Arielle Lucila jammed her pistol inside the man’s gaping mouth. Her arm didn’t so much as
tremble. Like anyone, the twists and turns of life had shaped her sense of purpose in the world.
Pain and tragedy had chipped away at her like a patient sculptor hacking off chunks of marble to
create a timeless masterpiece. She was exactly where she was supposed to be.
The man lay flat on his back, his dark skin glistening as sweat covered every inch of his face. It
had been a treacherous two-hour manhunt for the Mexican drug lord known as El Guapo. His
bloodshot eyes dripped with desperation, begging for mercy.
Arielle had come into this mission on her own, confident she could bring him down along with
the rest of his cartel, and securing the perimeter around his mansion in Culiacán, Sinaloa.
She had arrived the night before, scouting the area from a distance with night-vision goggles to
familiarize herself with the landscape surrounding the private mansion. An iron fence with
spiked tips secured the property, and she had found only one exit along the rear, where El Guapo
could slip out in case of an emergency.
Weeks of studying the area with satellite maps left her confident she only needed one other
Angel on the mission to watch that rear exit. She never knew who manned that post, nor did it
matter. Twenty-one cartel members populated the property, and she killed every single one of
them on her own, sniping a cool dozen from a perch in a tree one hundred yards away before
moving closer to the mansion. The rest retreated inside.
Arielle always loved that part of the job, seeing several grown men scatter like terrified ants.
Maneuvering toward and through the mansion was plenty more difficult thanks to the cameras
planted throughout the property, but she had learned the layout like her own home, and was
ready for the trapdoors and hiding spots where El Guapo’s goons hid to ambush her.
The Road Runners, the secret organization she had joined many years ago, had unlimited
resources and had no problem paying off the architect who had created El Guapo’s famous
mansion for the original blueprints and designs. This mission, like every other before it, proved
rather straightforward thanks to the advantage they always had. It almost wasn’t fair, until you
considered these gifts were used to kill people like El Guapo, with forty known murders under
his belt, and hundreds more by the hands of his cartel.
Arielle wasn’t driven by hatred, but rather a respect and appreciation for life. Those who used
others’ lives for their own gain had no reason to exist in her world, and she’d see that none of
them could shatter the lives of innocent families again. She knew the pain too well, its scars
having hardened her soul in the years since she lost her own family.
She brushed aside those thoughts before they distracted from the task at hand. Not that El Guapo
posed a threat—Arielle had shot him once in each leg and crushed his arms with a crowbar. She
enjoyed this part of her work, making those who caused so much suffering live through their
own moment of personal hell before she turned off their lights.
“I’ll admit, this is a beautiful home,” Arielle said, forcing the gun deeper into the drug lord’s
mouth, causing him to gag uncontrollably. “It will need a good cleaning after the mess your
people made today, but I think we can turn this into something useful for society, don’t you
think? Maybe an orphanage, or senior home. I don’t know, a rehab center for drug addicts seems
appropriate to me.”
El Guapo’s eyes bulged out of his sockets, begging her to stop, but she saw the look of
acceptance and defeat in them. It was a look she knew too well, one that made her heart skip a
beat each time she witnessed it. She never saw regret or remorse, but rather, shock. How could
someone so powerful and connected end up in such a predicament? Maybe their lives flashed
through their minds, or perhaps they calculated how they ended up looking death straight in the
eye. She didn’t care either way.
Arielle felt the man pushing his tongue against the pistol, trying to force it out of his mouth.
“Fighting until the last moment,” she observed. “Admirable, but not enough. Do you actually
think you’re going to walk out of here? Look around—I did this all by myself.”
She paused and looked away, inviting El Guapo to do the same. His head dropped to one side,
eyes scanning his office where four bodies formed a trail of death from the door to behind his
desk.
He grunted, fighting to speak, and Arielle shook her head. “I used to let people like you say some
final words, but I’ve found it to be a waste of time. Let me guess, you want to call me a crazy
bitch?” She grinned and pressed the pistol deeper, cutting off the grunts as El Guapo’s face
reddened, his lips turning a shade of purple while his body convulsed. “You’re choking. And
unless you can give me one good reason to shoot you instead, I think I’ll wait this one out.”
The gagging stopped as he fell silent. The only sounds were his hands rapping on the hardwood
floor while his entire body tensed. He was only seconds away now. Arielle knew, again, by the
distant look in his eyes. They stared in her direction, but focused behind her. Through her.
It only took another minute until the convulsions softened and the drug lord lay motionless. His
balled fists relaxed, fingers opening into a slight curl. A cloudy haze took over his eyes,
prompting Arielle to reach forward to brush his eyelids shut. She kept the pistol in his mouth, not
wanting to take any chances—she had made that mistake only once before.
