I paced the living room floor, waiting for the moment I could go roaring out of here. I couldn’t sit anymore—Scar’s little escape artist stunt had effectively squelched my calm.

When the moment finally arrived, so much adrenaline was coursing through my veins that I felt like I could have run there at twice the speed of the car, carrying my whole damned arsenal on my back.

Thinking better than to let the adrenaline guide me, I slid behind the wheel and mentally checked my body one last time. Two guns on my chest, two at my back and two ankle holsters. I had steel-toed boots on, and I wore brass knuckles on both hands—a gift from Marcos as a reward for taking out a rat. The only thing I needed now was a miracle. Yeah, I wasn’t holding my breath on that one.

The drive passed too slowly as if the whole world was moving in slow motion. I needed to get there. I needed to get to Scar, but I had to shut that part of me down. It wasn’t going to help her.

When I neared the site, I slowed, taking in my surroundings. An abandoned car, three hangars, two empty planes on the tarmac and an admin office on the other side. I rounded the airstrip and pulled in behind the third hangar.

Michael was there. His car was nowhere in sight, but the sun caught the steel of his gun from in the brush. He stood once I’d shifted the car into park, telling me there’d been no sign of Mateo or his men yet. I waited with bated breath, hoping Scar would stand up beside him.

She didn’t. She wasn’t here. Where the hell was she?

“I’m sorry, Derek,” Michael said as he approached. Either the wind had blown sand into his eyes, or he was feeling rather choked up over what had happened too.

What was I supposed to do?—say it was OK? No worries? Yeah, fucking right. Of course, this was all my fault, but things weren’t OK and I was more than a little worried. So, I just nodded and turned my attention to the hangars. There didn’t seem to be any movement in any of them, but my gaze kept shifting back to the abandoned car. Fifteen yards from the first hangar. It was out of place. It didn’t belong in this scene. So, why was it here? It was obviously empty—the driver’s side door had been left wide open.

Scar. It was the only logical explanation. But if she was already here, where the fuck was she? I wanted to go charging through every hangar searching for her, but I resisted the urge. Something wasn’t right.

“She’s here,” I told Michael, who’d come to stand beside me and his gaze focused on the same abandoned car. Not abandoned. She hadn’t left it there out in the open. She was too smart for that. She’d been corralled there and dragged out of the car.

I was shaking. I was shaking because I didn’t know if she was alive or dead, or what they were doing to her at this very minute. The scene in the basement where I’d found her before flashed through my mind, and I turned just in time to hurl into the bushes instead of on Michael’s shoes.

I debated swallowing a bullet just to end this because I wasn’t sure I could survive it if she’d been hurt like that again. But I couldn’t do it. If there was any chance she was still alive, I wouldn’t abandon her. Never.

Michael sat down hard on the dirt ground, his knees bent and his trembling hands hanging loosely over them. I remembered him asking me just days ago if it ever ends. “No, it doesn’t,” I’d said, not knowing just how true those words had been.

“Pull your shit together,” I told him, though the message was probably just as much for me since I was the one who’d been puking in the bushes. “We need a plan. Now.”

“I have these pills…cyanide, in case I ever got captured. I’d thought about giving her one…I should have…” he said as his eyes grew brighter with unshed tears.

“Don’t fucking talk like that. Do you understand me?” I was standing over him and my fingers itched for any one of the guns concealed beneath my clothes for what he’d just said. But then...maybe he was less selfish than me. I wanted to find Scar and save her no matter what. He didn’t want her to suffer.

“Let’s just find her and kill every one of those motherfuckers,” I said.

He nodded and got to his feet. “Sweep the buildings?” he asked.

No. If she was here, she was in the first hangar. It was the closest one to the car she’d been dragged out of, and the furthest from the main road, making it most difficult for me to escape with her. But was she still here?

Yes, I decided, not just because I wanted it to be true, but because Mateo would want me to see what he did to her.

He probably knew I was here then, and it was best to assume he knew Michael was here too.

“She’s in the first hangar,” I told him matter-of-factly.

“How can you be so sure?”

How? Because I wasn’t so different from the monsters in there, and it was precisely what I would have recommended to Marcos not that long ago. And maybe, just maybe, because I could feel her. Here. Close. “I just know.”

“We’re going to be outnumbered,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You still want to go in there?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Fuck, yeah. Let’s go get her back.”—Definitely a man after my own heart.

We moved fast, keeping close to the buildings. We made it to the hangar without interference, and no one was there to intercept outside the door. That meant he wanted me inside.

And I was happy to oblige him.

“Stay here,” I told Michael—there was no sense in giving them two targets. “Take out what you can from here, and then wait until you’re sure you can get to her.”

With a nod, I withdrew the guns from the holsters at my back. It was show time—and bullets and blood had always been some of my finest masterpieces.

I charged in and took aim at every living target. No one would have been expecting that. They would have been waiting for me to try to creep in. No fucking way. Everybody was going to die until I had Scar safely out of here.

