The world had reduced to three things: weight, blood, and urgency.
John lifted Michelle in his arms as if she weighed nothing, though the blood soaking his clothes contradicted everything. Each step toward the black sedan was an eternity compressed into seconds. Michelle's head hung against his chest, inert, dark hair falling like a curtain of stained silk.
Alfred was already in the driver's seat, hands firm on the wheel, engine roaring like an impatient beast.
John kicked open the back door and deposited Michelle on the leather seat. His fingers barely trembled as he positioned her, making sure her head didn't hit anything.
And then he stopped.
He turned his head toward the street, where Natalia remained kneeling beside Mia. The agent lay motionless on the pavement, bulletproof vest visible under her torn blouse, bloodstains spreading like dark flowers across her chest.
"Get her in too!" Alfred shouted from the driver's seat, with urgency that admitted no debate. "There's no time!"
John reacted.
He ran toward Mia, dodging the empty casings covering the ground like metal seeds. He knelt beside her: face pale as wax, lips parted fighting for each breath, eyelids closed barely trembling.
Fragile. Dying.
He lifted her carefully, feeling how her body folded in his arms as if bones had turned to water. Mia's blood mixed with Michelle's on his clothes, creating a crimson map of shared tragedy.
Natalia ran to the car, claiming the passenger seat. John deposited Mia next to Michelle in the back seat, both unconscious women leaning against each other like soldiers fallen on the same battlefield.
He got in the car and closed the door with a sharp thud.
Alfred floored the accelerator.
The sedan shot forward, tires screeching against pavement, leaving burnt rubber marks like black scars. Streetlights passed like lightning, projecting intermittent shadows over the occupants' faces.
"Do you have any safe contact?" Alfred asked, eyes fixed on the road while taking a sharp curve without reducing speed. "Somewhere they can treat them without questions?"
John took a deep breath, forcing his mind to focus.
"There's a clinic in Mazatlán," he said, voice tense but controlled. "It belongs to my organization. We use it to launder money, but they have first-rate equipment. Quiet doctors."
"Guide me."
John leaned forward, pointing while holding Michelle to prevent her from sliding off the seat.
"Take Avenida del Mar north. Then turn on Calle Sábalo Cerritos. The clinic is three kilometers from there, on the coast."
Alfred nodded, hands gripping the wheel until knuckles turned white. The sedan accelerated even more, brushing one hundred forty kilometers per hour on an empty street where shadows merged with darkness.
John turned his head toward Natalia.
"Call the clinic," he ordered, tone admitting no hesitation. "Tell them to separate an entire wing. Empty it. Nobody left but trusted personnel. And put maximum security at every entrance."
Natalia pulled an encrypted satellite phone from her jacket's inside pocket. The device was black, compact, designed for communications impossible to trace. She dialed a number with fingers that barely trembled.
Two rings. Three.
"Hello?" responded a male voice, professional but cautious.
"This is La Santita," Natalia said, using the code name. "I need the clinic's east wing prepared. Right now."
There was a brief pause.
"How many patients?"
"Two. Gunshot wounds. Critical. We need surgeons, anesthesiologists, the complete team. And I want that wing emptied. No curious nurses, no outside patients. Only absolutely trusted personnel."
"Understood. Estimated time of arrival?"
Natalia looked at Alfred, who was taking another curve with surgical precision.
"Eight minutes. Maybe less."
"We'll be ready."
The line cut off.
Natalia put away the phone and looked back. Both women's blood had mixed on the black leather, creating dark pools that moved with each jolt of the vehicle.
The sedan roared down Avenida del Mar like a bullet fired toward its destination. Pacific waves extended to the left, shining under the moon's dying light. To the right, palm trees passed like blurred ghosts.
Alfred broke the silence:
"How the hell didn't you have security?"
John clenched his jaw.
"I have almost all the police and military in the area on my payroll," he responded, voice laden with contained frustration. "They should have arrived in seconds."
Natalia frowned.
"Nobody came. Not a single military. Not a single cop."
Alfred took the turn toward Calle Sábalo Cerritos without reducing speed, making the tires screech.
"That attack was studied," he said, tone leaving no room for doubt. "Investigated. Carefully planned. Someone knew exactly where you'd be, when, and how to neutralize your protection network."
John felt rage burn in his chest like acid.
"El Roro must have bought the local authorities," he murmured. "Paid more than I pay. Or threatened better."
He paused, and his voice became darker.
"But that doesn't explain how he knew where I was. It was a safe house. Not even my own people know it."
