Page 55

22:10 Hours.

Blood ran into Elena’s eye from a cut on her forehead. She couldn’t remember when she’d gotten it. Didn’t matter. What mattered was the letter opener in Toro’s hand, the cold calculation in his eyes as he circled her.

“You were always weak,” he said. His breathing was ragged—she’d hit him harder than she’d thought. “You’re still the same scared little girl.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Elena’s hand drifted toward her boot. “Whatever helps you sleep.”

“The only thing that will help me sleep is your body in the ground.”

He feinted left, and she bit, committing to the wrong direction. He reversed, driving the letter opener toward her throat. Elena threw herself backward, her shoulders hitting the wall, and the blade missed by centimeters.

But now she was cornered. Toro advanced, the letter opener steady in his hand, and Elena saw her death in his eyes.

She dropped.

Her hand found the boot knife, yanked it free, came up in a rising arc that caught Toro’s wrist. He screamed, dropping the letter opener. The blade clattered across the floor.

Elena didn’t give him time to recover. She drove forward, inside his reach, and buried the boot knife in his chest.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Toro staggered backward, shock replacing rage on his face. His hands scrabbled at his chest, at the blood pouring between his fingers. He tried to speak, but only a wet gurgle emerged.

He fell.

Elena stood over him, the knife slick in her hand, breathing hard through the pain of her split lip and bruised ribs and the cut above her eye. Watching the light fade from the eyes of the man who’d destroyed her.

“Still weak?” she asked.

Toro’s lips moved. No sound came out. Then nothing.

The office door exploded inward.

Elena spun, knife raised, ready for more guards. But it was Brock who crashed through, weapon up, eyes wild. He took in the scene—Toro’s body, the blood, Elena standing with a blade dripping crimson.

Their eyes met.

“You killed him,” Brock said. Not a question. He could see the answer.

“I killed him.” Confirmation. Wonder. Relief. Seven years of nightmares, ended on the floor of a temple office. “It’s over.”

His expression shifted—from combat ready to something softer, fiercer. “Good. Now let’s get you out of here.”

Atticus appeared in the doorway behind Brock, swept the room with efficiency. His gaze lingered on Toro’s body for just a moment.

“Confirmed,” he said into his comms. “Primary target is KIA. Repeat, Antonio Ramos is down.”

“Copy that,” Cal’s voice crackled through. “And the virus just finished its work. Their entire network is toast. Bank accounts, operations, contact lists—everything copied to DOJ and permanently deleted on their end. The cartel is done.”

Elena felt something loosen in her chest. Not just Toro. The whole organization. The network that had destroyed her family, that had taken her father, that had left her broken in an alley.

Ended.

“We need to move,” Brock said, holstering his weapon and moving to her side. His hands hovered near her shoulders, wanting to touch but not sure if he should. “Can you walk?”

“I can run if I have to.” She wiped the knife on Toro’s expensive shirt, then slid it back into her boot. No point leaving evidence. “Let’s go.”

They moved into the corridor, and it was chaos. Guards running, shouting, trying to understand what had happened to their systems. Some were arguing, some were looting, some were fleeing. The carefully maintained order of the cartel was collapsing in real time.