Page 106 of South of Justice

He stepped into the room. “Are you okay?” It was a stupid question. The things he’d seen on that surveillance video said that clearly she wasn’t.

Her eyes flicked down at Javier’s body. “I did what I had to,” she said.

Ryan moved a little closer, but not too close. “I know you did.”

She looked down at Javier again. “He thought I still belonged to him. That I’d fold the second he dangled mercy.”

Her eyes found his again, and they looked hollow and empty. Like dead eyes.

“I was afraid we were too late,” he said.

Her brow twitched. “We?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

She crossed the room, stiff with pain. “We need to get out of here,” she said. “I think there’s a fire somewhere.”

Ryan nodded. He wanted so badly to reach out to her, to wrap her in his arms, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know how much pain she was in physically or mentally for that. So all he could do was gesture stupidly to the door and say, “There’s a hole in the fence on the east side. We can get out that way.”

She moved toward him, then paused and looked back at Javier’s body. “I thought I’d feel something,” she said. “Killing him.”

Ryan didn’t speak.

“I don’t,” she added quietly. “I just feel…nothing.”

Then she stepped out the door and into the smoke-streaked dark.

Ryan lingered for a heartbeat more. Looked down at the man who had stolen so much from the woman now walking away. At least she’d finally gotten the chance to steal something back.

Ryan felt the blast before he heard it. A deep, concussive shudder ripped through the compound, rolling up from the ground and through his bones. A second later, the night went white, an eruption of fire from the far side of the hangar.

He staggered, caught himself against the railing, eyes narrowing against the glare. For half a heartbeat, everything held its breath—the floodlights flickered, the sirens choked silent—and then the world broke open.

Lucía stumbled beside him. He grabbed her elbow, steadying her as the grated stairwell groaned underfoot. Her eyes found his in the half-light, wild and confused.

“Shit,” Ryan muttered, already turning toward the fire. The heat hit them like a physical shove. Another blast popped deeper in the compound, rattling the catwalk.

Smoke rolled in thick, black waves from the north quadrant. Below, the shouts began—men barking orders, boots hammering on steel. A floodlight cracked, sputtered, and went dark.

They bolted down the stairs, metal clanging beneath them, the air alive with heat and panic. Lucía gasped behind him, “What the hell happened? Is that?—?”

“Don’t know.” He reached the landing and froze. A figure pushed through the smoke ahead.

He raised his weapon, instincts flaring, until the man’s voice cut through the din.

“Thought you two had decided to stay.”

Gates.

Lucía’s breath caught. “How?—?”

“No time,” Gates snapped, pointing behind him. “Fire’s spreading fast. Whole place is coming down.”

Another fireball blasted skyward, shaking the hangar’s skeleton. Ryan squinted into the light. “You started the fire?”

Gates gave a grim half-smile. “Let’s just say Reyes and I had a disagreement by the fuel tanks.”

The blaze was moving quick now, leaping from roof to roof, swallowing the night. Mercs scattered in every direction, some shouting into radios, others running for their trucks.