my head like a fragmentation grenade.
The night at the research station. The storm.
Our love. The sweat and the silent promise.
She was carrying my child in her womb. She was locked in a flooded room, fighting off murderers, protecting our child alone in the dark, while I drank whiskey at the auction.
“A child...” The whisper escaped my lips, hollow and terrified.
I let go of the paper, which flew a few inches and landed on Henrique’s boot.
The shock lasted only the fraction of a second it took for my heart to shatter completely, but in the next instant, the submissive, cowardly, easily manipulated man ceased to exist for good.
The lioness wasn’t the only one who knew how to fight for her young.
The alpha predator of the Falc?o lineage awakened in my blood, not to defend my father’s empire, but to annihilate it.
I rose from the gravel. The tears dried in my eyes, replaced by a coldness so lethal and focused that even Henrique took half a step back.
“The coordinates of the old retreat are on the back of the page,” Henrique said, picking up the paper and handing it to me, his tone shifting from accuser to war partner.
“The Federal Police from Campo Grande are on their way, but they’ll take at least three hours to cross the flooded area.
We also have boats and armed security at our disposal. ”
“We’re not waiting for the police,” I said, my voice deadly and frighteningly calm. I turned to the head of my tactical team. “Rocha, call the pilot. Activate the searchlights. We’re dropping into that retreat in fifteen minutes.”
“If the helicopter approaches, the sound of the rotors will warn Nicanor before you touch the ground. He might kill her out of desperation,” Henrique warned, his strategic mind working coldly.
“We’re not landing,” I declared, grabbing the radio from Rocha’s chest vest. My gaze fixed on the darkness of the plain. “We’re jumping into the water fifty meters from the target, coming in by the river, while the rain muffles the sound. And if Nicanor is inside that room with her and my child...”
I swallowed hard, clenching my jaw until my teeth cracked.
“...I’m not just going to disarm him. I’m going to rip his head off with my own hands.”
I turned my back on the chartered planes and ran toward the helicopter, climbing aboard as the rotors spun up to full speed. There was no more mourning. There was no more fear. There was only the blind, blood-soaked certainty that no one would survive that night if they dared touch what was mine.