I debated whether to tell her that Jet even suggested an exchange of women: Anya for Amara. But I decided against it. She wasn’t ready.

  “Tell me why you were on my territory in the first place,” I finally said after a long pause. “I thought we were making progress in the jungle, and even yesterday at the restaurant. Now it feels like we’ve gone backward.”

  She scoffed. “Why don’t you start by telling me everything, Santos? That would be a good step forward, instead of way too many questions. Especially for someone in your position.”

  “Well, I’m not the one who crossed into your territory. You came to mine. That gives me the right to ask.”

  “And yet,” she said with a smirk, “you’re the one kidnapped and handcuffed.”

  “Touché, preciosa.” I chuckled dryly. “At least tell me you used the good tranquilizer. Not the kind that gives you a twitchy eye and a limp dick.”

  She tilted her head, amused. “Don’t worry about your dick, Santos. I used the best on the market.”

  “Thank you. That’s so thoughtful of you.”

  That made her laugh softly, almost guiltily, while something flickered in her eyes. Something warm. Something tired.

  I looked at her seriously. “You know I’m not staying in these, right?”

  “For now you are. I need you to listen.”

  I smirked. “Then you better make it interesting.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but then the door swung wide again.

  Dios santo, Elira looked just as menacing as the last time I saw her. Her dark gaze swung from me to Amara, a smirk playing at her lips. I should probably be more concerned about the danger I was in, but something about the scene was too ridiculous to take seriously.

  “Took him long enough to wake up,” Elira drawled as she strolled in wearing tactical black, a knife strapped to her hip, and—because life was full of contradictions—a plate of toast in hand like she was delivering a casual breakfast, not crashing a kidnapping.

  “You know what I just learned?” Amara asked, sipping her coffee while keeping her attention on her sister. There was a barely noticeable tension in her shoulders that Elira seemed to miss.

  “What?”

  “That you and Jet cornered Gabriel⁠—”

  “Not exactly cornered,” Elira cut her off, narrowing her cat eyes on me.

  “Semantics,” Amara gritted. “You two demanded Gabriel keep away from me.”

  Elira shrugged. “Well, it’s not like you liked him.”

  A slight flush stained Amara’s cheeks.

  “That’s not the point, Elira. I know you’re protective, but I can handle myself and—” She tilted her chin my way as she continued, “I can certainly handle him.”

  “Fine,” Elira hissed. “You have my word. I won’t be threatening him to stay away from you anymore. In fact, you two can shag like rabbits and I won’t say a thing.”

  “So nice to have your permission, Elira.” My tone dipped with sarcasm. “It’s what I live for.”

  Elira rolled her eyes, then purred with poisonous sweetness, “I’m so happy to see you again, Santos. Too bad the circumstances are just as shitty for you.”

  I smiled with fake sweetness. “Not as shitty as you think.”

  “Oh my, you’re so delusional. Just because my sister kissed you doesn’t mean she likes you.”

  Amara’s head whipped back and forth, her blush turning a deeper shade of red. “Stop it, you two.”

  Elira shot me a glare before turning to look at her sister and I was taken aback by the soft expression on her face. It appeared almost foreign on her, but it was clear she loved Amara.

  “Sorry, sis. He started it.”

  Amara sighed. “How many times exactly did you guys meet?”

  “We ‘crossed paths’ twice.” I tried and failed to bring up my hands to form air quotes around the words.

  “I’m surprised you lived to tell the tale,” Elira drawled as she rolled her eyes and crossed the room. “It’s a shame that Amara is kind of obsessed with you.”

  My brows arched in surprise. “She is?”

  “I’m not,” Amara protested.

  Elira didn’t pay her any mind.

  “Yes, she is.” Elira pinned me with a look as if she was proving a point. “I knew it the minute she spent an hour picking earrings for dinner. You don’t accessorize for kidnapping unless you’re emotionally compromised.”

  I glanced up at the cuffs biting into my wrists, then around at the two women in the room. Both could probably kill me with a teaspoon and would argue over who would get the honors.

