Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

Javier lifted his glass of whiskey and stared out the window of his apartment. The one that’d been bought with blood money. He’d be happy to get rid of it when he reclaimed his life back—if he survived.

The war of survival still raged within him.

Some days, the desire to stay alive outplayed the desire to sacrifice himself if it saved Cassandra Ramirez’s life.

That was what his job had been. To keep her safe and make sure that her location was never found—and yet he’d failed.

Realistically, he’d known it would be impossible to keep her out of the clutches of her family, no matter how hard they tried to keep her hidden .

Javier took a sip of the hundred-year-old whiskey, enjoying the burn of the liquid down his throat.

The table vibrated, and he glanced at his phone, seeing a text come in from Gomez. The last thing he wanted to do was look at that message, but in his role, he was always at the drug lord’s beck and call. It was what he’d worked for. What he’d killed for.

What did the man want now?

Texting him at almost midnight couldn’t be a good thing, but then again, maybe he decided to forgo getting his niece back and had decided he wanted to conquer the drug market in Australia. Or some other far-flung country.

None of that was going to happen, so Javier might as well suck it up and just pick the fucking phone up to read the message.

The preview on his home screen showed a grainy photo, and the whiskey he’d drunk turned sour in his belly.

“Fuck.”

He placed the glass down on the table, when what he really wanted to do was throw it against the wall and opened the message app on his phone.

The photo showed a woman’s face. It was a little blurred, but Javier recognized her. Beneath the photo was the message he dreaded reading but one he’d been expecting.

I’ve found her. Call me.

Ignoring Gomez’s command would be useless, not to mention raise suspicions—which he couldn’t afford to let happen.

The moves had been made. Now it was time to execute a plan that’d been a long time coming.