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I bristled, looking over my shoulder. The shots were getting louder.
Closer.
‘We should go,’ Este said slowly, his eyes locked onto the street.
Although alarmed, I’d been holding onto the hope that the loud pops were just drunk people shooting at nothing.
When the screaming started, my heart sank. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe properly.
A trio of heavily armed men burst through the crowd at the open end of the alley and I almost fell over. They looked both fierce and bored, if that were possible. Dressed entirely in black, shirts and heavy-duty cargo pants, they held impressive-looking guns. None of the men looked Colombian. In fact, I would have guessed European, with their olive colouring. More specifically, I would have guessed Italian, because somewhere in my brain the puzzle pieces were snapping together.
My knees went weak for a moment; I choked on a breath.
I recognised them.
‘We have to get out of here,’ I said, turning and tugging on Este’s wrist. A shot rang out, much too close to me this time, and suddenly Esteban’s weight was dragging me down, down, down to the ground. I struggled to see what was going on in the darkness. Este’s lantern had fallen, the flame snuffed out, and I held up my own paper lantern to see. I choked as I watched a red stain blossoming on his chest, swiftly soaking through his bright blue t-shirt.
‘Este!’ I screamed, on my knees beside him. I took my hands and pressed them to his chest, trying to stem the flow of blood that rose and bubbled over his sides, gushing onto the slick cobblestones below us.
The shot had probably killed him instantly. That was the rational part of my mind, making an observation, and I pushed it away, horrified. No. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead!
Numbness swept through my chest. His glazed eyes remained open and unseeing, and an odd pallor swallowed up any colour from his bronze skin. Fuck. What could I do? How could I fix him?
Anger surged through me as I whirled around to face the bastard who had planted a bullet in the man I’d called my lover for four years. The one.
They’d killed him.
I fought a violent urge to throw up.
We were so close to getting out of this life, away from Colombia, away from my father. So fucking close.
Not close enough.
Shaking, I rose to my feet and balled my hands into fists. ‘You shot him!’ I screamed, my throat aching from the sudden exertion. My rage gave me false bravado as I rattled off a string of obscenities, some in Spanish and some in English, at the three men. They remained largely impassive as they aimed their guns at my chest.
This couldn’t be happening. I locked eyes with the middle shooter and glowered up at him.
‘Come on, tough guy!’ I yelled, pressing my chest against the barrel of his assault rifle. ‘You gonna shoot me, too? Go ahead, pull that fucking trigger, cholo. What the hell are you waiting for?’
For a moment I thought he might, until he raised the butt of his rifle and brought it down onto my skull with a loud crack. Stars swam in my vision and I crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.
Everything faded around me in slow motion as I melted, unwillingly, into an abyss that was made up only of darkness and agonising pain.
They’d killed him.
And nothing would ever be the same again.
CHAPTER THREE
EMILIO
He was lighting a cigarette when the unconscious girl landed on the seat next to him with a thud.
‘Sorry, boss,’ Carlos called as her head flopped onto Emilio’s shoulder.
Emilio glared at Carlos and shoved Marco’s older daughter off him. Her forehead hit the window opposite his with a loud thunk before she settled in the corner between the window and back seat.
He puffed on his cigar as he surveyed her. She was pretty enough. Long, coffee-coloured hair fell across her face, partially shielding it from his view. He already knew what colour her closed eyes were. The twin irises were the exact hue of cerulean blue as the ocean beside his childhood house in Italy. It was the single feature that had stood out to him when he first met her as a small girl, back when Marco was a lot more capable and a lot less drunk.