Natalia analyzed the situation in silence. Alfred did the same, driving with brutal efficiency while his mind worked in parallel.
"Someone tipped them off," John finally said, with cold certainty. "Someone close. Someone who knew."
The silence that followed was dense, heavy, laden with implications none dared pronounce.
John leaned forward, voice transforming into tempered steel.
"Natalia," he said, fixing his eyes on her through the rearview mirror. "When we get to the hospital, I want you to summon El Larva, El Virus, and the others. It's time to activate my armed wing."
Natalia nodded without taking her eyes from the road.
"Tell them to prepare," John continued, each word measured like a sentence. "We're going to start the hunt against the Veracruz Cartel."
Natalia pulled out the phone again.
But before dialing, she asked:
"Will you request support from the Pacific Circle?"
John looked down at Michelle and Mia, both unconscious, both on death's edge. Their pale faces under the intermittent light of passing streetlights. Dark blood soaking their clothes. The terrifying silence of their barely perceptible breaths.
"No," he finally said, voice seeming to come from some deep, dark place. "I hope that imbecile survives."
He paused, and when he spoke again, his tone had become lethal.
"Because I'll personally take care of breaking the son of a bitch."
The sedan accelerated even more, engine roaring like a wounded beast running toward its last fight.
Mazatlán's lights began appearing on the horizon, shining like a fallen constellation on the coast.
And in the back seat, between two women fighting to breathe, John Becker made a silent oath that resonated louder than any words:
This won't go unanswered.
This won't go without blood.
⸻
The clinic appeared three minutes later: a white four-story building with tinted windows and a discreet sign reading Pacific Medical Center. It looked harmless. It looked legal.
It was anything but.
Alfred braked in front of the emergency entrance with a brutal screech of tires. Before the car fully stopped, the automatic doors were already opening.
A complete team of doctors and nurses ran out with two stretchers, moving with military efficiency. No questions. No surprise. Only action.
John got out of the car with Michelle in his arms. He deposited her on the first stretcher with care that contrasted with the moment's urgency. Doctors surrounded her immediately, evaluating wounds, connecting portable monitors, shouting orders in Spanish and medical jargon that mixed in organized chaos.
Natalia got out from the other side, helping paramedics transfer Mia to the second stretcher. The agent remained unconscious, bulletproof vest still on and stained with dark blood.
"Gunshot wounds!" shouted one of the doctors, a man in his forties wearing a white coat. "Prepare operating rooms two and three! We need immediate transfusions!"
The stretchers disappeared through the automatic doors, swallowed by the white, aseptic light inside.
John stood before the entrance, hands covered in blood that wasn't his, watching as they took them away.
Alfred approached and put a hand on his shoulder.
"You did what you could," he said, voice half comfort, half warning. "Now it's their turn."
John didn't respond.
He looked at his hands stained red and felt how something inside him hardened until becoming unbreakable.
⸻
Inside the clinic, controlled chaos had become surgical precision.
John walked down the white corridor following the stretchers, but a nurse stopped him with a firm gesture.
"I'm sorry, sir. You can't pass beyond this point."
He stopped, watching as the operating room doors closed behind Michelle. Then, seconds later, the doors of the adjacent operating room closed behind Mia.
Natalia approached, face pale but controlled. Her eyes fixed on John with an intensity she hadn't shown before.
"Do you want to explain what the hell happened out there?" she asked, voice low but laden with tension. "Michelle Corvelli shot Mia. Three times. In the chest. She's supposed to be one of yours."
John didn't take his eyes from the operating room doors.
"They're risks that are part of the mission," he said, neutral tone not inviting more questions.
"Risks?" Natalia repeated, disbelief filtering into her voice. "She almost killed her!"
John turned his head toward her. His eyes had become cold, calculating.
"Don't forget who I am, Natalia," he said, voice cutting like glass. "I'm an undercover agent. I've spent two years building this operation. And if Michelle hadn't acted as she did, my cover would have collapsed in that instant."
Natalia opened her mouth to respond, but John continued.
"So behave. Stay in your role. Because if you lose your composure now, everything we've worked for crumbles. And Mia won't be the only one who ends up on a stretcher."
Silence fell between them like a hammer.
Natalia clenched her fists, nails digging into palms. Then she nodded slowly, swallowing rage and fear.
"Understood," she murmured.
John looked back at the operating room doors.
And waited.
⸻
Operating Room 2 — Mia Hartmann
The operating room's white lights burned like miniature suns, projecting sharp shadows over the medical team moving with brutal efficiency around the operating table.
