Chapter 3 - The Toll of the RoadSmoke was drifting lazily over the asphalt by the time Ramon and his men breached the tree line.
The lead black sedan was still idling, but its passenger-side window was completely shattered, tiny diamonds of safety glass sparkling across the wet pavement. Bullet holes dotted the reinforced steel door like a string of dark pearls.
"Clear?" Ramon muttered over his shoulder.
Victor swept the front of the vehicle, kicking open the driver’s door. "Empty. Driver's gone. No blood inside, but look at this."
Victor pointed down to the asphalt. A trail of wet, heavy footprints—booted, military-grade tread—led away from the cars and vanished back into the eastern stretch of the woods. Next to the tracks lay a discarded tactical earpiece, still blinking a faint, intermittent blue light.
Ramon walked over, picked up the earpiece, and crushed it beneath his boot heel. The microchip cracked with a satisfying crunch.
"They didn't come to destroy the cars," Ramon realized aloud, his dark eyes narrowing as the pieces clicked together. "They came to plant a tracker. They wanted us to know they found our transport."
"Boss, the woman is waking up," Matteo called out from where he and Diego had laid the rescued mother on a dry patch of pine needles near the trunk of the second car.
Ramon turned sharply and strode over.
The woman was shivering violently, her eyelids fluttering open to reveal a pair of striking, ice-blue eyes that mirrored the terrified gaze of the little girl hiding behind Diego's legs. Her lips were cracked, stained with dark bruising from the rope, but as her focus locked onto Ramon’s face, all the color drained from her skin.
She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She reached out with trembling, rope-burned fingers and grabbed the lapel of Ramon’s ruined, mud-stained suit jacket with terrifying strength.
"You..." she choked out, her voice a dry rasp that sounded like grinding stones. "You came back."
"I don't leave loose ends, and I don't walk away from traps," Ramon said, his tone flat, devoid of warmth. "Start talking. Who hung you from that oak, and why did they leave this on your chest?"
Ramon pulled the heavy silver medallion from his pocket and dropped it onto her palm.
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The woman stared at the metal, and a hollow, bitter laugh escaped her bruised throat—a sound that sent a cold shiver down even veteran killers like Victor and Diego.
"Because," she whispered, her ice-blue eyes locking onto Ramon with absolute terror, "they didn't want you to save me, Ramon. They wanted you to find out that the girl you're carrying... isn't just a stray orphan."
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