Chapter 3

Mustering the last of my strength, I yelled, my voice raw and broken. "Wait! I know your boss, El Martillo!"

The blows stopped. The men paused, looking at each other, then down at me.

"I saved him in the Bronx years ago!" I gasped, blood trickling from my lip. "Ask him! Ask him about the coyote stencil!"

Hector stared down at me, his expression a mixture of skepticism and contempt. He barked an order in Spanish, and one of his men kicked me hard in the ribs for emphasis.

"You're lying," Hector sneered. "The boss hasn't been to the Bronx in a decade."

But there was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He pulled out a burner phone and made the call. The conversation was brief, a rapid-fire exchange in Spanish that I struggled to follow in my dazed state.

Hector hung up, his face contorted with fury.

"Liar!" he roared, throwing the phone at my head. It glanced off my temple, the impact jarring. "The boss says he doesn't know any artist from the Bronx."

The beating resumed, more vicious this time. They dragged me across the concrete floor, my body screaming in protest. They were taking me somewhere else, deeper into the compound.

As they hauled me through a dimly lit corridor, I saw another group of men approaching. And at their lead was Hector.

But it wasn't the Hector from the warehouse. It was the man who was with El Martillo that day. The real Hector. The one who had watched, silent and imposing, as his boss saved my life.

His face was older, harder, but it was him. I knew it. He had to recognize me.

With a surge of adrenaline that defied my injuries, I broke free from my captors' grasp. I lunged, a desperate, clumsy movement, and grabbed onto his leg.

"The Bronx..." I gasped, my lungs burning. "The coyote... it had three stars in its eye... for Orion's Belt... a detail only the artist would know!"

Hector froze. His eyes widened, a flicker of genuine shock finally breaking through his hardened exterior. For a second, I thought it worked.

Then his face hardened again. He kicked me away, a vicious, powerful blow that sent me sprawling. He pulled a taser from his belt, and the world exploded in a white-hot agony as the electricity coursed through me.

"Take her to the hole," he snarled at his men, his voice tight with something I couldn't decipher. Fear?

As they dragged my limp body away, I heard them muttering to each other in hushed, nervous Spanish.

"How did she know about the stars?"

"Only the boss knows that detail."

"If she's telling the truth... he'll kill us for this."

The fear in their voices was my new lifeline. They tied me up, their movements rough but hurried. They gagged me, silencing any further pleas. Just as they finished, a new wave of commotion swept through the compound.

"El Martillo is coming! Inspection!"