  The absurdity of it hit me all at once as I muttered, “Lucky me.”

  Somewhere deep in the back of my brain, Luis’s voice echoed, warning me that I was fucked. And honestly? I was starting to feel like it too.

  Amara

  After leaving Gabriel handcuffed, I made my way back into the cramped office with Elira at my heel, somber and silent. Once inside, I turned around and looked at her.

  “What the hell was that?” I hissed.

  She blinked. “What now?”

  “Something’s off, Elira. I know you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure what you’re suggesting. Yes, we warned Gabriel off, but that shouldn’t be anything new. Jet and I are your older siblings, and your safety is our responsibility.”

  I scoffed. “Because I can’t take care of myself?”

  “No, because you’re family.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay, then explain to me what you’re up to.”

  Her shoulders tensed, but her expression never changed. “I’m not following.”

  “I can understand you warning Gabriel to stay away from me, but throwing around words like ‘shagging’? I don’t get it. Seriously, what the hell is going on?”

  Elira shrugged. “Maybe I had a change of heart.”

  “Maybe?”

  She waved her hand nonchalantly. “Well, the guy has been relentless for years. It must mean he cares for you, and I can admit, maybe he isn’t so bad.”

  My mouth parted in shock. “You can’t be serious.”

  “You like him, Amara.”

  She wasn’t wrong, but Elira wasn’t the kind of person who changed her mind easily, and it seemed off that she would so readily decide that Gabriel was right for me. Especially now, after getting that message from Jet.

  That familiar uneasiness flickered to life while I watched my sister, but before I could dwell on it, Elira broke the silence.

  “Tell me you’re not attracted to him and don’t feel some… I don’t know… some romantic feelings toward him,” she insisted. “I saw how you were flirting with him at the restaurant. I’ve never seen you like that before.”

  This sudden switch in Elira didn’t sit well with me and I couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was more to it than just her acceptance.

  “Okay, let’s say—hypothetically—that I like him.” Like him seemed to be a slight understatement, but that wasn’t the point. “And whatever this attraction is, it was around for a while. Yet you and Jet threatened him to keep his distance, but suddenly now you’re okay with it.”

  She let out a heavy sigh and threw herself on the chair. “Like I said, Amara. I came to my senses. Why do we have to dwell on the errors of the past?”

  “Hmmm,” I hummed.

  I was all for moving on, but there was still something off, and if my instincts were to be believed, I wouldn’t learn whatever that was from Elira. Not today, anyhow.

  “Is that a good hmmm or bad hmmm?” she questioned.

  “That’s a ‘let’s drop it’ hmmm,” I muttered, turning to look at the map with a pin of our end destination. “Now, since it’ll be a minute while we sail across the ocean to get to Albania, we’ll take turns guarding our prisoner and ensuring he’s safe and comfortable. However, in no circumstance will you be threatening him again. Got it?”

  She let out a sardonic breath. “Got it, got it. I won’t hurt the Colombian. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Elira knew me better than most, but I also knew her. This whole thing with Jet, his disappearance, and vague messages kept me in suspense. Now, combined with Elira’s strange behavior, I couldn’t help but wonder whether those two were up to something. Not to endanger me, because one thing I knew for certain: my siblings would always protect me.

  “It’s practically his backyard,” she said, cutting into my thoughts. I tore my gaze from the map and our destination to meet her sharp eyes. Her jaw was clenched, her expression calculating. “He won’t be happy if he finds us there and we didn’t give him a heads-up.”

  She didn’t need to mention him by name.

  Kian’s presence in Albania wasn’t just known; it was embedded. He didn’t operate like a man so much as a weather system during a monsoon: unpredictable, atmospheric, impossible to ignore. His criminal network bled through those borderlands like groundwater, seeping into every crack. If we got anywhere near that village, the mountains would whisper it to him. The sea would carry our scent.

