I’ve known about Fiore and Sin’s little flirtation for days. Weeks, actually… I should have realized the first time I saw the connection there in her eyes. I should have fired him.

Fuck, I should have killed him just for looking at what is mine.

Instead, I’m racing across the front lawn at a ridiculously early hour in the morning, where several of my guards have captured Sin. I pull my gun out of the back of my pants, holding it at the ready. He’s sputtering in Spanish, telling his men that they should be attacking me. Yelling about loyalty, or some shit.

But Sin should know that these men value the price of gold above loyalty. He is one of them after all, mercenaries down to a man. My antennae went up a few days ago, and then I had a private talk with each of his men.

Ergo, they became my men.

“Where the fuck is she?” I demand, pointing the gun directly at him. “Huh? Where’s that little cheating slut? Tell me, and I won’t put a bullet in your brain right now.”

He doesn’t speak, but he does glance nervously toward the stables. I turn my head, and I catch a glimpse of blood red vanishing through the stables.

“You’re fucking stupid,” I tell Sin. I spit on the ground near him. “She may just be a whore, but you’re not fucking good enough for her.”

“It’s not what you think—” he says, moving to stand.

I look him right in the eye and put a bullet in his head. He groans for a second, then he slumps backward, dead. I would’ve liked to spend a little more time on him, to really teach him a lesson about how traitors get treated.

But I have a girl to hunt down. Priorities, priorities.

“Get the four wheelers,” I say to the Columbian standing next to me. “I bet she went down the trail behind the stables.”

“Sir,” he says, setting off at a jog.

I race toward the stables too, my mind oddly clear. Fiore is the foremost thing on my mind at the moment. Finding her. Bringing her back.

Punishing her.

I’m cool as I make it through the cedar stables. Calm as I climb on one of the four wheelers. Collected as I race the vehicle down the path.

It’s dark in this forest at this early hour, really dark. For a few seconds, it’s just me and the forest. I start to worry that maybe I was wrong, maybe she took a different path, maybe…

The sound of the river grows louder and louder. I am almost about to admit defeat, to turn the vehicle around and head back.

And then I see a flash of the blood red dress. I can just make her out, running ahead of me. She has veered off the path, running toward the river.

She’s smart, if she planned that. I can’t make it very far off the path, so I have to continue down to the rocky river bank. Racing down to where the water flows, I stop the engine, leaving the four wheeler idling, and race down the river bank. I can see her now, only a few hundred yards off, her long blonde hair flying wild behind her.

I chase her, because it’s the only thing I know how to do.

Fiore’s pale arms and legs move in a blur. I notice her slow a little, limping. It occurs to me that while I might be running this rocky shore in my boots, she is barefoot.

The river gets louder and louder, which must mean that there will be a waterfall somewhere soon. She apparently finds that out too, because she stops suddenly, looking back at me.

I grin. I’ve won, she just doesn’t know it yet. Because she has three options…

One, to keep running to the left. Eventually, a combination of my guards, her barefootness, and my sheer physical strength will just wear her down. She’ll fall, I’ll catch her, and I’ll win.

Two, she can jump. Judging by the waterfalls I’ve seen around here, she would be forfeiting her life. In that case, I win too.

Third, she just gives up now. And then… surprise, surprise. I win, again.

My grin in still in place as I jog up to her. She’s staring at the ground beyond where the earth falls away, trying to measure the distance.

“Don’t jump,” I call out, a little out of breath. “Or do. But don’t do it on my account. A dead slave is no good to me.”

I can see the whites of her eyes, standing out in the dim light. The look on her face, like she can’t believe where she is right now. A lone tear tracks down her face, and she makes no move to try to remove it.

She glances away, over the falls again. She’s out of choices. Out of time.

“Fuck you,” she whispers. “You did this to me. You brought me to this point, right now.”

“No one said that I was going to treat you well,” I say with a shrug, walking toward her.

“Stop!” she orders, but I don’t. There’s only me and her now, me and her and that steep drop.

“Come back now, and we can talk about your punishment—”

A second before she jumps, she sneers at me. That look, her blue eyes pinning me… it travels right through me, like I’m nothing.

Then she jumps, or rather lets herself fall. She goes over the edge suddenly, disappears with a shriek.

I’m at a loss for words.

What the fuck?

I head to the edge, looking way down into the foamy black water. It swirls and gushes, as if nothing ever happened.

Around me, the forest sounds fade away, and I can only hear the river and the sound of my own heartbeat.