Then one finger twitched.
They dragged Kael by the zip-ties. The plastic cut deeper, but Kael didn’t feel that either.
He pressed the .22 to Kael’s temple. Zip. The sound was almost polite—a zipper closing, a briefcase snapping shut. Kael’s body jerked once, then folded into the mud.
The .22 had grazed his skull—plowed a furrow above his left ear, knocked him cold, stopped just short of his brain. Enough blood to fool anyone. Not enough to finish the job. Death Before Dishonor 2 Pistols Zip
“Death before dishonor,” Kael said. “But I’m not dead. So I guess you’re the one who lost honor.”
Lobo’s hand spattered across his own tequila bottle. He screamed.
The bullet severed two of the ties. Kael’s hands came apart. His left thumb was shattered, but he didn’t look at it. He stood. Stumbled. Walked. Then one finger twitched
Behind him, a man who sold his soul for a cartel contract lay still. And ahead, a man who refused to die with a lie on his lips walked toward the border—one zip-tie still dangling from his wrist like a broken bracelet.
Kael stood in the doorway. Head bandaged. Left hand wrapped in bloody cloth. Right hand holding Lobo’s own silenced .22.
Lobo’s smile didn’t waver. He pulled out a second pistol—a compact .22 with a suppressor already threaded on. “Then you die knowing something true. Shame you won’t tell anyone.” He pressed the
Zip.
Kael Rivera knelt in the mud, wrists zip-tied behind his back, the plastic biting into flesh he’d long stopped feeling. Two men held him by the shoulders. A third stood in front—Lobo, with his gold-capped grin and a pistol that looked too clean for this side of the border.
Kael’s heart hammered, but his voice stayed flat. “Death before dishonor.”
Zip.
Except—