My breath hitched, almost imperceptible. Almost.

  His voice dropped. “You keep playing with fire, preciosa.”

  I smirked. “You haven’t even seen me strike the match yet.”

  For a moment, the night held its breath around us. The city pulsed. The shadows listened. And beneath it all, something coiled low in my gut—a hunger with a familiar edge. Damn it, I shouldn’t have resorted to abstinence these past few months.

  “So, are you?” I challenged, ignoring the throbbing pulse between my legs.

  “Scared? Not for me, no,” he said quietly. “But for the rest of the world? Yeah, I’m terrified.”

  Thick silence settled between us.

  He shook his head, eyes shadowed. “You should carefully consider how far you’re willing to go, Amara. Actions have consequences.”

  I looked away, but the truth pulsed in the space between us: he was right to be suspicious.

  Still, I pressed on, because Jet’s life was at stake.

  “So,” I said, softer now, “is that a yes for dinner?”

  “Fine. But I’m choosing. I don’t trust your taste in wine or food.”

  I snorted. “You’re too picky.”

  “Colombians appreciate food. It’s like lovemaking—slow, savoring, and⁠—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Why is it always about sex with you?”

  “I never said a word about sex, and just for the record, you brought it up first when you mentioned kissing me.”

  “I strictly meant kissing, not sex,” I lied shamelessly.

  “Sure.” He rolled his eyes, but there was a playful glint in them. “Just admit it, Amara. Your mind is in the gutter, not mine.”

  I snorted. “Right. And I’m supposed to believe you were describing food, not foreplay?”

  He threw his head back and laughed—rich, unrestrained, the kind of sound that made the night feel warmer. I hated how much I liked it. Even with all the walls I’d carefully erected, something about that laugh was magnetic. I felt them quake, and it was enough to pull me back to my mission.

  “Take my car,” he finally said. “I don’t want you roaming the streets alone at night.”

  I nodded, not mentioning I was about to make a stop.

  “Thanks,” I said, climbing behind the wheel with my backpack. I recited my number, although I suspected he already had it. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He nodded. “I’ll text you the address and time.”

  “I’ll wait with bated breath. There better be some tamales on the menu.”

  He laughed. “I’ll try and oblige.”

  The engine growled to life beneath my hands. As I headed toward the harbor—toward my yacht, my sister, my escape—I fought the pull in my chest. The urge to turn back, to say something I’d regret.

  Gabriel

  Ikept my eyes locked on the taillights as Amara pulled away from the curb.

  I didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe.

  The moment she was gone, I raised a hand toward the black Mercedes idling nearby—tinted windows, factory shine, the kind of car that didn’t just promise discretion, it demanded it. The engine kicked over with a low purr.

  Luis eased the car around and rolled up beside me, window halfway down.

  “You’ve got odd taste in women, Gabriel,” he said, voice dry as the desert. “Like, do you have a subscription to disasters, or is this just freelance work?”

  I opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, the cold leather welcome after the hours in the jungle.

  “Are you saying that because she’s out of my league,” I muttered, “or because you’ve got unrequited feelings for your woman from Medellín?”

  Luis grinned, tapping the steering wheel.

  “Touché. But at least my woman didn’t have lethal connections and crazy fucking relatives. Or did you conveniently forget the warning of those Satan twins and their little ambush from two years ago?”

  “I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about,” I grumbled.

  “Allow me to jog your memory: they explicitly told you to stay away from their sister.”

  I waved a hand dismissively. “That’s ancient history.”

  He gave me a sharp look. “Ancient history? Jet could be scheming to get your sister. He and his sisters are enemies, and you’re busy falling under Amara’s spell.”

  I hummed.

  Luis was right, of course. Jet was a problem, the one that we could no longer locate because the psychopath vanished into thin air. But it would hardly make Amara the enemy. Right? Shit, I had to get myself together because when she was around, it was hard to think straight.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Luis muttered. “Do us both a favor and steer clear of Amara. She and her family are walking disasters.”

  “She’s complicated,” I said, unlocking my phone and pulling up my tracking app. A single red dot moved slowly on the map. I still couldn’t believe she hadn’t questioned taking my Jeep. “No one chooses their family.” Why in the fuck was I even defending her? Dammit. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Oh, I understand. You’re looking for trouble,” he said, shifting into drive. “I’m begging you not to make it a lifestyle because it reflects poorly on me.”

  We pulled out onto the road, and for a few seconds, neither of us said anything.

  Luis broke the silence. “I’d like you to fall for someone boring. You know, someone with a job, a real one. Like a nurse. Or a barista.”

  I smirked. “That’d be nice. If I ever wake up and find out I’ve got a boring life.”

  Luis laughed, the sharp chuckle all but drowned out by the crunching of gravel under tires. “If you ever wake up bored, remind me to call a priest or a coroner.”

  Little lights blinked on the screen, one of them marking Amara’s last known location.

  “Looks like she parked by the buildings near the docks,” I muttered.

  Luis glanced over, arching a brow. “I know of a certain person of interest there.”

  “Yeah, Esteban. The fucking kid is trouble.”

  Another chuckle. “Sounds familiar. Do you think Amara knows him?”