Mia lay unconscious, bulletproof vest already removed and piled in a corner as testimony to how close she'd been to death. Her bare torso revealed three deep impacts: massive contusions over sternum and ribs, bruises expanding like ink stains under pale skin.
The lead surgeon—a fifty-year-old man with steady hands and impassive expression—evaluated the damage with clinical gaze.
"Three fractured ribs," he said, voice clear directed at his team. "Two over the sternum, one floating. Severe pulmonary contusion in the left lower lobe. Possible hemothorax."
A nurse adjusted the heart monitor. The beeps were irregular, jumping from sixty beats per minute to ninety without clear pattern.
"Blood pressure dropping," another nurse announced. "Ninety over sixty. She's entering hypovolemic shock."
"Immediate transfusion," the surgeon ordered. "Type O negative. Two units to start."
Hands moved with military speed. A thick needle inserted into the basilic vein of Mia's left arm, connecting to a blood bag that began flowing like a crimson river saving a life.
The anesthesiologist adjusted the oxygen mask over Mia's face, monitoring saturation levels with eyes that didn't blink.
"Saturation at eighty-two percent," he said. "Rising slowly."
The surgeon took a scalpel.
"We're going to drain the hemothorax before the lung completely collapses. Prepare the chest tube."
The incision was precise: a clean cut between the ribs, just below the armpit. Blood accumulated in the pleural cavity began draining through a tube inserted with millimetric care, evacuating into a collection bag that filled with alarming speed.
"Two hundred milliliters," a nurse said, watching the gauge. "Three hundred. Four hundred…"
"She's stabilizing," the anesthesiologist announced. "Saturation at ninety percent. Heart rhythm regularizing."
The surgeon nodded, without taking his eyes from his work.
"Good. Now we're going to repair the fractured ribs before they perforate something vital."
Hands moved again. Titanium plates. Surgical screws. Each movement measured with watchmaker's precision.
Thirty minutes later, the surgeon straightened.
"Done," he said. "Ribs stabilized, lung drained, hemorrhage controlled. Take her to recovery."
The stretcher began moving toward the door.
Mia Hartmann had survived.
For now.
⸻
Operating Room 3 — Michelle Corvelli
The second operating room was identical to the first: relentless lights, surgical instruments arranged with military precision, medical team moving like gears of a perfect machine.
But the atmosphere was different.
More tense. More urgent.
Because Michelle was dying.
The lead surgeon—a thirty-five-year-old woman with hair pulled back and expression of tempered steel—evaluated the wounds with brutal speed.
"Two bullet impacts in the left shoulder," she said, voice betraying no emotion. "Entry just above the pectoralis major, exit between deltoid and trapezius. Subclavian artery damaged. Massive hemorrhage."
The heart monitor emitted erratic beeps, jumping from one hundred twenty beats per minute to forty, then back to ninety. Michelle's heart struggled to maintain blood pressure with blood that almost no longer existed.
"Blood pressure in free fall," a nurse announced, voice tense. "Sixty over forty. She's entering class three shock."
"Massive transfusion," the surgeon ordered. "Six units of O negative. Now."
Hands flew. Thick needles inserted in both arms. Two blood bags began flowing simultaneously, pumping liquid life toward a body shutting down.
"Oxygen saturation at seventy percent," the anesthesiologist said. "Falling."
The surgeon took the scalpel without hesitating.
"We're going in. I need to visualize the subclavian artery before she bleeds out completely."
The incision was quick but precise. Skin opened revealing torn muscle, damaged tissue, and a constant flow of dark blood gushing like a macabre fountain.
"There," the surgeon said, pointing with the scalpel. "Partial laceration of the subclavian. I need vascular clamps."
A nurse placed the instruments in her hand. The surgeon's fingers moved with superhuman speed, clamping the artery above and below the wound, stopping blood flow with precision bordering on impossible.
"Vascular suture," she ordered. "Four-zero silk."
The surgical thread appeared in her hands. Each stitch was perfect, closing the laceration millimeter by millimeter, reconstructing the artery's integrity as if weaving life itself.
But then the heart monitor emitted a long beep. Continuous. Terrifying.
"Cardiac arrest!" the anesthesiologist shouted.
Time stopped.
"Cardiac massage," the surgeon ordered, voice admitting no panic. "Now!"
A nurse climbed on a stool beside the table and began compressions. Hands sank against Michelle's sternum with brutal force, thirty compressions for every two artificial breaths.
One. Two. Three. Four.
The monitor kept emitting that flat sound, that straight line meaning absence.
"Charge the defibrillator," the surgeon said. "Two hundred joules."
