Page 73 of Beautiful Savage
Emilio reports four possibles: the hunting lodge, a Doral warehouse, a Homestead lot, a Coral Gables compound.
Adrian's aerial photos arrive. The Coral Gables compound is dismissed immediately, too clean, family vehicles only. Homestead has electrical but no activity. Doral shows the wrong pattern for a hold.
She's at the lodge. There are multiple SUVs, two perimeter operators visible. No civilian activity. The operational signature of men holding something they shouldn't have taken.
We have confirmed the target. Emilio's records dovetail perfectly with Adrian's surveillance—eight operators cycling through rotations. Emilio takes their comms next: by eleven, every scheduled check-in from the lodge is his, and as far as Hallstein's phones know, his men will be reporting all quiet, on the half hour, all night. Logan and I sit over the map, refining the strike plan: two vehicles roll in along the back roads, then the final quarter-mile on foot through waist-high cypress. We breach front and back doors at once, clear the perimeter, descend into the basement, and bring her out.
Just past midnight, I do the thing I've put off for nine years. The stone bench's loose footing comes up the way it always has, and the box comes out of the earth — the originals, the photographs, every physical thing that backs the digital dossier. Erika's courier takes it at the service door, bound for the Atlantic's lawyers. Whatever happens at dawn, it exists outside of me now.
Marisol has the post-op details locked in: Jackson Memorial's private floor, a discrete recovery suite on standby, transport waiting with engines idling.
Adrian's covert team assembles—six seasoned ex-military operators who have done this job more times than they care to count; Nico vets every name on the list himself. Finally, we hold the final brief: wheels up at 10:30. I lead the rescue element; Logan runs mobile command. Our route: south on I-75 to Route 41, then west onto the logging road. ETA 11:30, breach at midnight. With the plan sealed, I rise to my feet. Time to get her back.
In the security office I dress for war: plate carrier, primary rifle, sidearm, combat knives, comms and breaching tools. Adrian slips in while I top off magazines and hands me the keys to the lead vehicle—a black Suburban from the Delgado fleet. "Bring her home, brother," he says softly. "We've got your six. Always have."
His words warm my chest like fire. Then Marisol appears, folding a small slip of paper into my hand.
"Here," she whispers, "the recovery facility address. My handwriting, in case you can't reach me." I tuck it into my plate carrier's chest pocket. She looks at me for two seconds, then says, without hesitation, "Bring her back."
Not to me—not to us—just bring her back. Because she's mine. And Marisol knows it. I nod once, sealing the promise.
At 10:30 we roll out from the loading dock. The Suburban rumbles to life; Logan follows behind in the second truck with two operators, and two more climb into mine. Fifteen minutes later we merge onto I-75 heading south. Miami's lights shrink in the rearview mirror as the Everglades stretch before us, dark and patient. The tires sing on the asphalt, the operators slip into silence, and Logan's headlights hover thirty seconds behind.
I asked for help, and the family has answered. The road ahead is all that matters. I will get her. By sunrise the woman they stole will be back in my arms—and God help anyone who stands in my way.
27 - Gunner
The cypress hammock stretches dark between us and the lodge, Spanish moss hanging from the low canopy. Took an hour from La Sirena to here, every second crawling while she waited in that basement. Mosquitoes swarm as my six-man team moves through soft ground, our boots sinking into decomposing wood and standing water that reeks of rot. Twenty minutes of silent approach through the dense Florida swamp, Logan’s voice crackling in my ear while Adrian coordinates from La Sirena.
At the tree line, I spot the lodge across two hundred feet of unkempt grass. Two-story wooden structure on raised foundation, five vehicles in the gravel drive. My eyes lock on the half-buried basement window on the east side. Yellow light glows through the glass. She's in there. My chest tightens, rage and relief colliding. The perimeter guards are visible: one smoking against a porch column, one walking the wraparound deck. Both relaxed. Both about to die.
Logan's signal sends three of my men forward. Two shots whisper through suppressors, landing within a half-second of each other. Both guards drop into shadows without a sound.
I cross the clearing alone, staying low, covering the distance in twenty seconds while my blood pounds with the need to get to her. The kitchen door's knob turns easily. Unlocked. These fuckers think they're safe out here.
I enter.
The kitchen operator looks up from his sandwich as I step through the doorway. His eyes widen. He knows what I am immediately. His hand moves for his sidearm but I'm already across the room, my strike crushing his windpipe. The wet crunch of cartilage breaking fills the small space. He drops to the linoleum, his sandwich scattering.
In the great room, one watches his phone on the sofa while another stands at the window. The one on the sofa sees me first, starts to rise. My heel connects with his temple, the follow-through sending him across the coffee table that splinters under his weight. The window operator spins with his weapon half-drawn but my forearm crushes his throat before he can scream. A third emerges from the hallway, drawn by the breaking furniture. I pull the knife from the second operator's belt and let it fly. The blade buries itself in his throat. He drops gurgling, hands clawing at the handle.
The bedrooms next.
First door: operator at a desk with his back to me. The knife slides through his throat. His blood sprays across laptop keys. Second door: sleeping operator on a cot. This one makes my jaw clench. Killing a sleeping man feels wrong, but the midnight rotation can't wake to find their relief missing. The blade goes in quick, merciful, all over within seconds. Third door: this one's ready, weapon raised, but I'm faster. I deflect at the wrist, feel bone snap, then open his throat in one motion.
Seven bodies in three minutes, plus the two my team took down outside. I stand in the hallway with their blood spattered across my plate carrier, my hands steady for the first time in days. The tremor that's been eating at me since she left is gone, overridden by purpose. By her.
The basement stairs creak under my weight as I descend into yellow light.
When I see her bound to that chair with a bruise blooming dark on her perfect jaw, something in me comes off its chain. Rage floods my system. She's still wearing the wrap skirt and tank top she had on when they took her, wrists and ankles zip-tied to the metal chair bolted to the concrete floor. Her dark hair hangs loose over one shoulder, escaped from that teacher's bun she always wears.
The burn-scarred boss paces at the far wall by the metal door, white earbuds in his ears. That's why he hasn't heard seven men die above him. He's listening to music while my woman sits tied to a chair. The urge to make his death last wars with the need to get her free.
Daphne's eyes catch me in her peripheral vision. Her head turns slightly, just enough to verify I'm real. Our eyes meet across twenty feet of concrete and nine days of separation. She doesn't flinch. Doesn't gasp. Doesn't cry. Just looks at me with those dark eyes, and I can't tell if she sees the man or the monster who got her father hurt. Her right index finger taps the chair arm twice. Small, deliberate. She's with me. Then she turns away slow, keeping the boss's attention forward, giving me the three seconds I need.
I cross the floor in two strides, my body coiled with lethal intent. The boss starts to turn, finally sensing death behind him, but my knife finds his carotid first. The blade goes deep, blood spraying in an arc across the concrete. He drops but isn't dead. He'll bleed out in ninety seconds while I free what's mine.
I kneel before her chair, finally close enough to smell her. Vanilla and fear-sweat and something purely Daphne that makes my chest ache.
