Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 52851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Jagger’s comment hadn’t just hit me—it had struck a chord with her, too.
Store snapped.
Her face contorted, twisting in a way that looked inhuman, warped and furious. Maybe it was the layers of cheap makeup cracking, or maybe it was just the reality of the situation finally settling in.
“Fuck you, Jagger. Fuck all of you,” she spat, her voice sharp, manic. “You don’t know who you’re up against. You don’t know what he can do.” A smug sneer curled on her lips. “He’ll come for me, and you’ll all be fucked.”
Silence. Not a single reaction came from the room to her threat. Not a blink, not a muscle twitch.
Not one person in the room gave a single fuck about what she was claiming, because we all knew the truth—she was delusional. And even worse, she knew it, too. I had studied behavioral psychology as part of my training—language patterns, subconscious tells, the way emotions twisted words and betrayed intent. Right now, her speech, the short, basic sentences, and repeated use of the word fuck, told me exactly what I needed to know.
She wasn’t confident, she was grasping. Store hoped he would come, she wanted to believe he would. But deep down, she knew he wouldn’t.
Preacher shifted in his seat, getting more comfortable, completely unimpressed by her little tantrum. Then, with the same calm as someone ordering a drink at a bar, he lifted his cell and turned the screen toward her.
“This guy?” A photo of Jose Demingo filled the screen.
Store’s expression flickered—recognition, relief, triumph. She nodded, chin lifted slightly like she thought she had us all exactly where she wanted us.
Preacher just looked past her. “Hunter,” he asked lazily, “do you think he’s on his way?”
Hunter barely stifled a laugh, shaking his head. “No fucking way.”
Preacher turned toward Jagger and just looked at him. Jagger smirked, not even needing the full question before answering, “She’s off her fucking meds if she actually believes that.”
The words landed like gunfire, and Store’s confidence wavered. She felt it now, the shift in the air, the weight of what we knew, and her smile faltered.
I met Jagger’s gaze for a brief moment before turning my attention back to the train wreck in front of me—Jose Demingo. A man with a legacy of deception. He had started as a government agent, a rising star, known for intercepting major trafficking operations, shutting down high-level cartels. The perfect soldier, the golden investigator. All that was until the truth surfaced.
He hadn’t been intercepting shipments to shut them down, he’d been rerouting them. Drugs, weapons, and worst of all—human lives. Instead of stopping crime, he had built his own empire from it.
Hunter had worked the case when two major shipments were hijacked on U.S. soil. A total of twenty-six young women and three billion dollars’ worth of drugs and specialized munitions had vanished into thin air. Hunter’s team had worked alongside Demingo to recover what was stolen, only to realize, too late, that they were chasing a ghost.
Nine women had been found. Small stashes of the drugs and munitions were recovered. Then three of the missing girls were dumped, their bodies mutilated, a note pinned to them: Back. The. Fuck. Down.
It had taken months for Hunter to see the cracks, and by then, he had come to me. I’d joined the mission to take Demingo down, and we had almost succeeded. But just as we were closing in, just as we were exchanging fire with his men, a fireball erupted where Demingo had been standing.
We thought he’d been double-crossed. To be honest, we’d thought he was dead, but after Perry’s snatching, we knew better. The ghost was still walking. And if Store thought she meant anything to him, she was dead fucking wrong.
One by one, those of us who knew Demingo shook our heads.
Store’s eyes darted around, panic setting in.
“No,” she whispered. “But… he told me… he said…” The cracks split wide open. “He’s…”
Her voice broke, and her body shook. Tears welled up in her overly made up eyes, but I didn’t feel pity.
I felt satisfaction.
Moving behind her, I fisted her hair, yanking her head back until she had no choice but to look up at me.
“Now,” I murmured, my voice eerily calm, “you’re going to answer the nice men and tell them everything they need to know.”
She almost scalped herself with the ferocity of her nods.
Twenty minutes later
The men were filing out, discussion murmuring between them. Store had given up everything she thought she knew—worthless crumbs, just like we expected. Demingo had never trusted her. She was a pawn, disposable and insignificant, and she’d had nothing valuable to offer. Which meant—she was mine now.
I had been promised this moment with her, the deal had been clear. If I let her live, if I didn’t end her the moment we realized she had been feeding intel back to Demingo, she would be mine to deal with.