Page 1 of Fall
Prologue
Slum life became a distant memory when I got involved with the wrong crowd. Off-white dust feeds the economy as Narcos enforce loyalty. Dirty money spreads like gasoline, igniting street wars. Territorial competition kills innocent lives. Power turns malignant with greed.
I brought danger to my door, laundered cash as a specialty skill, stashed my cut for a rung on the ladder to prosperity and shook hands with drug lords rising to supremacy.
It was all for money.
They trusted me.
I trusted them.
Then everything went to shit.
One day, my sister was by my side.
One bullet, and she was stolen away forever.
Everyone I’ve ever loved walks in Heaven. Tragedy runs in my family with me as the only survivor. If surviving is how you would describe the last few years.
Heartbreak taught me a valuable lesson that trust, even when it’s earned, will always be fleeting. It’s a short-lived gesture. A transient gimmick.
The downward spiral of mourning took me far away from Rio. I traveled without purpose, aim or thought of an eventual destination.
Anger froze out the loss. Vengeance barricaded my heart with a bulletproof vest. Crowds overwhelmed me. Scars reminded me. Hate consumed me.
On a mission to hide from the world, I wandered into a remote wilderness and found solitude in the Amazon rainforest.
Days later, I invested my millions and became the owner of a private retreat. I offered an amount they couldn’t refuse. Cash flow has a swaying influence. It won’t seal the holes in a man’s soul, but it offers opportunity. It sticks a Band-Aid over burns.
Shortly after, I erased Dante Valez from the planet and morphed into a ghost.
Agony transformed into calculated strategies and devious plans. Spontaneity ceased. Living became a mundane path with no fork in the road to deviate from. Hot days involved spying on my enemies and building an empire. Muggy nights were spent alone.
My new persona made peace with loneliness and demanded seclusion as a priority. Selective isolation was my savior. Until I stumbled upon an anomaly.
An injured creature in the undergrowth.
A mishap of fate.
Cursed intrigue.
Unnerving attraction.
The awakening of deadened nerve endings.
A rare beauty.
A threat to my kingdom.
The striking woman spoke with a husky brogue unlike anything I’d ever heard before. She was a vulnerable siren, a feisty warrior, a sexy goddess and untrustworthy. So, I clipped her colorful wings and indulged in a new obsession.
Observing her through uninterrupted glass filled the void of desolation. Iris Kitson’s identity was mine to play with. Her feminine form was mine to crave. The open aspect cage she recovered in was mine to watch over.
We were both lost in the jungle.
Me, perpetually.
Her, temporarily.