  “We don’t have a choice,” I said, voice low, dry in my throat. “That’s where the coordinates lead. Kian is family, but he wouldn’t agree with what we’ve done.”

  “No, he wouldn’t support our decision to kidnap an heir of the Santos Cartel,” Elira reiterated.

  I sighed. “No, he won’t. He’s the mobster with the strictest morals. He’d probably hand our asses to Santos and his family to teach us a lesson. Not to torture us, but maybe to wash their windows or some shit like that.”

  “Torture, I can handle; washing windows… fuck no,” Elira said, then leaned in closer, her knuckles whitening on the desk. “We could come in through Montenegro,” she offered, already plotting. “Hike the trails, stick to the tree line, avoid roads. No cell towers, no digital trace.”

  “That’d take weeks,” I said, shaking my head. “And we’re not exactly in shape for an alpine expedition. Need I remind you how much you complained while we backpacked Europe?”

  Her glare said she didn’t appreciate the reminder.

  “We could do it,” she said, then, after a pause, added, “Or we go in by water and hit the shore when the night falls.”

  I nodded slowly, the pieces starting to fit. “We launch a small boat before we hit the Albanian coast, leave Midnight anchored. We cannot risk running into Kian.”

  “He’ll mess up whatever plan Jet has,” Elira grumbled. “Or even worse, he’ll call Mother and your parents. That will screw up everything.”

  “We’re putting a lot of trust in Jet,” I mumbled.

  “Do you not trust him?” Elira asked slowly, and I considered the question. I trusted Jet with my safety and his loyalty to our family, but there was no denying that something had been off with him for the past year. He’d been in touch a lot less and disappearing more than usual. “Amara?”

  “I trust him,” I answered slowly. “Anyhow, we’ll land at night, hit the coordinates, and vanish before Kian even realizes we’ve stepped ashore. Jet better be there.”

  She exhaled, considering it. For a brief second, the hardness in her face cracked, and something softer flickered behind her eyes.

  “And if we do run into Kian?” she asked.

  I didn’t blink. “Then we improvise.”

  Elira gave a short, bitter laugh. “Improvising with Kian is like playing cards with a mirror behind us. He’ll know what we’re doing even before we figure it out ourselves.”

  I looked at her dead-on. “Then we don’t give him time to figure out what we’re up to.”

  A beat passed. The yacht creaked gently beneath us, the sea tapping at the hull like impatient fingers.

  Finally, she nodded. Decisive.

  We both turned back to the map and the screen that pulsed dimly in the low light, casting a soft glow over our faces. The coordinates waited. Still, silent, inevitable.

  And somewhere beyond the horizon, Jet waited too.

  Gabriel

  Iwaited until they were gone.

  Elira didn’t bother with pretense. She shot me a wink—sharp and glinting like a trigger warning—then disappeared out the door, toast in hand.

  Amara had lingered before following her sister.

  She paused in the doorway, posture rigid, eyes unreadable. Her jaw was tight, like she was holding back more than just words. Regret, maybe. Or something heavier.

  Then she turned, and I was once again alone.

  Silence settled in. I let it stretch, listening. An hour passed, maybe more. I didn’t move, just sat with the weight of it all.

  The self-imposed kidnapping was going according to plan. More or less. Elira’s comments about shagging still rang in my ears, and I had no doubt in my mind that she was working with Jet. After all, why would she suddenly be okay with my interest in Amara?

  I let out a sardonic breath. It was so much more than just interest. She and I had been circling each other for years. Never colliding, never close enough to burn, but always within gravitational reach. A glance here.

  No sudden moves. No reckless advances.

  Not with her.

  The wrong kind of attention around someone like Amara could mark you for the wrong kind of consequences. My mind drifted—uninvited—back to the first time I saw her.

  I’d learned early on that people projected ambition through posture, and at D’Arc, it was all chest-forward arrogance. Every student here had some kind of legacy to carry on. I was on the edge of graduation, walking out of my last seminar, half set on vanishing from this place and taking over the Santos Cartel empire so my half brother could retire.

