As soon as dawn broke, Lars, Finn, Bailey, Kane and Ana split up to begin searching Zachary’s property. Lars had tied Neo to the rocking chair on the porch, despite the man’s protests.

Grass crunched under Lars’s boots as he headed away from the farm house. Kane had come up with a way for them to cover as much of the farmhouse’s grounds as possible between the five of them; each heading straight out to the furthest points, and then circling back in at an angle. Like the spokes of a wheel, and then a mandala slowly winding inward to its center. Well, that’s how he’d explained it.

For some reason, it sounded almost logical. Lars put it down to the fact that, in the last twenty-four hours, he’d been drugged, lied to, and deprived of food…and that he’d done all of that without a single nap.

A rohypnol induced semi-coma didn’t count, because it just fucking didn’t. And despite his body begging him for sleep, he hadn’t been able to get any shut eye, not even when he’d gone to lay down in the back of the SUV.

It might have had something to do with the dead body Milo had taken to show him. That was the last time he called bullshit on anything Milo said.

Zachary’s property was surprisingly serene. Birds sang from the branches of the many trees dotting the land, and larger mammals moved just out of sight— either gearing up for the day ahead or moving back to their burrows to wait for night.

The air smelled crisp and clean. But, about twenty minutes into his walk, he reached a crooked chain link fence that he assumed was the property’s boundary. And, five minutes after that as he headed back toward the farmhouse at an angle, a light breeze wafted the smell of char to him.

Whatever had burned, it had been big. His boots stirred smog where it lay like thin cotton wool over the ground.

The smell intensified to a sweet miasma of burned wood, damp ash, and…?

Lars slowed, but didn’t stop walking. His hand went to his pocket. Ahead, the trees cleared out and a large, squat building appeared.

Well, its shell.

Smoke curled up from what remained of the stone walls—those that hadn’t toppled.

Lars dialled Milo.

“I was just about to call you,” Milo said. “We found a tunnel.”

Lars crunched over grass that had turned to spiky charcoal. It seemed the fire hadn’t been adequately contained by the building.

Fires were hungry things, after all.

“My burned down building beats your tunnel,” Lars said, but he could hear how strained his voice was.

“Your…what?”

“I think you should get over here.”

“You should get over here,” Milo said sternly. “This tunnel goes all the way to fucking Mexico.”

Lars stepped carefully. The stench of smoke turned the air to a soupy stink that seemed to cling to him as he climbed over a fallen beam.

The warm ambience of dawn painted the fire’s remains a sickly hue.

“You know that thing Neo said, about how Zachary’s supposed to have like a lot of staff?”

“Yes, but what does that—?”

“I just found them,” Lars said. “All of them.”

Then he turned and hurled up everything that was left in his stomach.

Finn glanced aside at Lars. The man sat shotgun in the SUV, fingers curled against his mouth as he stared out the window. He hadn’t said a word after giving Finn directions to the staff quarters. They’d found him sitting on a rickety chair that had somehow escaped the carnage, watching dawn break over the horizon.

More than anything, Finn would always be grateful for Lars’s warning, his last words before he’d hung up.

“Don’t bring Ana. I don’t care if you have to tie her down…Don’t. Bring. Ana.”

So he hadn’t brought Ana, but he’d gathered up Bailey and Kane. Bailey had been the one to find the tunnel entrance, Kane the one to realize that, from its position so close to the Rio Grande, it had to be a conduit between USA and Mexico.

Both had been adamant they’d wanted to see the other side.

But Lars had needed them.

They’d left Ana to keep an eye on Neo. Kane and Bailey rode in the back, silent as the rest. The SUV’s interior smelled faintly of weed; Kane had offered Lars a hit of a joint after they’d inspected the grotesque remains of Zachary’s staff quarters…and the bodies that had still been inside when he’d set fire to the place.

In fact, Finn was the only one who hadn’t taken a hit from that joint. Everyone — even Kane — had seemed shocked by just how many people had been consumed by those flames.

Some had been children young enough to die in their mother’s arms.

