SURVIVE THE FALL AND CLAIM THE BLOOD DEBT

The old pickup sputtered and died five miles up the mountain, coasting to a silent halt beneath a canopy of pine trees. The rain had intensified, washing away their tracks but drenching them in freezing mountain mist.

Sofia tied a clean rag tightly around Mateo's shoulder wound, pulling his coat around him. ""We walk. How much further?""

""Two kilometers,"" Mateo whispered, his lips turning a faint shade of blue from blood loss and shock. ""An abandoned silver mine. Hector... Hector keeps his comms array there.""

Sofia took his weight, wrapping his good arm around her neck. Her body felt alien to her—the center of gravity shifted by pregnancy, every muscle crying out in protest from the ocean swim, the cold, and the sheer adrenaline. But beneath the agony, a cold, predatory clarity settled into her mind. Julian had treated her like an inconvenient piece of property to be discarded into the dark water. He had underestimated the savage instinct of a mother protecting her child.

They reached the rusted gate of the mine as the sky began to bleed gray in the east. Two armed sentries stepped out from the pine shadows, their carbines leveled.

""Hands where we can see them!"" one barked in Spanish.

""Tell Hector that Sofia Navarro has come back from the dead,"" Sofia replied coldly, not breaking her stride as she carried Mateo past them.

The sentries hesitated, their eyes widening in recognition as the morning light caught her face.

Inside the cavernous tunnel, bathed in the yellow hum of halogen work lights powered by a generator, stood Hector Salazar. He was sixty, his hair completely silver, wearing tactical fatigue trousers and a Kevlar vest. When he saw her, the mug in his hand shattered on the stone floor.