It’s 2am. I can’t sleep. I’m lying underneath the covers in total darkness with all four walls closing in on me. Seventy-two hours have passed since my ordeal but I can’t stop reliving it in my head. Everything about that man is wrong. He’s shattered my life with his appearance and now he’s tormenting me with his absence.

I lied to the police. I gave them a false description of the dark-eyed devil who abducted me at gunpoint and left me stranded in a private hanger on the edge of Miami Beach. The man whose aircraft I stood and watched fade into the night sky until there was nothing left to see except a flashing, tri-color blur. I told them he was five-seven, with blonde hair and blue eyes – a complete contradiction to the deadly foreigner who has bought such terror into my life, the heartless criminal, the trained killer. The man who didn’t think twice about forcing himself on me…

My cell beeps. It’s my friend, Anna.

You still awake? x

Her shift at the bar must be nearly done. She volunteers at an animal shelter by day and transforms into a cocktail-shaking vixen at night. She’s a hot blond with a heart of gold and people always tell me she adds triple the amount of tequila to their margaritas.

I message her back straightaway:

Friends reruns are for life, not just for insomniacs… x

Another lie. I haven’t switched on my TV for days. A few seconds later my cell rings.

“That bad, huh?” Anna sighs. “You wanna come down? I’m not supposed to finish my shift for another thirty minutes but I could duck out early if you want? My boss owes me.”

I smile at the concern in her voice but at the same time I’m put off by the loud voices and thrumming beats in the background. The aftermath of my abduction has left me suspended in this weird alternative universe where all I want to do is hide away. I don’t want to be the centre of attention. I don’t want to face anymore probing questions. I don’t want to have to think about him anymore than I already do.

“Not tonight,” I say quickly. “Thanks anyway. I think I just need to hunker down.” I chuck in an elaborate yawn that makes the sides of my jaw ache.

“You still thinking about him?”

All the damn time.

“I’m worried about you, Evie,” she says, breaking my silence for me. “You haven’t been yourself since it happened. You’re safe now you know that, right? The police will hunt him down and lock him up.”

No they won’t.

It doesn’t matter what I told the police. My assailant has been playing on the wrong side of the law for years. Evading capture is a sport to him, not an inevitability.

“Are you chewing on your thumbnail again?”

“No,” I lie, whisking it out of my mouth. It’s a cute habit leftover from my childhood that all my friends tease me about. I do it when I’m uneasy and that man is making me as edgy as hell.

“Have you thought about talking to anyone about this?”

I finger the outline of a business card on my nightstand. “The police gave me this number to call…” I trail off, uncertain.

“Then call it,” she urges. “Promise me, Evie. First thing tomorrow. If anything you’ll get a couple of Xanax out of it.” A voice starts talking to her suddenly, asking where the juice mixers are kept. “Look, I gotta run, I’ll call you in the morning, ok?”

“Fine.”

“And promise me you’ll call that number?”

“I promise,” I lie.

“Do it, Evie!”

“Ok, ok, I’ll do it!”

“You know you look cute when you pout, right?”

“Bye Anna…”

I hang up and stare at my cell in despair. The truth is I don’t want to talk to anyone about what happened. I’m scared I’ll let something slip and implicate myself… and him. Why do I feel this way? Why do I feel the need to protect this man?

Because that kiss changed everything.

Is this lust? Hate? Some kind of messed-up fusion of both? I’m frightened by the pull of emotion I feel but I’m strangely curious about it too. Have I really existed for twenty-five years without experiencing this crazy firebrand called desire before? I realize now that I’ve been living a half-life. I’ve given my body to men in the past, I’ve even convinced myself I’ve been in love with them, yet I’ve never felt a physical connection like that. One kiss, that’s all it was, and in those few short moments he managed to set fire to every single part of me.

I kissed him back. I couldn’t help myself. It was instinctive. He’s a natural-born hunter and I’m the hunted. I had nothing left to bargain with except my total and utter submission. He said it himself, “he takes what he wants”, and in that moment my body was craving a man like him.