A bullet grazed my arm, but I barely felt it—a flesh wound at best. Two men went down in front of the Challenger plane. Two more rushed out from behind it. They didn’t make it three steps, and the bullets they’d managed to fire ricocheted off the wall somewhere behind me. No, they definitely hadn’t been expecting me to come in with guns blazing.

I strode forward, cognizant of what was to the left and right of me, but I had my sights set on the destination in front of me. Beyond the empty space behind the plane, there was a car parked. I could see two pairs of shoes behind it, but they were just Lopez’s goons. Lopez was in the car, and Scar was in there with him. She had to be. There was nowhere else to hide her in here.

A staccato of loud bangs and suddenly my shoulder was on fire. It should have hurt. It should have been fucking excruciating, but all I felt was heat. No pain. The adrenaline would keep it at bay.

I found the source of the gunfire and took aim. The guy scrambled back, but it didn’t matter. My bullet burrowed into his forehead in the blink of an eye.

I kept going, shooting while bullets flew past my ear and the prickle of heat told me another shot had grazed through the flesh of my thigh. Stupid fuckers couldn’t kill a target if it walked up to them with a bull’s-eye on its chest.

I was five yards away. Michael and I had nearly cleared the room, aside from the guy cowering far off in the back corner. He was maybe eighteen years old. New at this. Probably had never fired a weapon in his life. Did I let him live to become a monster like me, or did I kill him now to make sure he never did?

He was young, like Scar, not just in age but in the terror and innocence in his eyes. Before Scar, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Now, I kept a watchful eye on him as I strode closer to the car.

Two more feet though, and the passenger door flew open. Scar stumbled out in front of Lopez. He was using her as a shield—the fucking coward—and he had a gun pressed against her temple.

But that wasn’t all I noticed. A puffy, purple bruise marred her skin just above where her cheek had all but healed, and blood trickled slowly from a cut on her soft lips. Her shirt was torn right down the center, and another angry bruise peeked out below her bra.

My stomach churned violently, but I met her gaze and my breath caught in my throat. Her eyes…like I’d never seen them before. Not terrified. Not hopeless. They were red and puffy from crying, but within their green depths, angry fire shined bright. It was as if she was burning with it from the inside out, and if Mateo stood close for too much longer, he was going to go up in flames.

I had no right to feel proud—whatever contribution I’d made to her life hadn’t ever been positive—but I was so fucking proud of her.

Still, I was going to tear Mateo apart forever laying a hand on her.

“Let her go, Mateo, and I’ll consider killing you quickly,” I told him, pleased that my voice was as calm and cold as ever.

He cocked the gun and my heart leapt into my throat. He wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t possibly be that stupid. If he shot her, there was nothing stopping me from tearing him apart one slow piece at a time.

“She killed three of my men, Derek. Obviously, I can’t let that slide.”

The evil glint in his eyes made me worry. Could he possibly be that crazy? I couldn’t risk it.

“Take me. I’m worth far more than three of your useless lackeys.” I looked around at the dead bodies that peppered the floor to emphasize my point.

“That is an interesting proposition,” he replied as his fucking hand grazed over Scar’s breasts and down her ribs. When his hand settled on top of the apex at the top of her thighs, I wanted to cut off every one of his fingers and shove them down his fucking throat.

“But you see, the men she killed were the ones I had lying in wait for you. You never would have seen it coming, but instead, they had to go chasing after your disobedient, little slave. It’s all right though; I do understand why you like her. She has so many…charms,” he said, using the hand between her thighs to press her back against him. “In fact, I wouldn’t mind sampling her right now. Here. While you watch. Try to stop me, and I’ll blow her brains out.”

She tried to jerk away from him, but he pushed the gun harder against her temple and she went still.

Good girl, I thought, begging her with my eyes to just stay still.

“Take me. You know you want it. And you know the second you kill her, you’re a dead man.”

“Like I said, it’s an interesting proposition, Derek.”

He let up on her a little and I immediately had to wonder why. What was he up to?

“But what are you going to offer me for this one?”

A woman tumbled out of the car, followed by a big, burly hulk of a man. How he’d even fit in the damn car, I didn’t know.

But the woman. Her eyes weren’t empty like the last time I’d seen them. Red hair. Her face older, but so similar to Scar’s.

Alicia.

What the fuck was Lopez doing with Alicia Ramos?

“He’s good at finding things,” Michael’s hoarse voice spoke from somewhere behind me. “That’s what you’re renowned for, isn’t it? Anything in the world, Mateo Lopez can find.”

“When it serves my interests. Unfortunately, when you came to me, Michael, finding your wife wasn’t worth my while.”

Michael growled, but his eyes were fixed on Alicia. There was a good chance he wasn’t thinking clearly—not that I could blame him.

“After seeing Derek’s little pet though, well, I’ve always been a collector of sorts. It’s really too bad Garcia had arranged the car accident that killed your pet’s mother, Derek. What a collection that would have been, wouldn’t you say?”

