Chapter 3

Sierra POV

Lucas's head snapped up, his tear-streaked face a mask of disbelief. "You will?"

I did not answer him. I turned to Wayne, who was already on his feet, wiping blood from his forehead. "Get confirmation that Stella is secure," I commanded, my voice cutting through the wind. "Now. If his men are still at that border station, his daughter dies."

Lucas scrambled for his satellite phone, shouting frantic orders. Moments later, a secure text pinged on Wayne's radio. Stella was safe, back in Syndicate custody.

I stepped away from Lucas's desperate, reaching hands and pulled Wayne aside. "The trap is sprung," I told him, my voice low. "The evidence of Lucas's abuse of power and Sylvia's violation of the Family's code was transmitted to the Consigliere and the Commission an hour ago."

At this, the last drop of color drained from Sylvia's face. She slumped backward into the snow, her body slack, a discarded doll. "I have spent seven years gathering every piece of this," I said, loud enough for Lucas to hear. "I waited for you to reach the pinnacle of your power, Lucas, only so I could watch you fall from a greater height."

I turned toward the heavy armory doors, my boots crunching on the ice. "I will extract Lucy because she is innocent. Only then will the blood debt between us be settled. Not before." I paused at the door and looked back over my shoulder. "Prep the gear," I ordered Wayne. "Climbing harnesses and breaching charges. We depart in ten."

Lucas scrambled to his feet and chased after me. "I'm coming with you." I stopped. Turned. "You're a liability." "She is my daughter," he said, his voice raw. "I will not leave her alone on that mountain. I will die beside her if necessary."

I stared at his desperate, tear-stained face. The face of a father, not a Don. "One condition," I said. "You will obey every command without question. If you hesitate, if you slow me down, I will throw you from the cliff myself." He nodded, his jaw set. "Understood."

Sylvia tried to follow us toward the chopper. I barred her way and gestured to my guards. They dragged her, struggling, into the outpost's underground holding cell to await the Syndicate's judgment.

Ten minutes later, the black chopper lifted off the frozen landing pad. The cabin was dark and cold. There was no sound, only a high-frequency vibration that traveled up from the metal deck and into my bones, churning the acid in my stomach.

Lucas sat across from me, fumbling with his safety harness. He stared at my heavily scarred hands. "How did you survive?" he asked, his voice barely audible.

I did not hold back. "I crawled out of the ice with a shattered leg and three broken ribs," I said. "I dragged myself three miles through the snow before a cartel patrol found me." I let the words hang. "They did not rescue me. They took me prisoner." Lucas's face twisted. "I spent two years in a cartel cage," I continued. "I learned their language. Their methods. Their tradecraft. When I finally escaped, I was no longer Lena Falcone. I was something else." I held up my scarred hands. "Every scar, every broken bone that healed wrong, every night I spent freezing in the dark—I endured it all for one purpose. Justice for Andy."

Lucas looked away, unable to meet my gaze.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a small, plastic-wrapped square and held it up in the dim, flickering light of the cabin. "He made this for you," I said, my voice flat. I read the messy crayon letters aloud. "'I love you, Daddy.'"

I let him look at it for a long moment. "It was frozen solid in his pocket when I found him."

Lucas broke down again, his body convulsing with a guilt so profound it was a physical force, a dark stain that would never wash away.

The chopper banked sharply, the motion throwing us hard against our harnesses. Through the headset, the pilot's strained voice announced our arrival over Devil's Ridge. "We've got less than ninety minutes of oxygen left down there," the pilot added. "Make it count."

I peered out the frost-rimed window at a swirling vortex of white snow and black, jagged rock. This was hostile territory, a desolate landscape where even the cartels feared to tread. And somewhere beneath the ice, a girl was running out of air.