The shrill ring of my cell shatters the silence again. I pause before answering. No Caller ID. What if it’s him? What if he’s tracked me down? What if he’s returning to finish what he started?

With a trembling finger I hit the green button right before it rings out. Straightaway my mom’s voice filters down the line.

“Honey? Did I wake you?”

“Jesus mom, do you know what time it is?” My words come out a little harsher than I intended.

“I’m sorry to call you this late...” Her voice trails off with a wobble. “It’s Dad, Evie. There’s been an accident. I thought you should know.”

I fumble for the light switch, my heart pounding like a drum. I’ve been dreading this phone call for weeks. I’m the proud daughter of a DEA special agent and right now the streets of downtown Miami are like a warzone. Two local gangs are fighting tooth and nail over a territory and my dad and his team keep getting caught in the crossfire.

The same evening I was abducted he was on duty about half a mile away. He followed a tip-off and lost two colleagues in the ensuing gun battle at a well-known nightclub. Twenty-eight dead. That number still shocks me. Twenty-eight lives lost needlessly; twenty-eight lives destroyed; twenty-eight families wounded forever more by the events of that night.

Up until three days ago I’d been covering the story for my paper. Now I can’t look at my laptop. I can’t concentrate. I barely eat. But outside the war is raging on just as fiercely. One family, the Garcia’s, are chancers and risk-takers, determined to gain power and notoriety by any means necessary. Their rivals are the Mendoza’s with connections to the notorious Santiago cartel from South America who rule the southern states with an iron fist. The Santiago’s are faceless strangers, men who prize their anonymity above everything. There are whispers of two brothers but nothing more.

You could say I have a vested interest in all of this. I hate narcotics with every fiber of my being. I’ve seen what they do to people, what they did to my brother. I’ve been fighting my own private war against the illegal drugs trade for years, trying to expose the ringleaders and bring them down one newspaper article at a time.

“What sort of accident?” I whisper. “Is dad going to be OK?”

My mom stifles a sob.

Shit, it’s bad. Real bad.

“He’s been shot, Evie. I’m at the hospital now. They’ve just taken him down to theatre.”

“Oh my god! I’m coming straight there. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

I hang up and dress in record time. Not dad, not my wisecracking, lion-hearted bear of a father who never misses a football game or the chance to tell his only daughter how much he loves her. This can’t be happening, I won’t let it. If I force my mind into a state of vacant limbo then I’ll ward off all the painful thoughts that are closing in on me.

I focus on zipping up my boots and grabbing my car keys and cell, and for the first time in three days my focus shifts to someone other than him.

I reach the hospital at around 4am. It’s still dark. The first colors of dawn are still evading the skyline above the great, grey building in front of me. The temperature is a couple of degrees cooler than comfortable and I pull my denim jacket tighter around my shoulders as I lock my car and hurry towards the entrance.

The sliding doors drift open as I approach. Once inside they swallow me whole. The reception area is a chaotic mix of people and gurneys, a discordance of noise and sharp, unfamiliar odors. Twilight hours are not defined in a place where the sick and injured have no schedules.

A distant bell rings and a young nurse pushes past me in the direction of the noise, her green eyes opaque with tiredness. The security guard surveys me wearily and jabs a finger towards the reception desk. I slide my gaze away from him and take a step in that direction. The bright lights are forcing me to focus. My fears are threatening to consume me again.

Dad has to be ok... he has to be ok... he has to…

“Evie, sweetheart?”

My head jerks up but I don’t recognise my mom at first. She’s a true Southern Belle, the definition of grace and composure, but tonight’s events have distorted these virtues. Worry is etched into the soft lines around her mouth and forehead, her eyes are red-rimmed, her make-up non-existent, her short, dark hair is wild and unkempt. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her in such a bad way and I feel another stab of guilt for being so sharp with her on the phone earlier.

“He’s out of theatre, Evie. He’s in recovery.”

“Oh, thank god!” Tears of relief cloud my vision as I accept her embrace, surrendering to it completely like I used to as a child.