The device emitted a high-pitched buzz while charging.
"Clear!"
Hands withdrew. Electrodes pressed against Michelle's chest.
The body arched violently when the electrical discharge passed through it.
The monitor didn't change.
"Again," the surgeon ordered. "Three hundred joules."
Charge. Buzz. Discharge.
The body jerked again.
And then…
Beep.
One beat. Weak. Irregular.
Beep. Beep.
Another. And another.
"We have rhythm," the anesthesiologist announced, barely contained relief in his voice. "Sinus. Stabilizing."
The surgeon exhaled slowly, without taking her eyes from her work.
"Good. Let's finish repairing this artery before we decide to die again."
Forty minutes later, the suture was complete. Hemorrhage controlled. Shoulder reconstructed with plates and screws that would hold bones in place while they healed.
The surgeon straightened, removing blood-stained gloves.
"Take her to intensive care," she said. "Constant monitoring. If blood pressure drops again, I want to know immediately."
The stretcher began moving.
Michelle Corvelli had survived.
But barely.
⸻
Waiting Room
John sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair, elbows resting on knees and hands clasped before him. He hadn't moved in two hours. Hadn't spoken. Only waited.
Natalia stood by the window, observing the city through tinted glass. Alfred remained near the door, arms crossed and expression inscrutable.
Finally, the corridor doors opened.
Michelle's surgeon came out first, removing her surgical mask with a tired movement. She approached John with measured steps.
"Mr. Becker," she said, voice professional but laden with the weight of what she'd just witnessed. "Your… companion is out of danger. For now."
John looked up.
"For now?"
The surgeon nodded.
"The wounds were severe. She lost almost forty percent of her blood volume. We had to resuscitate her once. But she responded well. She's in intensive care, sedated, with constant monitoring."
She paused.
"The next twenty-four hours are critical. If there are no complications, she should recover completely. But she'll need physical therapy for the shoulder. The muscle damage was extensive."
John nodded slowly.
"Thank you."
The surgeon turned to leave but stopped.
"Mr. Becker… I don't know what you're involved in right now. And frankly, I don't want to know. But that woman is lucky to be alive. If you'd taken five more minutes to arrive…"
She didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't need to.
Moments later, Mia's surgeon also came out.
"The other patient is stable," he reported. "Three fractured ribs, pulmonary contusion, moderate hemothorax. But the bulletproof vest saved her life. Without it, those bullets would have gone through her heart."
Natalia exhaled with barely contained relief.
"When will she wake up?"
"A few hours. Maybe less. She's sedated, but not deeply. When she wakes, she'll feel pain. A lot of pain. But she'll live."
The surgeon withdrew, leaving the three alone in the waiting room.
John stood slowly, joints cracking from accumulated tension. He walked to the window and looked outside, observing Mazatlán's lights shining in the distance.
Alfred approached.
"You're going to get revenge, aren't you, boy?" he asked, voice low.
John didn't take his gaze from the window.
"Yes."
"Personally?"
"Yes."
Alfred nodded, as if that answer were the only acceptable one.
And then Alfred's phone vibrated.
He pulled it from his pocket with fluid movement and looked at the screen. The name that appeared made his expression harden imperceptibly.
Damián Corvelli.
He answered the call, bringing the phone to his ear.
"Sir?"
Damián's voice sounded tense, urgent.
"Alfred, how is my daughter?"
Alfred took a deep breath.
"The girl is out of danger, sir."
There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. Then a barely audible sigh of relief.
"Good. Stay with her. Don't leave her alone for a second. Understood? We'll talk about this later."
"Understood, sir."
The line cut off.
Alfred put away the phone and turned toward John, opening his mouth to speak.
But before he could utter a word, a television mounted on the waiting room wall came to life.
The evening news.
Natalia turned her head toward the screen, watching with distracted curiosity. John did the same.
And then a presenter's face appeared, expression serious and professional.
"Meanwhile, in international news, young Giovanni Orellana, known in criminal circles as 'The River Lord,' has recently been involved in a violent incident where, according to unconfirmed rumors, he allegedly completely eliminated La Vía Clandestina's presence in South American territory."
The image changed, showing destroyed streets, burned buildings, overturned vehicles.
"La Vía Clandestina, one of Latin America's largest and most violent criminal organizations, known for its kidnapping, extortion, and continental-scale drug trafficking operations, has virtually disappeared overnight after this confrontation. Authorities are still investigating details, but unofficial sources suggest Orellana, along with his network of elite sicarios, executed a coordinated military operation that collapsed the rival organization's complete structure."
