Chapter 8
EIGHT
Ryan woke with a full body jerk. The room was dim, and for a second, he wasn’t sure what had pulled him from sleep. Then he heard it.
A vibration. Low. Mechanical.
He pushed himself up, every instinct sparking. The chair under the door was still wedged in place, the bolt still drawn.
And yet, there it was again. A buzz. Then silence. Then another buzz.
He crouched beside the bed, pulling up the thin mattress. Nothing. The next vibration made him whirl around and lock his attention onto the table. He got onto his hands and knees, and then he saw it: a cheap burner phone, black plastic, taped to the underside with electrician’s tape.
The screen pulsed once. A single notification: 1 New Message.
Heart hammering, Ryan peeled it loose. He didn’t touch anything else, just tapped the message.
The screen went black for a second, then flickering into a grainy video. The same angle as before. Diane’s house and front yard. Noah with his soccer ball.
Ryan stared at the footage. There were some slight differences from the first video.
Diane had disappeared, leaving her wash flapping in the breeze.
Noah wasn’t jogging across the lawn, he was standing still, his back to the camera.
His posture was odd, like he was sensing something wasn’t right and had frozen in fear.
The camera was slowly zooming in on him. No, not zooming. Approaching.
The boy spun his head, looking right at the lens. At the person who was holding the lens. His face flickered from confused, to wary, to wide-eyed terror.
The camera tilted like it had been dropped, then the screen immediately went black.
A voice, flat and synthesized, layered over the video like bad AI.
“You’ve seen what we can do, Deputy Marshal Inglis. Now we want something from you. You will find a woman named Lucía Duarte. Confirm location. You have five days. If you do not find her, if you try to run or involve your friends, the boy dies. Further instructions to follow.”
The message began to immediately repeat itself, then cut off mid-sentence, as if the clip had been severed by a knife. Ryan stared at the screen. There was no rewind; no replay or back button. After five seconds, the phone went dead. He turned it over in his hands. No power button, either.
Disposable tech. Custom firmware. This wasn’t a bluff cobbled together by local cartel thugs. This was serious. Military-adjacent. If it was the cartel, they’d clearly upgraded.
Either way, they’d found him. They’d reached into his sanctuary—his shitty room, his locked door, the private space where he went to sleep, not thinking about anything but surviving another day. They’d breached his last wall.
And they had Noah.
Ryan stood very still. The room seemed to sway around him.
Noah, whose blood wasn’t his, but whose mother had once laid next to Ryan in his father’s hunting cabin in Tellico Plains and whispered that she would never stop loving him.
Who’d gotten his name tattooed on her thigh, high enough up that every time Ryan saw it, desire had shot through his veins like liquid fire.
Who’d gotten pregnant with his baby at seventeen, married him within the month, then lost the child before it could draw its first breath.
Whose life had spiraled from then, into depression, then addiction, then a life of transience and fear. Who’d died scared and dopesick, at the hands of evil men who’d used her to get to him. Then disposed of her like trash.
Now, men like that had her son. Ryan had seen the fear on his face. That instinctive, animal fear when a child senses a predator nearby.
It was the kind of fear that lived in the marrow.
Lucía kept walking, even after her lungs began to burn. Puerto Escondido already shimmered in the early-morning heat. Her pack dug into her back, growing heavier with every step.
She ducked into a narrow tienda, bought a bottle of water and a bag of plantain chips.
They would have to sustain her on the last half mile to the bus station.
As she walked and ate, she tried not to think about the ripple effect she’d just started.
Once all three pieces had been released and the ledger reassembled, there’d be no leverage left.
There’d be no more hiding out in México, switching buses and names.
Nowhere would be safe, from the cartel, or from him.
Just the thought of his name made her pulse jump. He wasn’t a plaza boss or a sicario. He didn’t send death threats, he left signatures. Emptied bank accounts. Executions disguised as freak accidents.
Lucía closed her eyes, sweat gathering under her arms. He wouldn’t send someone to kill her. Not first. He’d want the key. And he’d want it intact.
But more than that…he’d want her. Not the woman she’d become. But the girl she’d been. The one who’d sat in his office and pretended not to flinch when he’d asked for things that sounded like commands disguised as seductions.