Tainted blood

“Santi, listen! Listen! He’s saying her name.”

Glancing down, I watch as Sanders’s pale lips mouth a name that, in six days, has branded itself across my heart. Right away, I’m dropping to my knees, my face so close to him I can smell the death on his breath. “Where is she?” I snarl. “Where’s my wife?”

His voice is faint, strangled by blood and weakened by the bullets of an unknown enemy. “Run,” he rasps. “Run, Thalia. Fucking run…”

“Where is she, you son of a bitch?” I yell, grabbing handfuls of his crimson-stained shirt. “What happened to her?”

“Santi…”

I turn to find RJ on his knee beside me, holding out a diamond engagement ring and a gold band.

Both abandoned.

Both stained with blood.

“They were under the car,” he says, with a grim expression.

Mi amada.

Steeling my jaw, I tear my gaze away from my broken wedding vows and back to the dying man in front of me. I’d love to send the asshole who branded his name on my sister to his grave, but as long as his heart still beats, then so does mine.

Rising to my feet, I shove my gun back in its holster. “Take him downstairs.”

Without another word, I head back inside. Thalia is out there somewhere, and I’ll stop at nothing to find her.

And when I do…?

God help the motherfucker who took her from me.