"You're messing with the wrong man," I warn him, balling my hand into a fist.
Both men come within three feet of me. The man with the chain cracks his knuckles. "There's still a reward out for her."
The hairs on my neck stand up. I assess the situation to take both of them on at the same time when the other one starts walking around the van.
"Step back," I sternly warn him.
He doesn't listen.
I lunge toward him, but several loud gunshots ring through the air.
Maybe it's because I don't have my weapon on me, but I do the one thing I told Zoe never to do. I hesitate, briefly freezing. Zoe yells and I turn before pain sears in my back and upper thigh.
The last thing I see before everything goes black is Zoe. Her hand is pressed against the glass of the driver's window, and her tear-filled eyes are wide in horror as she screams my name.
22
Zoe
For weeks, or maybe it's been months, I can't stop crying. I have no concept of time. After Dirk fell to the ground, I jumped out and tried to stop his bleeding, but one of the men ripped me off him, and the other put his gun to my head. I was too traumatized even to remember anything Dirk taught me, and I could only scream and try to fight as they pulled me away from him.
They tied me up. We drove for hours. I never even heard a word they said. All I could do was sob, full of grief over Dirk. The image of him lying on the stone driveway covered in blood, his eyes shut as if he were dead, never leaves me.
I pray like I never have that he's alive.
But the visions of my strong country boy lifeless on the ground, with blood seeping out of him, tells me he's not.
And nothing has ever hurt worse. It consumes me, searing through my soul, creating an agony so paralyzing I don't know how I'm supposed to survive it.
When the men transferred me to another man I've never seen before, I didn't even get a good look at his face. What was the point? Dirk was killed, in front of me, trying to save me, and I didn't do anything to stop it.
The gun was in the van. The minute I got in the vehicle, I should have grabbed it. But I didn't even think about it. I was too engrossed in watching what was happening.
Now, the only man I've ever loved is dead. I only knew him for a handful of days. But he filled my soul. He made me feel whole. No matter how much of a mess I was, he loved me through all my faults and accepted every broken piece of me. And now I'm once again left full of new guilt and grief so painful I don't understand how I'll ever be able to move forward.
The room I'm in probably isn't helping my depression. It's pitch black. There is only a mattress on the floor and a thin blanket. The door opens periodically, but I never look at who is there. Not that they stay long. It's only when the door closes that I glance over at the tray of food they always leave on the floor. But I struggle to eat.
I'm not sure how long I've been here when the creak of the door fills my ears. Light fills the room, and I press my face in the pillow, not caring who is here or why.
I assume whoever holds me hostage is here to drop another meal off, but I'm wrong.
"Zoe, I'm glad we finally found you," Mateo Duran, my manager says.
I shudder when I hear his voice.
"Look at me," he barks.
I refuse to look at him.
"Do I need to teach you a lesson?"
Memories of Santiago's punishment race to the surface, so I slowly exhale and turn.
"You haven't been eating. You look like skin and bones."
"What do you want?" I say, and my voice sounds raspy from talking for the first time in a long time.
"What I've always wanted—to make you a star. You still want to be a star, don't you?"
"No."
He crouches next to my face then grabs a strand of my hair. "You've seen better hair days, haven't you?"
I slap him, and his sinister laugh echoes against the cement walls.
"Get up."
"No."
He yanks me up by the hair and pushes me against the wall. His breath smells like the chicharrones he always