  I turned my head to level him with a look that said What do you think? “I don’t think she just happened to park her boat near the city’s most reliable hacker.”

  Luis smirked, eyes back on the road. “Well, if she fries any circuits, I’m blaming you. Just remember that I warned you to kill Amara and her crazy adoptive siblings. At the very least, it would have solved the problem of that loose cannon pining after Anya. But no, you didn’t want to cross that line.”

  I groaned, dragging a hand down my face like it might wipe away the headache forming behind my eyes.

  “Yeah, yeah. Next time I’ll be sure to pencil in murder between coffee and light extortion. Really brightens up the calendar.” I clicked my tongue. “Diplomacy is key in our line of business, especially if I’m going to be invited to family reunions."

  Luis barked a laugh. “Yeah, that’s about as likely as a snowstorm in the goddamn Sahara.”

  “Hard to tell who’s the bigger pain in my ass right now—you or them.”

  He shot me a shit-eating grin. “Please. It’s not even a competition, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  I gave him a look—flat, unimpressed—but the smile still tugged at the corner of my mouth like it had a mind of its own. “Congratulations. You’re officially insufferable and self-aware. A rare combo.”

  “Is there a medal for something like that?” he questioned.

  I rolled my eyes, then turned serious.

  “That unhinged freak wants Anya. And I suspect it’s not in the schoolboy-crush, pass-a-note kind of way. A part of me worries how far Jet will go.”

  Luis sobered instantly, the grin dropping off his face. He glanced at me, jaw tight. “Then we make sure he doesn’t get the chance.”

  The vehicle rolled on through the city, heat rising off the pavement despite the late hour. I stared ahead, but my thoughts were miles away. Somewhere darker. Somewhere colder.

  Amara

  This city felt like it was rotting from the inside out.

  I walked the cracked sidewalk near La Bodeguita Dock, the wind whipping in off the ocean sharp enough to slice through the fabric of my shirt. It was a welcome reprieve in this humid heat.

  A cargo ship groaned in the distance, cranes silhouetted against a smoke-choked sky, the whole area pulsing with the low, mechanical throb of machines that never slept. Somewhere, bobbing in the inky-black sea, Elira was waiting for me. The thought gave me the confidence boost I needed to complete my mission.

  In a way, it reminded me of the property in Venezuela where I’d spent the first five years of my life. I vaguely remembered it, but it was the kind of remote place people vanished in.

  I had a horrible feeling that whatever Jet—with or without Santos—was up to, it would end badly for all of us. When my brother made up his mind about something, he rarely held back. Like the time he put the first boy I ever slept with in the hospital for making a joke about my virginity. Jet broke every one of his fingers, then shattered both his legs, just to make a point to never make fun of any girl again.

  My phone rang and Elira’s name flashed.

  “Hey,” I answered.

  “You were supposed to call me,” she reprimanded. “I was worried sick.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, for starters, we are on someone else’s territory, and you’re my sister. Of course I worry, dammit.”

  I smiled. “As we expected, I ran into Santos.”

  “Shit,” she muttered. “Although not exactly surprising. We kind of anticipated it.”

  “Yeah, we did.”

  A heartbeat of silence. “Any signs of Jet??”

  “I found his phone.”

  My fingers curled around the phone in my pocket.

  “And?”

  I’d found it in the bag he dumped outside that camp and picked it up knowing it might lead me somewhere. It wasn’t the phone he’d had with him the evening we’d been separated. This one was matte black, unbranded, and heavily encrypted.

  “I can’t unlock it.”

  “Lucky for us, there’s a good hacker here,” Elira pointed out. It wasn’t unusual that we thought along the same lines. After all, both of us were trained by the same people. “Will you go to him?”

  “I don’t have much choice,” I muttered. “Not if we want to unlock it.” I couldn’t decide whether coming to Esteban’s was smart or plain stupid. “Anyhow, I’m here now. I’ll update you on everything when I leave.”

  “Sounds good. Good luck.”

  Click. The line went dead while I stared ahead. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was amiss and that everything wasn’t as it seemed. Maybe I should just get back to the yacht.

  “I’m already here,” I muttered under my breath, eyes darting around the structures looming over me. “I might as well get the information and then I’ll go from there.”

  I slipped through the warped side door of the ten-story building, a vertical stack of crumbling apartments, most of them reeking of mildew and despair. Mold climbed the walls like ivy. The stairwell stank of piss, rotting wood, and spilled beer. Every step I took groaned underfoot like a warning.

  What the hell was Jet up to? Why couldn’t I shake off the feeling that I was making a mistake? Yet, I kept ignoring the warning churning in my gut.

  By the time I hit the third floor, I was high on adrenaline and self-doubt that I blamed on a level of fatigue not even espresso could fix.

  I raised my fist to pound on Esteban’s door, then hesitated. If I spooked him, he’d bolt. If I gave him time, he’d start lying. He always did.

  So I knocked firmly, only once.

  A long pause followed before the door creaked open an inch and a pale face peeked out. His eyes widened, the blue glow of his monitors illuminating the space behind him.

  “Amara?” Esteban breathed.