  But then I saw her. Amara Cullen.

  From the looks of the campus map in her hands and her open, curious expression, she was here touring the school.

  Despite the sense of awe emanating from her, she carried herself like someone who had already decided she owed this place nothing.

  Amara Cullen was the daughter of Emory DiLustro, who was part of the Kingpin Syndicate, and Killian Cullen, the adopted son of Liam Brennan. Both were known for arms dealing. Amara was Kian Cortes’s granddaughter, the man known for running private security for many in the mobster world, but also the head of the Cortes Cartel, which was previously known for human trafficking. Of course, Kian ended that after his brother was killed. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, Amara was also the adopted daughter of Liana Volkov, known for arms dealing, human and organ trafficking, drugs, and a bit of everything else.

  Needless to say, Amara’s reputation alone should’ve made her predictable and calculable. Or at the very least, the sheltered mafia princess.

  But the moment I saw her, I knew she wasn’t.

  She wasn’t polished. She was pressure-forged.

  You didn’t get that kind of composure from training alone.

  She moved through the crowds of students like she was collecting intel—reading tells, cataloging weak points. Maybe she’d never use them. Maybe she would.

  The moment she spotted me across the campus amid the chaos of passing students, our eyes locked, and I felt something shift inside me. The world blurred, and in that stillness, I vowed she’d be mine one day, no matter how long it took. I’d wait until the end of time for her.

  I knew she was a rare gem, worth every second of my patience. Not because of her legacy, but because of her essence that shone in her eyes.

  Most people glanced away when I watched them. She held my stare like she was pulling something from it—and then, just as easily, let go.

  Like I wasn’t useful yet, but I might be. That was the moment I knew I’d stay.

  The idea landed fully formed. I didn’t question it. I delayed graduation, took the internal offer for an adjunct role under another professor’s mentorship, where I’d trained second-years.

  She never took my class, not that it mattered. I hadn’t stayed to teach her. I’d stayed to watch her.

  Amara wasn’t just her legacy.

  She was a live variable. A volatile one. And I’d never been good at walking away from volatility.

  Yes, patience wasn’t a novelty to me, and especially not where it concerned Amara and her family. After I’d waited an hour, long enough to hear the yacht settle again, I got to work on my professional-grade steel cuffs.

  My skin already burned around the edges where I’d rubbed them raw from tugging.

  I twisted my left wrist just enough to reach the inside seam of my sleeve, letting the edge of the fabric pull taut.

  The handcuffs bit in deeper—sharp pressure, enough to sting—but I didn’t flinch. With a flick of my fingers, I popped the button loose. The sleeve relaxed, and the small embedded mod revealed itself. A stitch line just a little too straight. A fold that was a little too precise.

  I didn’t need to dislocate anything, thanks to my tailor who prepared for all possible scenarios.

  Carefully, I rolled onto my side and exhaled through my nose. Slowed my pulse. Focused.

  From beneath the cuff, I eased out a sliver of steel no thicker than a thread. Spring-loaded, needle-fine. The kind of tool that passed unnoticed through most scans because it wasn’t metal—it was carbon alloy.

  Jackpot.

  I worked the lock with muscle memory and breath. Pressure. Tilt. Twist. My fingers danced like they’d done this a thousand times. Every cuff had a rhythm. You just had to find its tempo.

  Click.

  The sound was quieter than a sigh, but loud in the stillness.

  Freedom. Or a version of it.

  I flexed my wrist once, then slid out of the bed. I flexed my fingers while surveying the cabin.

  The room was absurdly lavish with white leather, gold fixtures, and mahogany walls. It was a room designed to feel indulgent, not like a prison.

  A failed design, in my opinion.

  Why? Because of two unhinged women lurking nearby and windows I couldn’t crawl through unless I felt like going for a long swim.

  I rolled my sleeve back down, smoothing the fabric over the raised skin, then rebuttoned the cuff with deliberate care. The handcuffs stayed where they were—close to the rails, visible but undisturbed.