“He’s going to ok, sweetheart,” she soothes, brushing away the stray wisps of fringe from my eyes.

“Despite the fact that someone tried to use him as target practice,” I mumble, trying to smile through my tears.

My mom’s laugh somehow turns into a sob too and we hug each other that little bit tighter. “One of his colleagues called me from the ambulance. He went to the quays to check out a suspect container and was ambushed on the way. He took two bullets to his arm and shoulder but I’ve just spoken with his surgeon. There’s no reason to suggest he won’t make a full recovery.”

I take a moment to digest this.

“Why was he out there so soon after the other night, mom? Why would he take that risk?”

“There were rumors one of the Santiago’s might be here in Miami.”

I step back in shock as she pats the skin under her eyes and her cheeks, rubbing away the last traces of smudged mascara. Mine and dad’s inexorable quest for justice takes a heavy toll on her sometimes.

This is big… no it’s huge. A Santiago here on our home turf? No wonder dad was so keen to follow up on it. I feel a fierce love and pride for him then as I’m reminded that destroying the cartels is personal to all of us. Not only was tonight a chance to take down one of the chief perpetrators, it was a chance to take down one of the men responsible for my brother’s death as well. I know my dad. He’s going to be gutted when he wakes up. He’s going to blame himself for getting shot down when he was two-thirds to victory.

“Can we see him?”

“Of course. Though he won’t be awake for a little while.”

She takes my arm and gently leads me through a twisted maze of cream corridors. I find I can endure people’s curiosity again. What greets me back is a whole spectrum of human emotion, from mirror images of my own relief to the anguish of the alternative; emotions that could so easily have been ours if the bullets aimed higher.

The same emotions we faced together as a family five years ago.

My mom ushers me into a private room and I gaze down at the unconscious figure in the bed, mentally phasing out all the wires and tubes and scary, bleeping machinery around us. My dad looks so fragile. Broken. There’s no hint of his usual force-of-nature personality and it frightens me to death.

“Good fortune’s playing on our side this week, Evie,” I hear my mom say. “That’s three lucky escapes for my family. You stay safe for me, young lady. I don’t think I can take any more drama.”

You and me both, mom. We’ve all had enough pain.

“Perhaps it’s time to reconsider your job. There are safer ways to earn a living, you know.”

Not this again.

“But I’m only a reporter–”

“Who writes implicating words about dangerous criminals!” Her anger burns bright then fades just as quick. She looks shattered suddenly. “It could have been those sort of men who abducted you the other night. They might have been trying to scare you off.”

I say nothing. I can’t. She’s skirting dangerously close to the same conclusion I’m coming to myself. I can’t walk away from my job, though. It’s the last piece I have left of my former life.

“Perhaps now isn’t the best time to be having this conversation,” she concedes, heading for the door again. “I need to have another word with the nurses. There was talk of moving him up to a new ward.”

“Ok, mom.”

I acknowledge her exit with a tight smile before returning my gaze to dad. I stare and stare. Who did this to him? Who pulled the trigger? Was the tip-off just a ruse? The DEA have been circling the main cartels in Miami for a while now. Three shipments alone have been intersected in the last month. Millions and millions of dollars worth of cocaine seized and my dad’s been heading up the operations.

I pull my chair closer to his bedside, deep in thought. Was he getting too close? Has he irritated the wrong people? Has he finally caught the attention of the Santiago’s?

All of a sudden there’s a strange prickling sensation on the back of my neck. I’m being watched. No, it’s more than that… I’m being consumed.

I turn to the doorway and then quickly rise to my feet, my chair falling backwards in my haste to stand. I barely hear the crash behind me. My mouth is frozen in a silent scream and my heart is thumping wildly against the front of my rib cage. I can feel myself falling, falling…

It can’t be.

The same devil from my dreams and nightmares is standing right there in front of me. Seventy-two hours fall away to nothing, it’s as if they never existed. He’s dressed in black again, his dark eyes are burning with vengeance and there’s a gun in his hand.

A gun pointing straight at my head.