She plunges into the pipelines.

“Ava!” I scream, over and over.

I slide along the side of the tank to where she fell and thrust my free arm into the water. Please, please, let me grab hold of her.

I was supposed to keep her safe.

But I keep coming up empty-handed.

This was definitely not part of the plan.

AVA

I’m drowning.

A powerful pull keeps me underwater. No matter how hard I fight, the current drives me forward like a rag doll in a dark, flailing dance with death.

Swim, swim, swim! I tell myself. You have to fight.

You can’t die.

Not now. Not like this.

Then it hits me. My breaking point. Sixty seconds of struggling for my life underwater, and I’m suddenly overcome with the agony of running out of air.

My lungs burn. Begging me to take action.

Panic grips my throat, and I want to scream out loud to not be alone with my suffocating terror, but if I scream, I’ll waste what little air is still left in my lungs.

Stay calm. You can’t give up.

Tread water, my instincts urge. You can’t win against the current.

That’s when I stop fighting.

I let go, allowing my slack body to float slowly upward in the rushing water. Astonishingly, all at once, there’s no longer any pain. Just a sense of comfort.

And then I surface, sucking in gulps of air and water.

Three breaths of respite, then I’m pulled back under.

The nightmare hasn’t ended.

This time, in my panicked confusion, I inhale a lungful of water.

The pain returns. So does the terror.

Just when I think the end is near—Mira, I’m sorry—I feel myself shoot out of the giant water pipe, landing hard on a concrete surface.

Immediately I roll over onto my hands and knees, racked with a fit of violent coughing and retching. Utterly depleted, I collapse, heart pounding, mind racing.

Did the cartel know we were coming?

Where’s Mira?

She can’t swim.

Oh God.

I snap my eyes up to the pipeline’s exit, but the rushing water has turned into a drip. Mira, where are you?

“Don’t worry about the others,” a silvery voice says, close by. “You will see them later.”

My energy is all used up—it takes several tries for me to heave my body back upright. When I do, I’m given only a moment to absorb what, or who, is my latest adversary.

A teenage girl in a pristine white suit that reminds me of my Strake uniform. There’s even an amethyst necklace that mimics the bold purple sash.

“You look like any other drowned mouse,” she says, her disappointment sharp as a knife. “Nothing special.”

My stomach clenches when I blink her face into focus. Her dark, cunning eyes. Her sneer, her privileged aura. Still groggy, I start to fit the fuzzy pieces together. She reminds me of someone.

Halton.

Who is this girl?

“I had hoped to capture the both of you together,” the girl says. Her glossy bottom lip lowers in a pout. “I thought twins always came in a pair. But one will have to do.”

When I try to demand where Mira is, my throat seizes. I’m hit with another outburst of frantic coughing that must make me sound like a wounded animal.

That sneer. I want to rip it from the girl’s face.

She lifts her jeweled hand, and two cartel women in tight-fitting suits rush up and haul me roughly to my feet. Too exhausted to fight, I hang limp in their grasp.

The girl stalks toward me. A long finger, weighed down by a monstrous blood-red ruby, reaches out to brush my drenched hair from my face. Is that the scorpion ring of the capo? She laughs at the confusion in my eyes.

“Red hair, you must be Ava,” she says. “Good, the Lone Star should be pleased.”

Roth.

“Not as pleased as me,” I manage, strong and intense as a feral growl. I’m alone, without the support of my team, but I am not helpless.

I’m about to face Roth. Our entire mission has led me to this moment.

And I will see it through, no matter the cost.

The girl smiles.

“Ah, bravado to the end,” she says, clapping her hands together. “This is going to be fun.”

With that, she turns, and the two cartel women drag me in her wake, out the door and down a concrete hallway. Two left turns and then I’m outside again.

At first, I see nothing but bright-white light. Spotlights. Then I hear moving water and feel wind on my cheeks.

I’m someplace high.

Then I see it. The Salazar Reservoir, fifty feet below. The wellspring of the cartel’s power. A sprawling estate dominates its outer bank like a glittering citadel, as hard and beautiful as a diamond.

I’m on the dam.

And there’s a cluster of people waiting for me at its center.

When I draw closer, I almost don’t believe my eyes.

President Moore is here. He stands beside Director Wix and a Salazar man with a gold smile. Both men grip silver briefcases.

The bioweapon?

We’re too late.

A wave of fury crashes through me when I spot Theo standing at Roth’s side.

No cuffs. Not resisting.

Did he become a turncoat to save his own skin?

He betrayed my sister.

The Common.

Then a stranger catches my frenzied attention. A man with only one eye, strapped to a wooden chair by the dam’s edge. Mouth gagged, his bent body resigned to his fate.

It must be Andrés. Matías’s son.

He’s drenched in a shiny liquid.

Gasoline?

A girl in a servant’s uniform brings out a second chair and places it beside him.

An empty chair, meant for me.

THEO

The sight of Ava strikes me like a rogue wave.

The Common found me. Us. Roth.

And if Ava’s here, Mira must be somewhere close by.

My exaltation lasts less than half a second before reality sets in, freezing my blood and stiffening every muscle. Ava’s been caught.

All hope just died.

Is this Roth’s work or Valeria’s? Did they go all the way to Dallas to abduct her? Or was she captured trying to break in?

I flick my eyes past Ava, desperate to see—and not see—my dad, Mira. Kano. But there’s only empty air.

Before I can fully grasp what the hell is happening, Valeria’s two cartel women drag Ava forward, flashing smiles and six-inch blades at Ava’s throat.

For a blink, I consider unsheathing my knife and knocking out their teeth with my knuckle duster, but that would help nobody.

Mierda. Shit.

Rally.

Concentrate.

In one sweep of her lethal glare, Ava tells me what she thinks of my State Guard uniform and my presence at Governor’s side.

She then spits at my feet.

“Now, Ava, don’t be a sore loser,” Valeria admonishes, raising her jeweled finger. The women let Ava drop.

Ava takes the hard fall in silence, but she doesn’t stay down long. She battles to her feet and unleashes a choked curse. “Theo, I knew you were a goddamn Roth—”

The rest of Ava’s words get cut off when the cartel women throw her back to the ground. They dig the tips of their knives into her neck.

Coward, Ava’s look screams up at me.

I stare down at her, unaffected, trying to match her hate, frown for frown.