“Your brother? I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.” I was trying to buy some time.

“Oh, why don't you turn around and look at me. Maybe the resemblance will poke something in that brain.” His voice was laden with hatred and cynicism.

Slowly, my hands in the air, I got up to my feet and cautiously turned to face him as he moved backwards with his gun still trained on me.

I noticed that he was limping, and I immediately remembered that I'd shot the knee of the man who'd attacked Montserrat and I in the woods.

The final piece of the puzzle I'd been trying to solve in the past four months clicked into place. That day in the woods, Montse had never been the target. It'd been me the shooter had intended to kill all along. Montserrat's life had been put at risk because of me.

“You remember now?” The guy sneered.

“I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific.”

His nostrils flared. “You fucking killed him in a bar when he was playing cards and having a drink with his buddies. You injected him with that poison and you thought nobody had seen you, but I did. You slipped out before I could get to you and I watched my brother die.”

My mind sent me back to two weeks ago. I was returning from a mission when a woman accosted me with a plea that I help her.

She'd managed to escape from some bastard who kidnapped women, did whatever he pleased with them; torture, raping, trafficking, selling their bodies for money, and then killing them when he was tired of their cries for freedom by injecting a poison that killed them slowly from suffocation.

She'd showed me where the place was, and I'd gone there and singlehandedly killed the men serving as watch dogs. Then I'd rescued the fifteen women who were locked up in an underground basement.

Then I'd gone to the bar the woman had told me he liked to hanh out at. The place was dim but with her description, I'd found him easily. Sitting at the small table drinking tequilla and happy with himself while playing cards with some men.

I'd caused a ruckus by stealing one man's wallet and putting it into the pocket of another. While everyone's attention had been on the commotion, I'd slipped behind him and injected the poison into his neck.

“Why did you kill him? What did he ever do to you?”

“He was a criminal. A murderer. Because he kidnapped and tortured and forced women to do dispicable things against their will. He deserved to die.” I growled through gritted teeth, lowering my arms. I took tactful steps towards him.

“Because you fucking thought so? Don't you dare take another step.” He waved his gun threateningly at me, his eyes burning indignantly. I paused. “You had no fucking right to kill him. He was my little brother. I'd made a promise to protect him with my life, and I failed. All because of you!”

His hand was shaking from a calvacade of emotions; anger, pain, a sense of failure. I knew exactly when a man was having a moment of weakness.

Taking advantage, I did an uppercut with my foot to his hand, causing the gun to fly out of his hand. It fired a shot when it crashed on the ground some distance away.

The guy seemed to recover from his trance, but before he could react, I delivered a punch that caught him on the jaw. He groaned, stumbling backwards.

Surprisingly, he recovered quick, throwing out his leg. I managed to parry the move before he could hit me in the face.

Throwing myself onto my back on the ground, I slammed my foot into the knee I knew was injured. He hissed but didn't go down, which meant the bullet I'd fired didn't penetrate knee but only fractured the bone. Not what I'd expected.

Before I could really knock him off his feet, he dived, parrying my kick. Rolling onto my feet, I was about to go in for another attack when he suddenly picked up the gun from the ground and pointed it at me.

“A step more and you're a dead man.”

I gritted my teeth, staying on the spot. Using his hand on the ground as support, he began to get up. When he was finally on his seat, he stumbled, probably from an ache in his knee.

I lurched for the pistol. Surprisingly, despite his quivering hand, he had a firm hold on it.

We battled over the possession of the pistol while glaring at each other, causing the barrel to travel in all directions, firing sporadically.

“Your brother was a worthless criminal. He's not worth dying over.” I warned.

I understood his need for revenge and I didn't wanna kill him but he seemed intent on giving me no other choice.

“Tell that to the devil when you meet him in hell.” He snarled furiously.

“I don't regret killing him for even a minute because he deserved it. I gave him a taste of his own medicine with that injection. I'm sure he's having such a great time in hell.” I said, our tousled getting even fiercer.

Every word I said against his brother seemed to make him angrier, chest heaving, and so I said more and more.

Anger could do two things in a such a situation. Either it motivated you to win or got the better of you and caused you to lose.

It was the latter for my opponent. In the end, he let his rage get the better of him. His hold on the gun slackened, giving me the access to the trigger. I didn't waste time in twisting the gun and pulling the trigger.

His whole body went rigid as his eyes widened, staring into mine in shock. He let go of the pistol, stumbling backward, clutching the part of his stomach I'd shot.

“You... You're going to...regret this.” He said in-between hisses of pain. “They. Have. Her.”

He attempted to laugh but only ended up wincing in pain and stumbling backwards, his hand still clutching his stomach. With his other hand, he issued me the middle finger.

Our struggle over the gun had brought us to the edge of the cliff, so when he stumbled one last time, stepped on a pebble, dislodging his balance, and tumbled down the cliff, I knew there was no way he was going to survive this fall.

They have her.

As soon as the words rang in my head, I jolted into action. I jumped onto the path that led up to the cliff and broke into a run.

The slope was steep and I could tumble from the speed, but adrenaline helped me navigate the rocks until I got to the freeway where I'd packed my Motorbike.

I rode at a furious pace like never before until I was at my house. One look at the door left ajar and my stomach clenched.

My suspicions were confirmed. My attacker wasn't the only one after me. There were more, and they had Montse in their possession.

God help them if they dared touch a hair on her head.

I walked into the house and took in the mess. Broken glasses lay scattered on the floor. The positions of the couches had been completely messed with. But that wasn't what made me freeze on the spot.

It was the sight of Helena on the floor lying in a pool of her own blood.