Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Move like you belong.
Breathe like you have nothing to hide.
Don’t look for cameras.
Don’t look for exits.
Do not touch the passport in your pocket every five seconds, no matter how much your fingers itch to make sure it’s still there.
Most of all, don’t draw attention to the fact that your face looks like you’ve been in a bar fight.
When I get to immigration, the officer takes my bogus passport, scans it, looks at my face.
“What’s the purpose of your visit?” he asks.
“Family emergency.”
“Where will you be staying?”
“Texas,” I say.
He gives me a dry look. “You’re already in Texas.”
I blink. “Right. Near Austin.”
“Length of stay?”
“I don’t know yet. Depends.”
He looks at the passport again and then stamps it. “Welcome to the United States, Mr. Lucero.”
He stamps the passport.
Just like that.
I’m through.
I keep moving. I need money I can use here. I find a currency exchange and convert my Colombian bills into a little under two thousand dollars. That’s more than I thought I’d get, but I grabbed a pretty good fistful.
It’s enough to rent a car, buy time, keep moving, maybe disappear for a few days if I don’t move straight toward the one place every dangerous person in my orbit expects me to go.
Which is, of course, exactly what I do.
The rental counter takes longer than immigration.
Every minute I stand there, Vega’s shadow grows longer.
Maybe they were already on their way before I left the country.
My jaw aches from clenching it.
The clerk slides over the key. “Parking section B. Space forty-two.”
“Thank you,” I say quickly and then follow the signs toward the parking lot.
The car is a gray sedan. Completely unremarkable. It’s perfect.
I get in. I’ll need a phone. A couple burners. And a place to stay. I won’t be able to afford the luxurious Austin hotel I stayed in last time. That was on Vega’s dime.
Damn.
I’ve got money.
It’s in a Colombian bank. Under my real name, which is not the name on my bogus passport.
If only I’d banked in Sweden or the Grand Caymans. What the hell was I thinking?
I get into the car and leave the parking lot.
Once I’m away from the airport, I stop at the first gas station I see. I grab two burner phones, an energy drink, some snacks, and a road map. I miss my smartphone and GPS, but that’s no longer my life.
I unfold the map. It’s about two and a half hours to Austin, and another hour after that to the Bellamy Ranch near Summer Creek along the border.
I know the Bellamy Ranch. I’ve been there. I’ve staked it out. I know the roads near it. The fence lines. I know which service roads see fewer vehicles. Which cameras are obvious and which ones aren’t.
I saw more of that ranch in the few weeks I was in Texas than most of the Bellamys have likely noticed in years.
It’s strange how familiar and foreign Texas feels at once. I spent weeks here on a job.
Watching.
Waiting.
Following orders.
Now I’m back, and the job has changed.
I’ll protect Robin whether she wants it or not.
I tighten my grip on the steering wheel.
I won’t take Robin’s choices from her.
I won’t demand that she forgive me.
I won’t ask her family for mercy.
But if Vega is coming—and he is—they need to know what I know.
All of it.
And if telling them means one of her brothers puts a bullet in my head before nightfall, so be it.
I replay every word Robin said to me before she left.
I can’t in good conscience use my family’s money to help a man whose actions could have easily killed my own flesh and blood.
She said we were even. That we had no future.
We may have no future, but we’re not even.
I took from her before I gave anything back. I helped put her brother in the hospital and then took her from Texas to Colombia.
She owes me nothing.
I still owe her.
I’m not coming to fix what I did. I can’t. It’s unforgiveable.
I’m coming because Vega isn’t finished.
Because Adriana’s threats aren’t empty.
Because the body beneath the barn matters.
Because Eagle was close to something.
Because Austin Bellamy is tied to Vega somehow, and if Robin’s family doesn’t understand that yet, they need someone to tell them.
I reach Austin and then head south.
By the time the signs begin pointing toward roads I recognize, the sun has shifted lower.
I’m close to Summer Creek.
My stomach tightens as I leave the main road.
Familiar turns come back too easily.
I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles ache.
I almost turn around.
Not out of fear.
I’m not afraid of dying. But I am afraid of what Robin will see when she opens the door and finds me here.
I’d call if I knew how to reach her.
Maybe I should contact authorities.
And say what? Hello, I worked for a Colombian crime lord, entered your country under a false passport, and would like to warn a wealthy Texas family that my former employer might be targeting them because of secrets tied to a corpse I exhumed from their barn.