Another image: a young man no more than twenty-five years old, with aristocratic features and dark eyes looking directly at the camera with a mixture of defiance and serenity.
"Giovanni Orellana recently joined the so-called Pacific Circle, an international criminal alliance composed of the continent's most powerful cartels. Alongside him, another young capo of unknown origin, identified only as John Becker, who leads one of Mexico's most powerful cartels."
The screen showed a blurry photograph of John, taken from a distance. The face wasn't clearly visible, but the posture, the silhouette, were unmistakable.
"Both young men, neither older than thirty, have consolidated unprecedented power in record time. Orellana, in particular, has converted his hometown of Valdivia, Chile, into what some media already call 'The New Sinaloa.' A territory where his control is absolute, where local authorities have been bought or intimidated into submission, and where fear governs with an iron fist."
The image changed again: streets of Valdivia, with closed businesses, patrols of armed men walking freely, graffiti reading "The River never forgets."
"International authorities consider Orellana a priority target, but so far, all capture attempts have failed. His intelligence network is impenetrable, his army of sicarios loyal to death, and his influence extends beyond Chilean borders, reaching Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia."
The presenter reappeared on screen.
"We'll return with more details after this break."
The screen switched to commercials.
John remained motionless, observing the television with an expression that revealed nothing. But inside, something had stirred.
A memory.
⸻
A few years ago.
An elderly woman, with gray hair gathered in a bun, sang with a soft, melancholic voice. Her wrinkled hands caressed the hair of children seated at her feet, arranged on a woven blanket that smelled of lavender and stopped time.
One was John, no more than six years old, golden-brown eyes fixed on the woman's face as if each word of the song were a secret he needed to decipher.
The other, a child with aristocratic features and dark eyes shining with childlike curiosity, leaned against the old woman's shoulder with the confidence of one who knows himself loved unconditionally.
Giovanni.
And beside them, a blonde girl a few years older watched with serious expression, too serious for her age, as if she already knew the world was full of inevitable goodbyes.
But there was one more.
Seated between John and Giovanni, legs crossed and hands on her lap, was a small girl with dark hair falling in soft waves to her shoulders. Her eyes—large, blue, luminous—looked at the old woman with devotion bordering on sacred.
She was no more than four years old, but there was something about her that made all the other children love and care for her.
The woman sang an ancient song, one of those transmitted from generation to generation carrying the weight of centuries of pain and hope.
Her voice barely trembled, breaking on high notes, but never stopping. Because this song wasn't meant to be sung with perfection. It was meant to be felt.
The four children remained still, hypnotized by the melody that spoke of love and loss, of cries that never end and shadows that pursue even in daylight.
The dark-haired girl extended a small hand and took Giovanni's. Their fingers intertwined without either taking their eyes from the old woman.
John, from the other side, did the same with the blonde girl.
And the four remained thus—connected, united by something more ancient than their names, deeper than their ages—while the woman sang with trembling voice:
"Ay de mí, Llorona, Llorona, Llorona,
llévame al río;
tápame con tu rebozo, Llorona,
porque me muero de frío…"
When the song ended, none of the children spoke.
The woman bowed her head, silent tears rolling down her wrinkled cheeks.
"Remember this song, my children," she whispered, voice seeming to come from very far away. "Because someday, when I'm no longer here to sing it, you'll need it. You'll need it to remember who you are. To remember you've always been together. And that you four will always be family."
The dark-haired girl squeezed Giovanni's hand tighter.
Giovanni closed his eyes, memorizing each word, feeling the dark-haired girl's hand.
The blonde girl nodded slowly, as if sealing a pact she didn't yet understand but already felt in the deepest part of her soul.
And John…
John felt something break inside his chest. Something sweet and terrible at the same time. As if that song were a key opening doors he didn't know existed.
The old woman embraced them all against her chest, and for a moment—just a moment—the world was perfect.
⸻
John blinked, returning abruptly to the present.
The clinic's waiting room. Fluorescent lights. Air conditioning buzz. Disinfectant smell.
Natalia looked at him with worried expression.
"John?" she asked, cautiously. "Are you okay?"
He didn't respond immediately.
Because he could still hear that song. Could still feel the blonde girl's hand intertwined with his.
And he knew, with a certainty that pierced his soul like a shot, that the older girl had grown up.
She had grown and become someone important to him.
Someone who at this precise moment was fighting for her life a few meters away.
Mia.
His hands began to tremble.
John closed his eyes, and for a moment, he was that six-year-old boy again seated at the feet of an old woman singing about weeping women and eternal loves.