Arielle remained on top of him for the next ninety seconds for good measure, listening for any
sounds throughout the house.
Silence.
She had done it. Killed an entire cartel on her own, and the only injury she had to show was a
small graze from a bullet that had caught her on the calf.
Two-day recovery, she thought, mind already wondering about the next mission.
She removed the pistol from El Guapo’s mouth and stood over his body, still keeping it cocked
and aimed at his face. “You sick man. All those children, police officers, and judges you killed.
All the people you took advantage of to do your dirty work. You’ll get yours wherever you end
up.”
Arielle lowered the pistol to his chest and fired three rounds, the corpse not so much as flinching
as it absorbed each hit. She had once shot a dead drug lord in the face and couldn’t stomach the
way it looked.
Before she called headquarters to confirm the job was complete, she wanted to browse El
Guapo’s office. The most powerful man in Mexico surely had something worthwhile for her to
keep as a memento. She started at his desk and rummaged through the drawers, finding bundles
of cash, forged documents, and plenty of guns and ammunition. She expected as much, but froze
after finding a framed picture buried under a mountain of fake passports.
The portrait was slightly grainy, suggesting it had been taken several years prior, and showed a
young boy with his parents. Arielle held the portrait next to El Guapo’s face and concluded that
he was indeed the young child in the photograph.
“Maybe we weren’t that different after all,” Arielle said. “How many times were you alone in
this office and pulled out this picture to have a cry? I do it about once a week still. The pain
never fades, does it?”
She stuffed the portrait back into the drawer before any compassion could drip into her mind for
the man who had murdered hundreds. Keeping her targets as dehumanized as possible was
crucial to her job’s success. And her mental health.
Now she wanted to get out as quickly as possible and closed the drawers before crossing the
office toward the exit. That’s when she looked out the window and froze once more, catching her
reflection with those of the dead bodies on the floor behind her.
Dammit, she thought, sensing the trip down memory lane. Her face tingled as she fought the urge
to cry. That quick glimpse of her reflection was all it took. It was the same reflection she had
seen the day her family was killed.
That fateful day was only five years in the past, the pain nowhere near vanishing. She had joined
her parents and brother for a day of Christmas shopping at the mall, having spent some time at
home after graduating from the CIA. After the holidays, she was supposed to start her new life as
an agent.
That never came to fruition after a gunman opened fire in the mall, killing dozens and wounding
several more. The Lucila family had been caught in the wrong place at the absolutely wrong
time. The gunman had barreled out of a clothing store, having used a dressing room to slip into
tactical gear and load multiple magazines for his AR-15, and opened fire in every direction. The
Lucila family had been across the aisle, waiting in line for a pretzel.
Arielle had stood in front of the line, and that was perhaps the only reason she survived. Her
mother and father caught multiple rounds to their backs and collapsed to the ground instantly.
Arielle’s brother, Antonio, recognized what was unfolding and shoved Arielle from behind,
sending her crashing into the pretzel stand counter. Blood had splattered across the walls and
floor, Arielle slipping in it as she struggled to get back on her feet.
Antonio saw the shooter turn his attention in their direction, and he lunged toward Arielle,
absorbing the bullets meant for her, in the most heroic action she had ever seen in her life—even
to this day. She had been close to her brother, growing up only two years apart. As for their
personalities, Antonio couldn’t have been any more different from Arielle, the CIA agent. He
preferred quiet nights in, and long weekends in the mountains where he’d take a handful of
easels and paint the landscapes of the Rockies. She didn’t even consider him brave; he being the
older brother who ran out of the room if a spider was present, leaving his little sister to squash it.
Knowing him at his most intimate level only made Arielle wonder what had taken over his
instincts to jump in front of a bullet. She might never know, but she swore to never waste another
moment of her life. Doing so would be a dishonor to Antonio.
The gunman had fled the area and continued his rampage in a different part of the mall, and that
was when Arielle had pulled herself onto her hands and knees, and saw her reflection in the
clothing store’s window, blood splattered across her visage, dead bodies on the floor all around
her.
She hadn’t realized in the heat of the moment, but that image would remain burned in her mind
for the rest of her life. Only twenty-seven years old, she had a long road ahead of processing this
tragedy over her remaining days. She could close her eyes and mentally go back to that moment,
her jaw hanging, lungs filling with the unbearable stench of gunpowder, death clinging to her
skin like leeches. Aside from the imagery, she could also recall the emotion she had felt that day,
the instant numbness that filled her entire body once she finally stood and saw the three people
she had loved her entire life lying dead on the floor. Perhaps it was survivor’s guilt, but she had
no problem picturing herself lying next to them, drifting off to whatever afterlife might await.
And now, as she stood in front of the window in El Guapo’s office, it all came flooding back. ...
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