  “One and only.” My eyes bounced from him to my right, feeling invisible eyes everywhere. We met at D’Arc. In our world, hacker skills were important, and once I learned of Esteban’s skillset, Jet, Elira, and I occasionally shared his expertise.

  “What a surprise. Good one, of course.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Inside.”

  He stepped aside fast, the deadbolt clattering uselessly against the frame as I walked in.

  The place was hot and filled with stale air. Half-eaten food containers and empty cans were strewn across a floor that hadn’t seen a broom in maybe ever. The air conditioner in the window wheezed like it was dying. Three monitors threw light across a desk cluttered with wires, flash drives, and a tangled mess of mismatched tech.

  “You look like hell,” I muttered. “Much like this place.”

  He scratched the back of his neck. “It’s a side effect of people wanting you dead.”

  Esteban had always been a little paranoid. I assumed it was related to secrets he’d dug up over the years, although I’d never cared enough to find out the details. My sources told me he’d been here for four months, which I knew to be an eternity for a hacker at his level.

  “Then solve my problem before someone from your long list of enemies gets lucky.”

  He gave a nervous laugh as I pulled the black phone from my jacket and dropped it on the desk.

  His brow furrowed. “That’s a military-grade satphone. Where’d you get this?”

  “Jungle.”

  “Who does it belong to?”

  “My sibling.”

  His face paled. “Which one…?”

  “Not your business.” I stared him down. “You’re going to crack it. And stop asking questions.”

  He chewed the inside of his cheek, hesitating. He picked it up and turned it around, typing the barcode into his monitor and plugging it into a portable grid. Finally, he set it down and met my gaze. “Look, this kind of thing takes time. And depending on the layers⁠—”

  “You’re already wasting my time,” I said, stepping close enough to make him flinch. He had a foot on me, easily, but I was the more lethal one and we both knew it. “Just do it.”

  Esteban put his hands up in surrender and sat at his desk. “Alright. Alright. Let’s see what secrets it holds.”

  I watched him work, fingers flying across his keyboard as he connected the phone to a different set of cables and adapters. Lines of white on black code began scrolling down the monitor faster and faster.

  The room buzzed with the low hum of decryption. He muttered under his breath in a twitchy mix of Spanish and code. Minutes passed. Then something shifted.

  Esteban leaned forward.

  “I’m in. He buried the data under a dummy operating system that looks like a media player on the outside, but inside…”

  He trailed off as files began to unfold across the screen.

  “Encrypted folders,” he murmured. “GPS log. Here’s one drafted message. Unsent.”

  I reached forward and grabbed it, yanking wires off of it, and opened the draft. The message was scrambled, parts of it lost or corrupted, but what remained turned my stomach cold.

  To: A. If you get this, follow the coordinates. Snatch Santos. Jet.

  My brows knit together. There were no coordinates in the message. No attachment. Just empty air where something important might’ve once been.

  Then it clicked.

  The server.

  Back when we were kids, Jet, Elira, and I had built a Dropbox on the net. It started as a joke of a place to stash dumb messages, fake spy games, and test answers as we got older. It reflected the kind of paranoia kids thought made them clever.

  But then we continued using it as we spent extended periods of time apart as a way to stay up to date on each other’s lives.

  I pulled out my phone and my fingers moved on instinct, punching in the right codes, clearing the layers of encryption like brushing dirt off a buried weapon.

  Three minutes later, the screen blinked once with a single file, uploaded by Jet forty-eight hours ago. They were coordinates.

  “What does it say?” Esteban asked, voice low, glancing at me.

  I stared at the phone screen.

  Why would Jet want me to snatch Santos and deliver him to those coordinates? Why wouldn’t he have just taken Santos himself since he was clearly in the jungle and on Santos’s territory?

  I turned and headed for the door, sliding both phones into my coat.

  “Wait—hold on, I can back that up. Just give me⁠—”

  I stopped at the threshold and looked back over my shoulder.

  “If you tell anyone I was here, I swear to God…”

  He swallowed. “I won’t.”

  I opened the door.

  “If you lie to me,” I added without turning around, “say your prayers. You’re already a dead man.”

  A heartbeat passed before he replied, “Okay.”

  I disappeared into the hallway, already pulling out my burner phone and telling Elira I was on my way back. We needed to know where this clue led.

  Then we’d grab Santos. The one man I’d rather keep at a safe distance.

  But hey, you know what they say: keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  Gabriel

  We rolled to a stop outside a squat building near the docks, engine still ticking as the heat bled through the metal. That’s when we saw Amara, slipping out the front door like a ghost.

  She moved through the shadows with that eerie kind of quiet grace and confidence. The world bent a little around her, allowing her to pass. That had always fascinated me about her. I’d always known she was the controlled girl, raised to be a queen. The moment I saw her in the jungle, I witnessed it, and fuck, I loved that about her. She was dangerous and powerful, and seeing her for who she was, I couldn’t say that I minded that at all.

  Luis and I stepped out of the vehicle and I gave him a quick signal.

  “Keep your distance,” I muttered, and we drifted into the shadows behind her, the rhythm of pursuit second nature by now.