Yet Kane, although shocked, hadn’t seemed surprised. According to the DEA agent, Zachary had a history of starting fires. He himself was covered with burn marks from the first fire he set that killed someone. Apparently, he’d had enough of being sexually abused by the man who’d taken him in after his parents had died.

A one Gregory Yule had been the tragic victim of an oil fire back in ninety-eight. Young Zachary, merely a teenager at the time, had barely survived and definitely not unscathed. Burn marks covered most of the left-hand side of his body.

He’d refused skin grafting.

Instead, it seemed, he’d found solace in more violence.

Finn’s knuckles creaked as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Cora was in the hands of the devil himself. Maybe that’s why Lars had taken to silence, and why the air inside the vehicle prickled with dread apprehension.

Finn parked the SUV at the mouth of the tunnel.

It was their last hope.

Kane stirred first, catching Finn’s eye as his reflection moved in the rear view mirror. “Times a-wasting,” Kane murmured, glancing over the faces of everyone inside the car. “Let’s go get our girl, shall we?”

Finn’s beast growled deep and low. Claws clicked as the creature came hesitantly forward and sniffed the air. Then it slunk back to its shadows, nothing but a sullen gleam of its eyes to prove it was there.

It was probably better that way; he couldn’t afford to lose control. Not now. Not with so much at stake.

He would never forgive himself if he did something to fuck this up. If he lost Cora forever.

Four sets of footsteps sounded through the dirt, and then off concrete steps. The four of them spread out into a line; Finn in front, followed by Lars, then Bailey, and finally Kane.

When Finn glanced back, Kane was studying the inside of the tunnel with visible admiration.

“You know El Chapo had one of these too?” Kane said, but more as if to himself. “Several, in fact. Soon as we shut one down, he’d just build another.”

“First time I’ve heard of it,” Bailey said.

“Well, he didn’t have anything on this scale,” Kane said. The man’s voice sounded sonorous how it echoed back to them. “His tunnels were quite small, ill lit. This is…this is downright fucking cocky.”

“Wasn’t like he’d be disturbed,” Bailey agreed somewhat hesitantly. “It’s his own land.”

“Probably owns the property on the other side too. That would be genius. Never worrying that a landlord is going to snitch on you. Not that Zachary West tolerates snitches.”

This brought a wave of stillness crashing over the men again.

Those bodies.

Finn picked up his pace. He knew Cora wouldn’t be waiting on the other side of this tunnel, but the sooner he could get to the next step, the sooner he would find her.

Minutes later, the tunnel sloped up and opened into a field. Yards behind them, the Rio Grande filled the air with the melody of water chafing its banks.

The first thing Finn spotted was the dead dog.

The second was the glint of the ring that lay on its unmoving flank.

As he crouched beside the animal, the other three spread out. The field was mostly grass with large pockets of bare ground interspersed between.

Kane went to go stand at one of them, hands on his hips as he studied the dust.

Lars came up to Finn. Fingers brushed the tip of his ear, and he glanced up at the man.

“Her ring,” Lars said as he slowly came into a crouch beside Finn.

“A message,” Finn murmured, twisting the ruby until the light caught it just right. He looked up at Lars. The man’s eyes were bright, if blood shot.

He was falling apart.

“Guys!” Kane’s voice rang out, and Finn flinched at the sound.

Fuck, they were both falling apart.

He and Lars clustered beside Kane, Bailey joining them a second later. The man went into a crouch, using a long stem of dry grass to point out a faint track in the dust.

“Helicopter.”

At that word, Finn’s beast threw back its head and howled.

“They could be anywhere by now,” Kane added, coming to a stand as he brushed his hands on his pants.

Anywhere.

When Finn forced his eyes up and happened to catch Lars’s eyes, he could see his own dismal suffering reflected in those green irises.

Their group had gone so still, so silent that, a few yards away, crickets began scraping out their melancholy tunes again.

It was over.

They’d lost her.

One by one, the men turned away and headed back to the tunnel. Bailey was the last to leave, perhaps because he would take the longest to mourn Cora.

And Finn left first, because he knew he’d never, ever get over her.