Authors: Cristin Harber
Delta: Revenge
DELTA: REVENGE
Cristin Harber
Dedication
To the ladies and gentlemen who make up Team Titan: This book is yours. You are #TitanStrong.
PROLOGUE
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
“It began last fall in the woods.” The drunk lady’s slurred words were as irritating as the cloud of smoke circling her head. Cigarette after chain-smoked cigarette, she told the same story to each customer that walked into the dirty tattoo shop. Her orangey-pink lips puckered, wrinkles crinkling with each cigarette draw. “Last fall…”
Javier’s temples pounded. His two black eyes reminded him of his recent fight each time he blinked. His busted lip hurt when he drew it into his mouth, so he did that whenever the lady began her story again. He lived for the pain, and at the moment, the biting buzz from the tattoo needle wasn’t enough.
Tonight had been big. He’d been unbeatable, untouchable, and he’d taken down the fool who’d tried to best him.
“Done, yeah?” Suarez, his man with the golden gun, wiped down the inside of Javier’s forearm.
Javier looked at the design. He hadn’t given a picture of it but had only described what he wanted. And his boy had come through just like he had every time before.
“Done.” He nodded, biting his lip and relishing the burn on his arm while the basics were taken care of and wrapped.
But without the hum and sting of the needle, the lady and her story tried to push into his head space. Problem was, there was no room. That was why he fought. Why he drank. Why he inked and pierced and trained and tortured his body—to drown his thoughts.
Brazil was a tourist haven, a slice of heaven that didn’t hide its hellish side. The TBA—the tri-border area at the junction of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay—sank to the dark side with each sunset. There was evil in the land, in the air, in the people who’d come from overseas to make their money and fund their jihads. Once upon a time, all Brazilians had needed to worry about were drug cartels. But now, with the barely understood partnerships between al Qaeda, ISIS, and Hezbollah— and with the nonindigenous mafia syndicates representing every country in the world—Brazil had problems, and because of those, Javier had nightmares. And a goal that kept him alive: revenge.
Suarez nodded. Javier nodded. Their unsaid conversation meant nothing more than
Good-bye until the next time
. Javier’s muscles itched and twitched. His mouth salivated for the next fix of adrenaline, and he bounced on his toes, ready to throw down the bills he’d earned that night—bare-knuckle, surrounded by barking, betting men. The drunken, smoking mess sat there. Her skin was brown leather. Her teeth were nicotine yellow. The dress she wore was too tight, revealing too much, and her lazy drunken lull drove him to the point of wanting to punch the cinderblock wall.
But he wouldn’t tonight. Breaking bones in his fists would only feel good until he couldn’t fight, couldn’t
breathe
. Not to mention, how else would he buy what he needed if he didn’t have his winnings? He had to pay for seedy
churrascaria
visits and beer to wash down the smoky barbequed meats—neither of which he could identify and both of which he needed. Protein and alcohol. They were his tickets to survival and to fighting another night.
The orangey-pink lips started moving again. Same story, too much to ignore. “Began last fall—”
“Stop.” No more. He could take no more. The fix from the tattoo must have worn off. “You want to tell stories? About the fall, surrounded by the evil reaches of tree branches? Their deceptive, shadowy blanket?” Javier planted himself in front of her and watched her take him in. He knew what he looked like, especially after winning in the underground: battered and bruised. “Here’s a
história
for you. My father’s a
criminoso
. My mother’s a whore. But my sister, see, she was an innocent, my guardian angel.”
The drunken eyes trembled, waving him away, but he didn’t care. He had listened to her, and now she had to listen to him. Not even Suarez stepped in; the tattoo artist knew the story of Javier’s sister and the
Primeiro Comando
. Many people did, though most thought it was an old wives’ tale.
“Alone in the woods when my father thought he’d left me at our shack of a home. I was just a boy with a whore for a mama. No one to keep me in place—no one besides my sister, my angel. He took her—
my protector
—and sold her as I watched from where I was hidden behind a car like a”—
child—
“coward.”
Bile churned in Javier’s gut. Raw hatred flowed in his veins—for himself and for the Primeiro Comando cartel. Many years had passed, and he was a man. Still, the pain of the past ate him alive as the stench of cheap rum sweated from the woman across from him. It seeped from her pores and burned from her breath, its sickly scent making his nostrils flare.
“Never, never mind—” orange, smoker-cracked lips stuttered.
He took a step forward. “Under the watchful eyes of my father, my sister walked away—shaking and sobbing in cheap lingerie, crying for a mama that did not care. A mama who probably had a dick in her mouth and a needle in her arm while her daughter was sold. Never to be seen again.”
The wrinkle-lined skin around the woman’s lips pulled tight when her foul mouth gaped.
