Even a Texan who lived a heavily sheltered existence knows that Mexico City is a world-famous food paradise. For those who can afford the cuisine, at least.

Skye’s nostrils eagerly inhale the delicious scents of sizzling homemade tortillas and mouth-watering carnitas, like a vulture sensing a fresh kill. All my teammates’ stomachs growl, but none of us dares to order the legendary street food.

Not only do we not have any means to pay—but from here on out, we’re forbidden from speaking at all.

It’s too dangerous. Any hint of our American accents will flag us as outsiders. We’ll be reported by an undercover falcon and then targeted by sicarios. Our mission lost.

The overpopulated capital is probably crawling with falcons, patrolling the streets like the State Guards did in Dallas. Except here, they pose as pedestrians, just like my team does.

To blend in, we wear civilian plainclothes over our combat uniforms.

I glance at Owen by my side, dressed in a pair of the long-sleeved coveralls Matías gave him. With his black cap and checkered bandana tied across the lower half of his face, he manages to pull off the incognito look with much more style and flair than Barend or Alexander.

The pesero opens its door, and my ear cuff translates the friendly driver’s shouts of “Come in, come in, make room!”

He doesn’t flinch when he sees that every inch of our bodies is covered and only our eyes show. Protecting one’s identity is not out of the ordinary here in the center of Salazar territory, where kidnappings and murders are an everyday occurrence.

Lucía’s words come back to me. If the government can’t protect us, then we have no choice left but to protect ourselves.

I know that plight well.

Lucía leads the way onto the already-stuffed microbus, Skye following close behind. The driver waves them through, just like we planned. He’s one of the militia.

Barend and Haven enter next, clearing a small space for Mira and me to take our places at the center of the bus, away from the windows. Owen and Alexander bring up the rear, scanning the other passengers for any signs of danger.

Right now, all across the supercity, Matías and his people are recruiting Mexico City’s numerous civilian autodefensas to join him in tonight’s battle with the Salazar cartel. Come midnight, he plans not only to liberate his son Andrés, but to end the Salazar reign for good and for all.

When we landed in the mountainous outskirts of the capital, Matías bellowed No more! as a rallying cry. Tomorrow will dawn a new day for our country, he vowed.

According to Owen’s intel, the clandestine trade meeting begins at approximately eight thirty p.m. Just after sunset, Matías will assemble his forces outside the Salazar stronghold’s gates.

We strike at nightfall.

My heart pounds in my chest like my own private war drum. It’s happening. Soon, the final move will be played in our eighteen-year game with Roth.

Tonight, the king will fall.

Mira elbows my arm, covertly nodding to a sliver of exposed window between two sweaty men locked in a lively conversation about bullfighting. Truck after truck passes by, masked sicarios standing on the beds holding gold-plated automatic rifles. On patrol. Looking for an excuse to fire.

I’m supposed to keep my head down, stay hidden, but there’s too much to see. Mounds of plastic water bottles piled on the streets and walkways, the Salazar scorpion sigil on every red label. At a traffic light, a frantic group of people lines up with buckets in their hands or stacked high on carts, fighting to get to a cartel man who distributes water from a tanker truck. Money changes hands.

The deliveries only come once or twice a week, Lucía said. In poor districts, the cartel cut all other distribution lines, including plumbing in homes and businesses. The citizens’ only source is through the water lords.

The Salazar cartel controls life’s most vital resource. The capo’s monopoly of power is staggering.

I watch as a woman, dirt stained and rail thin, steals a bucket of water from a teenage boy. Even from where I sit inside the bus, I can see the desperation—the fear—in her actions. The wild, last-ditch effort to stay alive. But before she can flee with her spoils, she and the teenage boy are both shot dead by the cartel man.

Horrified, I think of the riot that almost broke out in Dallas when the State Guard tasered and arrested a woman for stealing a bottle of water right before my eyes. Here, the citizens re-form the line around the unmoving bodies, holding out their buckets, clamoring for them to be filled at any cost.

If they return home empty-handed, they won’t survive.

Five microbus stops later, the passengers thin out, leaving just our mission team. The most multisensory experience of my life comes to an end when the driver turns off from the traffic-clogged streets, entering the garage of an unfinished skyscraper.

What was meant to be a forty-five-story bank tower is now one of the largest vertical slums in the world, home to thousands of squatters, all living without basic services like power and running water.

For the next two hours, this will be our safe house.

When we exit the pesero and are again alone and free to speak, Alexander corners Mira and me before we can follow the rest of the team up the garage stairwell.

“What else did you discover from the servers?” Alexander asks sharply, struggling to master his temper. “You may have been able to deceive my father for all those years, but I see right through you both. You’re lying. You know something more.”

He’s right. We’re lying by omission.

But Mira, Owen, and I agreed that we should keep the enormity of what Roth’s trading on a need-to-know basis. Everyone must focus on the mission at hand, getting to Roth and the capo and saving Theo and Andrés.

Alexander is the last person I want to explain my father’s culpability to right now.

Ever since we landed in Mexico City, a verse from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”—the poem Father used to read to us before bed—keeps echoing inside my skull like a penance bell.

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

When I first learned of the secret project, I willingly took the burden—the shame—of what my father did upon my own shoulders. I swore I would stop what he started.

Together, Mira and I intend to keep that promise.

Project Albatross cannot spread. Father’s technology and all its immense ramifications must be taken from Roth. The future itself depends on it.

Mira keeps her lips pressed in a hard line and attempts to sidestep Alexander. But he bars our way up the stairs and bears down with a cold fury.

“Owen will tell me nothing,” he seethes. He points a threatening finger an inch from my face. “That boy has become putty in your hands. You’re going to get him killed.”

I take a step back, wounded.

“Just like what happened to my son because of you,” he spits in Mira’s face. He looks shaky, sweaty, like he’s hankering for a stiff drink.

“Move,” Mira says, holding back tears.

Anger sweeps over me. When Alexander pins Mira into the stairwell, demanding, “Tell me, now,” I surge toward him, half-blind with rage, ready to unleash all the fire I’ve been storing in my belly. Without a second thought, I pull back my right fist and swing.