ONE
REBEL
War isn’t always a loud, brash thing.
Sometimes, it’s a car rolling slowly by the front of your house at night. Sometimes, it’s an anonymous call to the police. Sometimes it’s the head of a Mexican cartel showing up in small town New Mexico to make your life a living hell. And sometimes, it’s three men sneaking through tall grass with guns in their hands, ready to shoot you in the head while you sleep.
I’m bleeding fucking everywhere. One of Hector Ramirez’s perimeter guards cut me open with his knife and now the wound is pouring my DNA out all over the grass. I can’t be thinking about that right now, though. Honestly, I’m not thinking at all. I’m gripped with the same insanity that’s had hold of me since I walked into my father’s kitchen and found Leah dead on the floor, her throat slit from ear to ear, and that smug motherfucker toasting me from the other side of the room. There’s no room for sanity inside me now. Not after Leah. My uncle was one thing, but add on another innocent woman who I was supposed to be protecting, and there is no more Jamie. Even Rebel doesn’t exist anymore. There is only madness and fury, held together with the burning acid of revenge. It’s eaten away at everything else until there’s nothing left.
I feel a hand on the center of my back, grabbing hold of my t-shirt. It’s Cade, trying to tell me to slow the fuck down, but I jerk myself away, hurrying forward. Behind me, I hear him cursing me to hell. Carnie’s back there somewhere, too. Just the three of us for this job. As the newest member of the Widow Makers, I shouldn’t have brought Carnie along on this particular ride, but the guy’s keen as fuck. He totally busted Cade and me as we were leaving the compound. He would have followed us here, regardless. He’s had Margo, the gun he named after his mother, locked and loaded ever since he climbed on his Ducati.
The very day after Sophia and I returned from Alabama, Hector showed up with his entourage, walking the streets like he owns the fucking place, drinking coffee outside my fucking tattoo shop, sending out a very clear message: I am here to end this. And if that’s what the guy wants, who am I to argue with him?
I’ve had enough. I should have sent Sophia away the second I saw that body in my father’s kitchen and I realized this thing was never going to make it to trial. Never going to make it past pure, old school, knife-in-the-chest-while-you’re-sleeping revenge. Soph should be at home with her family, and instead I have her under guard back in my cabin, probably tearing the place apart, raging mad, and all because I’ve put her in this shitty position. Because where Hector Ramirez goes, so follows Raphael Dela Vega. And after what Sophia told me—that Raphael threatened to kill her whole family and do way worse to her—I’m not letting her out of that cabin until the fucker is dead and in the ground.
“Dude, slow the fuck down. They’re gonna see us coming,” Cade hisses behind me. Up ahead, the ground floor of the small, innocuous farm house Hector’s taken up residence in is lit up against the darkness, pouring yellowed light out onto the wrap around porch that skirts the property. Shadows move inside. I didn’t really think for a second I was going to be rolling up on a sleeping house but it’s frustrating that there are so many people flitting from room to room. I’m only interested in killing one person: Hector.
After Afghanistan, I have enough blood on my hands to drown myself in. I don’t particularly want to add to the body count, but if they stand in my way, if killing them means I get to put an end to Ramirez, then so be it. My soul is already damned to hell. I might as well really earn my place there.
The night smells like gasoline and bad weed, the latter of which must be coming from the house. Crouching down low thirty meters from the illuminated building, I scan the darkness, trying to see if there are more watchmen that need putting down. I made a stupid, reckless error before. I wasn’t expecting there to be guards so far out on the very perimeters of the farmhouse. When the first guy emerged out of the black night and slashed at me, he took me by surprise. Between me, Cade and Carnie, we managed to put down the four men who rallied to take us on, but it was close. Stupid. I should have been more wary. I’m not just risking my own life here, but Cade and Carnie’s too.
“How many?” Cade whispers. My best friend scratches at the beard he’s managed to grow in the past few weeks, frowning severely. I can’t count how many times we’ve found ourselves together in this position, crouching in the dark, planning on doing wrong. It’s little comfort that the majority of times it was on behalf of the U.S government. We may not be desert rats anymore, but we’re still soldiers. We’re still fighting a war. Except this is one of our own making, and there’s no getting out of it. No backing down. It’s necessary.
“At least six,” I reply.
“I only count five,” Carnie chips in. “Three in the living room, one in the kitchen. One in the hallway.”
He’s right, but his eyes aren’t as sharp as mine. I glare up at the farmhouse, holding my breath, slowing my pulse. “And one more. Upstairs. Front left window. He’s watching us right now.”
Carnie makes a disbelieving sound. “You’re fucking crazy. The room’s pitch black. You can’t see shit.”
“Oh, he’s there all right. I can see him just fine.” In fairness to Carnie, maybe I can’t see him in a traditional sense. The room is in pure darkness, but I can sense it—Ramirez is there, standing in the murky shadows of the room, waiting patiently for my arrival. I can feel his presence so intensely that the hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end. He’s been there all along, just waiting for me to show up. With all the showmanship and blatant peacocking in town, he’s been stabbing at my buttons, knowing that with each and every sighting he’s coming closer and closer to drawing me out.
I’m a stupid motherfucker.
I’m normally so much smarter than this, but the fury over Ryan and Leah’s deaths has had me taking temporary leave of my wits. Cade nudges me with his elbow, grunting softly. “We’re here, man. You wanna do this now, we’ll do it. But maybe—”
“Yeah, I know.” I sigh heavily. Angrily. I want to pound my fists into the dirt in frustration, but where the fuck would that get me.
“You might be wrong,” Carnie whispers. “I get bad feelings all the time. Your brain plays some epic tricks on you sometimes.”
“He’s not wrong, asshole. He’s never been wrong.” The dull thump of Cade punching Carnie in the arm is quiet, but Carnie’s yelp of pain isn’t. “Jesus, man. Shut your fucking mouth. You wanna get us killed?”
“I don’t think he’s seen us,” I whisper, ignoring them. “But I can’t be sure. Time to leave.” Leaving is the very last thing I want to do. I want to storm into that building and shoot some motherfuckers. I want to dig the point of my blade into Hector Ramirez’s chest and watch the light go out in his eyes as the steel bites deeper. But Ramirez is a smart guy. He knows I’m coming. There’s no way there’s only six people in that building. He will have an army of men hidden out of sight, ready to end our lives before we even step foot on the fucking farmhouse porch.
“Come on, man. We’ll get the fucker, don’t you worry. But this ain’t how it goes down,” Cade says. I let him pull me back, let his words deaden the boiling adrenalin storming my veins, calling for revenge. I suddenly feel exhausted.
“All right. All right,” I take a deep breath, uncurling my hands, not realizing they were clenched into fists. As I retreat from the farmhouse with my boys, ducking low to remain out of sight, I feel sick to my stomach. We’re leaving with our lives, but somehow it feels like a defeat. I’m chanting the same words over and over as the farmhouse shrinks and disappears behind us.
This isn’t over, motherfucker. It’s only just begun.