The room inched closer onto Javier as it always did when he recounted the story. A PC auction was simple and commonplace, and that one had forever changed him. “
That’s
a story that should be told if we’re telling awful tales of a cold night, surrounded by trees.”
He threw the paper bills on the counter and walked out, letting the shabby door slam. Humid heat slapped across his body. Javier wrapped his hand around the freshly bound tattoo and squeezed, hoping for enough pain to quiet the rage building deep in his soul. The familiar bite didn’t work to ease the monster that ate him from within.
Skin vibrating, blood racing, adrenaline coating his tongue, he rushed through the familiar back alleys, head down and fists balled. He needed to fight. To focus. To channel the rage that could make him blackout mad. Javier headed to the flophouse where he boarded, across from a PC whorehouse. He liked to keep an eye on the girls there. If a girl didn’t make it, if one wasn’t able to walk after a John was finished, Javier took care of the bastard. He was a teenage-vigilante presence who lurked in the shadows of Rio, hunting down the men who’d sold his sister.
He might not be able to go back in time and save his sister or rescue the girls from their whoring lives, but he sure wasn’t going to let them get the worst of it without doling out punishment.
His skin prickled for attention. Instinct was his survival, the only thing he could trust. Javier clenched his fists, put his head low, and stalked around the corner. There, he readied for war as he heard a slick, soft step on the damp sidewalk.
Javier lunged for his shadow, and it attacked him back. His adversary was stronger, a white guy with street moves—good ones—but with a decade on Javier.
Fists flew fast. Javier absorbed punches and ducked around cheap shots. They fought dirty, fought hard. It was the kind of brawl that Javier craved and few knew how to give, with jabs and gut shots.
“Enough.” The white guy stepped back smoothly, and his fists stopped swinging. He slowly clapped as though he were impressed, giving a head-shaking chuckle. “Nicely done, Javier Almeida.”
“You know me?”
“Everything about you.”
There was no trusting a white American in a Brazilian alley. Double that when they knew his name. “What do you want?”
“I have a proposition for you.”
“No, thanks.” Javier bounced to his toes, ready to fight again and more than ready to beat the man unconscious for making his skin crawl.
Knows everything about me?
That didn’t sit right.
“There’s a lot of money involved, Javier.”
“Don’t swing that way.” He gave the American a hard eye. “Stop using my name.”
“All right, Brazil. No names.” The man shook out a fist but didn’t seem to be in pain. He was no stranger to a street fight.
“What do you know about me? What do you want?”
“You’re an underground of Rio de Janeiro legend. A street fighter. A watchdog who gives no fucks.” The man took a step back to assess him the way a boxer’s manager might. “Pretty impressed with what I just saw.”
He shrugged. “Don’t care.”
“You’re obsessed with Primeiro Comando.”
“Careful of what you say and who you say it to down here,
americano
.”
Narrow eyes assessed him, mocking his warning. “I have a job offer for you.”
“No.”
Simple.
“It’s not wise to say no before you have the terms. Of all the things I’ve learned about you, jumping to conclusions was not one of them, Brazil.”
“Don’t care about the terms.” Javier wouldn’t turn his back on an attacker, but he was done with this conversation. He
had
a job: fighting, protecting, hunting. Those were as much a passion as they were a living. And a means of survival.
“Then”—the man stepped closer—“you’ll care about what I can offer.”
Javier smirked. “And what’s that?”
There was nothing a white guy with an American accent could offer him that would be of interest.
He caught Javier’s arm, ripped the plastic wrap off the fresh tattoo in a smooth move, and nodded toward red, swollen, newly inked flesh. “That.”
REVENGE
Unnerved, Javier stared at the letters that meant so much. “Who are you?”
“My name is Brock Gamble. I am the Delta team leader for Titan Group.”
Whatever that means.
“You can guarantee me this?” He lifted his arm.
“Without question. If you want the Primeiro Comando, work for me, and eventually, I will give them to you.”
As Javier stared at the inside of his forearm, all of his hesitations were gone. Brock Gamble had just offered the only thing he’d ever wanted. “Job offer accepted.”
CHAPTER ONE
Five Years Later
Chester County, Pennsylvania
Oh God.
The pressure was too much. Everyone said cold feet were normal. Sophia Cole wiggled her pedicured toes in her silk, peep-toed heels. Her feet weren’t cold. This was a warning light. Or bell. Maybe a siren? Whatever it was, it was loud. Clanging. Blaring,
Jump off this train before it dives over the cliff
.
Her heartbeat hopped from worried to alarm. Not one to have a panic attack at the altar in front of God and a guest list worthy of a who’s who of Washington, DC society pages, she casually shifted her stance and wiped at her cheeks. Seriously—she was sweating. Her warm cheeks were moist as though the air in this stifling church were humid. But really, it couldn’t be humid and stifling. The air conditioning was likely blowing. An event planner had probably picked out the perfect room temperature for the ideal church wedding.