Valeria must see it too. His implicit disapproval.

Or is she deluding herself?

“Any last words?” she asks.

“Mira, run!” Ava screams, her powerful cry desperate. “Haven, get her out of here!”

A diamond-hilted knife appears in Valeria’s hand, pulled from her silk sleeves. She glides the blade across Ava’s neck. Just a flesh wound, but blood trickles down Ava’s trembling throat as she fights back a hiss of pain.

“Not you,” she scolds Ava with a steely growl.

She turns to Governor. “Would you like the final word, Father?”

Gasps ring out all across the walkway.

If she was going for maximum shock value, she achieved it.

Valeria just revealed that she is Roth’s daughter.

The public might forgive one second-born Roth, but Valeria Salazar?

Director Wix takes a backward step from Governor, her face reddening in outrage. The lieutenant’s shark eyes turn to slits, and Moore orders his assistant to get the jet ready for his departure.

I expect Governor to snap, releasing all the hazardous energy he’s been storing. But he stays stoic, just a single clench of his fist.

Governor slowly turns his attention to Ava. He marches over to her chair, shoulders straight as iron rods, and scans Ava’s bound ankles and wrists, her sopping red hair.

His translator magnifies a sonorous grumble, then his final words to the girl whose family almost cost him his rule. His legacy and empire.

“After I killed Darren, I burned his body to ashes. Like your father’s, no one will find your grave.”

I can’t see Ava’s face from where I stand, but I imagine it’s wrenched in heartrending agony. In unimaginable fury.

“Burn,” Governor says, “knowing your sister will follow.”

He returns to the walkway, and I see him attempt to slip Director Wix a folded piece of paper. At first, the Director hesitates—is her loyalty faltering?—but she slyly reaches out her claw hand, tucks the missive up her sleeve, and withdraws.

Does Governor have his own play?

No time to second-guess myself.

I nod to the militia spy for us to move into position, but before we can reach Ava and Andrés, Valeria scrapes twin fire-starter sticks against the dam’s barrier and tosses them at the bases of the two wooden chairs.

Instantly, Ava and Andrés ignite.

It’s the most horrific sight I’ve ever witnessed with my own eyes.

For three wasted seconds, I’m frozen where I stand, trapped by the terror-filled screams of Ava and Andrés, mixed with the harrowing wails from Mira and the People’s Militia below.

Mira thinks I just burned her sister alive.

She’ll never forgive me.

“¡Ahora!” I yell to the militia girl. Now!

Heedless of the flames, we kick the burning pyres off the ledge of the dam, sending Ava and Andrés tumbling down toward the reservoir below.

“No!” Valeria and Roth release unified roars, realizing my betrayal. The militia spy and I step onto the concrete ledge. I feel hands reaching out for me, trying to pull me back.

But they’re too late. My strings have already been severed.

With a deep breath, I fall—free—into the water.

MIRA

My sister is a flame. A streak of burning light.

She plummets toward the inky-black water of the reservoir, Theo a hurtling shadow above.

Oh God.

What did he do?

Ava! my heart screams before it shatters into a thousand sharp pieces. Pain cuts through me. I’m hollow. On my knees. Choking on my cries.

Time slows.

It takes what feels like ages—insufferable minutes, hours—before Ava and Andrés hit the water. I blink back tears. Close my eyes. Their fiery bodies searing across my lids.

Ava, my soul reaches out. Stay with me.

When I pull open my eyes, my sister has disappeared beneath the surface.

A single dragonfly appears before my bleary vision, hovering where she fell.

And then everything goes dark.

The lights. The power.

Owen must have made it to the electrical room. He pulled it off.

Then, quick and brutal as gunfire, time shoots forward.

Alexander yells an unintelligible cry, diving back into the water after Theo.

I can’t swim. Only Ava mastered the lessons.

But I can’t just stand here.

I can’t breathe until she resurfaces. Reappears. Comes back to me.

Theo. What did you do?!

Lucía plunges into the reservoir, Barend rushing headlong after her. Both tear through the water toward the ripples where the four bodies landed.

“Save them!” I scream so hard it feels like my throat rips.

Haven hurls my body behind hers, shielding me from the army of cartel men that trap our group along the embankment. The gunmen lift their pistols. Waiting for the order to shoot . . .

From the corner of my eye, I see Matías. They captured him too. Oh God.

In a single fluid movement, he raises his staff, yanking loose the top of the oakwood handle. A secret cavity opens and he wrenches out a long, thin firework shaped like a rocket.

With a wild shout, he lights the fuse and it launches into the air, the explosive force throwing his bulky frame to the ground.

The rocket sets off a shrill, soul-piercing shriek, flying higher and higher until it detonates over the concrete dam.

The signal.

The blast illuminates a crowd of silhouettes gathered on the walkway above the curved dam that looks every inch a stone fortress. I narrow my eyes on the towering figure at its center.

Roth.

Raw, uncontrollable hate fills my hollow chest. I feel no fear. Only certainty.

I’m going to take him down.

I expect Roth to run, but he doesn’t. He waits.

And watches.

The faint shouts of a thousand militia rebels echo across the reservoir.

They’ve invaded the stronghold.

With one last look to the placid water—Ava, where are you?!—I reach for my gun. Flicking off the safety, I aim the barrel between the eyes of a cartel man who looks up to his leader, his capo, impatient for the signal to fight.

Look to me, I think savagely.

I feel my anger surge through my veins. Hot, violent. Crazed.

I’m in control here.

“Fight!” I scream until my lungs burn.

Haven picks up the rallying cry, our voices harmonizing with a terrorizing energy.

“Fight!”

I didn’t want this. To win by leaving a trail of bodies behind.

But it’s the only way forward.

I let go of all forbearance and self-restraint.

And pull the trigger.

OWEN

I try to look at the bright side of my situation.

I hacked in and shut off the stronghold’s power grid, easy. This place will be under a blackout for the next solid hour.

The dark side? Now I’m on a solo mission with a hell of a lot more on my to-do list.

Get to Ava. Find the others.

Get to Roth. Find the weapon.

Save the govdamn day.

I just don’t know which I should go after first.

Crouching low to the metal floor—crossing all fingers and toes the panels don’t drop out from under me—I sneak down the hallway in search of an exit.

Exit, exit, exit. Where are the damn emergency exit signs?