Scar was looking at me, but she wasn’t just looking. She was trying to tell me something. Her eyes met mine, then dropped to the ground in front of her, then back to me. Then again. Yeah, I got the message. She was incredible. Now, I just had to do my part.

I took a menacing step forward to draw Lopez back to his current predicament. His grip on Scar tightened and he smiled menacingly.

I took another step.

“That’s far enough. I think you’ll have a fine view right there.”

He lifted his hand and pressed down on Scar’s shoulder. “On your knees, slave. You have three murdered men to atone for, and you’re going to start right now.”

She struggled, but I could tell it was fake, and eventually, she went down to the ground. Lopez lowered his gun long enough to unzip his fly, but it was all I needed. I took aim and fired a bullet right through the wrist of the hand holding the gun. Even when he fired reflexively, his gun was pointed away from Scar.

At the same time, she reached for the gun he had concealed at his ankle and fired into his knee without hesitation. Fucking incredible.

He stumbled back against the car at the same time I shot the man holding Alicia, straight into his head. It was unnecessary though. A bullet from Michael’s gun lodged into the man’s chest, straight through his heart, and he fell to the ground, lifeless.

Scar scrambled away from Lopez, toward Alicia. Michael was there with them a second later, but this wasn’t finished.

I reached for the long, menacing knife between my shoulder blades. I envisioned cutting Lopez up into tiny pieces, starting with the pieces that wouldn’t kill him right away and working toward his vital organs. But the thirst for blood didn’t compete with the need to hold her, to feel her in my arms and know that she was finally, truly safe.

Lopez was trying to scramble back and up into the car as I approached, but he was too slow—not that it would have mattered anyway. I reached down when I loomed over him, lifted him up by his hair, and slashed the knife across his neck. Blood spurted and he made a gurgling noise in his throat. And then, in the blink of an eye, he was dead.

It was over. She was safe.

I dropped the knife, turned toward her, and then she was in my arms. Alive. Safe. A sob wracked my chest, but I forced it down and focused on the warmth of her body, her heart beating against my chest and the softness of her lips beneath mine.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to help. I couldn’t let you die,” she whimpered against my lips. “I couldn’t let you die.”

I remembered what Lopez had said about the three men he’d planted here ahead of time. Foolish or not, I hadn’t been expecting them. And that made me wonder…had she saved my life?

She’d already saved me in so many ways. How the hell was I supposed to repay that debt? I had no clue, but I was going to spend the rest of my life trying.

“Where have you been, mi querida?” I heard Michael whispering to Alicia.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The man who took me, he said you were dead. He said he killed you, and I believed him.”

My gaze went to the corner where the guy was still cowering to try to give Michael and Alicia a quasi-private moment. Tears were streaming down Michael’s cheeks, and I figured that was probably something a guy didn’t want another guy to see.

But what was I supposed to do with the bundle of nervous energy in the corner? He was a loose end. Six months ago, I would have slit his throat or put a bullet in his brain without a second’s thought. I didn’t want to be that monster anymore.

“He’s that man’s son,” Scar whispered, pointing to the worthless lump of flesh who had been holding Alicia. “The man kept hitting him because he wouldn’t…help.”

All right, that was a point in the guy’s favor, but there was one more thing I needed to know. “Did he touch you, Scar?” I didn’t give a fuck how many times the guy’s father had hit him; if he’d hurt or violated her in any way, he was dead.

“No, he didn’t.”

“Come here, kid,” I yelled over to him. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do with him yet, but I had to do something.

He stood up and approached cautiously, though his eyes darted around the room, probably searching for a way out. The guy had no fucking idea how lucky he was.

He stopped a couple yards away. “I didn’t…I didn’t do that, Senor,” he said, nodding toward Scar. “I no want to be here, si?”

“The only reason I’m letting you live is because you didn’t hurt her. Do you understand?”

Surprise lit his dark eyes as he nodded vigorously. “Si, I understand, Senor. I no hurt her.”

“Money? Do you have money?”

He scrambled into his pockets and held out a handful of coins, thinking I was…what?—going to let him live for the five bucks he had? He wasn’t the brightest, was he? It did help answer my question though—the guy had nothing.

The most ridiculous idea of my life came to me then. But hell, I decided to run with it. I was turning over a new leaf—and this guy was about to come along for the ride.

“You’re coming with us. You work for me now. A job. Money. A real future—but on one condition.”

The guy’s eyes were as big as saucers. I wanted to laugh, but I held it back.

“Si, Senor. Condition, si.”

“If you ever hurt these women, or do anything your father did—to anyone—I’ll kill you. Understand?”

More vigorous nodding and his expression was…happy. It felt good to know I was the reason for it. Strange as hell, but good.

And now I had my own full-time employee. For what, I had no fucking idea, but the way Scar was smiling up at me for what I’d just done for the guy made it more than worth it. I’d figure out something for him to do…I never could garden worth shit.

Scar would like nice gardens, I thought. And if, in between gardens, the guy happened to devote himself to making sure Scar was always safe…well, who the fuck could argue with that arrangement?