She runs to him and immediately applies pressure to his bleeding chest, leaning hard into the wound.

“Don’t worry about me . . . ,” Kano wheezes, voice weak, trying but failing to smile. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

It’s a hell of a lot worse than a flesh wound.

If we don’t act fast, he’s going to bleed out.

But this is a church, not a hospital. What if he needs surgery or a blood transfusion?

“Doctora!” I shout, pressing my hands on top of Mira’s, slick with blood.

The woman in the long physician’s coat hastens over, immediately—and thankfully—taking charge. Her soft white hair blooms around her head like a dandelion cloud, tempting me to press my lips together and blow. Please let Kano live, I’d wish.

“Bring the man into the office!” she directs Barend and Haven. The doctor’s orders translate into their ear cuffs, and they hurry Kano across the sanctuary’s altar and into a priest’s office turned OR. They carefully place him on top of a high table fitted with a green cotton bedsheet.

The doctor, and the nurse who offered to help Mira and me earlier, inspect Kano’s injuries to see if there’s an entrance and exit wound from the bullet.

Mira and I hover close, desperate to help but unsure how to step in. Our skills are limited—we never made it to medical school. Our advanced biology classes are no match for this real-life trauma.

“Did the gunshot damage any organs or blood vessels?” I ask, fearing a yes.

The doctor furrows her brow, taking her focus from Kano to scan me instead, her keen eyes inquiring, Who are you?

The question Mira and I have yet to answer.

In my distress for Kano, I spoke English as my default, giving myself away as an outsider.

“Out, now!” she demands.

Haven and Barend place a hand on each of our shoulders, urging us out of the room. Their uniforms torn, faces scratched and dirt stained, they must’ve had as long and hard of a night as we had. But where are the others? Are they injured too?

Mira gently brushes Kano’s sweaty forehead, whispering, “Stay strong,” before allowing herself to be pulled away by our aunt.

“Your friend is in good hands,” the nurse assures us as he shuts the door.

Clustered in the cramped altar outside the priest’s office, Mira rounds on Barend. “What happened?!”

“Voices down,” Haven warns, wary of our curious audience from the pews.

We’re drawing way too much attention to ourselves.

“We should move,” I say. But Mira stands in front of the OR door and crosses her arms, making it clear she’s not going anywhere.

Barend rests his bloody hands on the altar table, clearly exhausted. He sighs deep before answering. “We made it to the town right as the firefight broke out,” he explains. When he sees he’s soiled the holy cloth, he jumps back, rattled, and attempts to wipe his hands clean against his chest. “We saw that the Salazar cartel was raiding the town’s supplies—killing civilians—and Lucía and Kano joined the battle.”

“And everyone followed?” Mira asks.

“Not Alexander,” Haven rebukes.

“Where are Lucía and Skye?” I question.

My first thought was, Are they injured? Now I’m questioning whether Skye took the opportunity to cut and run.

“Where’s Alexander?” Mira demands, suspicious.

“Out there,” Haven says, nodding her head toward the open cathedral doors. Sure enough, Alexander’s tall figure paces back and forth along the colonnade, impatient. He’s here to help his son, not a town full of strangers.

He’ll never lift a finger for anyone but his own.

Skye saunters past him, wheeling a dolly stacked with huge barrels of water. One of her braids is undone and her fair face is splotched with soot, but she’s beaming, triumphant.

“Saved this lot from being plundered,” she says when she reaches us at the front of the sanctuary. “Can’t accuse me of not being a team player now.”

When Lucía storms into the crowded sanctuary, Skye sits on top of the rescued water barrels, trying to catch her eye. But then Matías enters the room, surging down the aisle toward us, somehow managing to overtake Lucía despite the lack of his hardwood stick.

“Matías, wait!” Lucía implores.

The People’s Militia’s leader does the opposite of waiting.

Livid, the man jumps onto the altar and points his thick finger first in my face, then Mira’s. “You cannot be here!”

Brimming with adrenaline, I stand my ground, lifting my chin. I’ve come too far to be intimidated now. Make me leave.

Barend moves to stand between Matías and me, gun firmly in his hand.

“Back away,” Haven advises the militia leader, shielding Mira.

Matías pulls out his walking stick, raising it in a defensive stance. I’m not the only one willing to stand my ground, it seems.

This showdown is going to end with more people in the OR.

Mira sidesteps Haven and falls on Lucía. “You said the People’s Militia would help us!”

Lucía lowers Matías’s staff, then leans into her leader’s ear like an old confidant.

“We all want the same thing,” Lucía explains to him. “The cons have one of their people.”

Matías Villarreal appears unwavering.

She pulls out an extra ear cuff from Barend’s bag, prompting Matías to put it on. Five beats of stoic resistance before he nods his assent.

“You want the capo, we want Roth,” I say immediately after Lucía turns his device on. “Our enemies have united.”

“We can go after them both together,” Mira promises. “We are all stronger if we join forces, like they have.”

Based on what Lucía has told me, and from what I’ve seen of the man’s actions so far, the militia leader is a true polymath, possessing both Emery’s gift of logic and the warrior spirit of Rayla.

He must know a good deal when he’s offered one.

But still, Matías appears impassive.

“My son,” Matías finally says, his voice faltering.

“Andrés?” Lucía cries. Her dark eyes glitter with fear, and she reaches out to clasp Matías’s arm. “Did the cons take him?”

All the muscles in Matías’s thickset body suddenly appear as tight as a primed crossbow.

“I will accept an alliance if you help me bring back my son.”

“Done,” Mira and I agree in unison.

“We will strike this afternoon,” Matías says, sheathing his oakwood staff. “Ready yourselves.”

But Mira and I have been ready for this moment our entire lives.

OWEN

“Wake up, Owen,” Duke’s gruff electronic voice announces. “You have arrived at your destination.”

I bolt upright from my reclined seat, still half in my dream world and reluctant to leave it. Usually when I sleep, it’s lights out, nothing-to-see-here blackness, but this time Rayla was with me. We were back on the front porch swing of the Colorado ranch house, and instead of me standing lookout while she rested her eyes, she was watching over me.