Betrayal

Adam just smiled and started caressing her. Right as he leaned in to kiss her, he caught a glint in the glass of a cabinet across the room. He froze and yelled:

“Get down!”

He shoved Sabrina aside and drew his gun, but the shots were already cracking through the air. Bullets tore into both of them. Adam fired back and dove behind an armchair. He tried to check on his girlfriend, but to his shock, she was crawling straight toward the shooters.

The gunfire stopped. Adam glanced at his wound. From the spot where it hit, he figured he could hold out a little longer—at least until he found a way out.

“Adam, why don’t you come out, and we can talk?” a voice called—one he knew belonged to Oliver Duncan.

He heard Sabrina groan, but he had no idea how to help her.

“Let Sabrina go, Oliver. I’m the one you want. She’s hurt,” Adam called back.

A laugh was the only answer to his plea.

“You still don’t get it, Adam. She’s with me. And don’t worry about her wound. Once I’m done with you, I’ll get her patched up properly,” Oliver shot back.

Adam could barely process what he was hearing. He refused to believe Sabrina had betrayed him and demanded:

“What the hell do you mean, ‘she’s with me’?”

“We’re lovers, Adam. You want it spelled out? Fine, listen up: she used your anniversary as bait to lure you here, and you fell for it like a damn fool. As usual, you trust your own skills too much and barely roll with any muscle. But tonight, you’re screwed.”

The revelation of Sabrina’s betrayal sent rage boiling through him. Adam didn’t tolerate betrayal—not from his men, not from any woman he was with. From day one, he’d been crystal clear with Sabrina about the rules and what happened if she crossed him. He didn’t usually lay hands on women, but with her, he wasn’t letting this slide.

“Oliver, it hurts,” Sabrina whimpered, her voice weak.

“There’s nothing I can do right now. Wait till I finish him off. Then I’ll help you,” Oliver snapped, his tone harsh and cold.

A laugh was the only answer to his plea.

“You still don’t get it, Adam. She’s with me. And don’t worry about her wound. Once I’m done with you, I’ll get her patched up properly,” Oliver shot back.

Adam could barely process what he was hearing. He refused to believe Sabrina had betrayed him and demanded:

“What the hell do you mean, ‘she’s with me’?”

“We’re lovers, Adam. You want it spelled out? Fine, listen up: she used your anniversary as bait to lure you here, and you fell for it like a damn fool. “You always trust your own skills too much and hardly roll with any backup. But tonight, you’re done.”

The revelation of Sabrina’s betrayal sent rage boiling through him. Adam didn’t tolerate betrayal—not from his men, not from any woman he was with. From day one, he’d been crystal clear with Sabrina about the rules and what happened if she crossed him. He didn’t usually lay hands on women, but with her, he wasn’t letting this slide.

“Oliver, it hurts,” Sabrina whimpered, her voice weak.

“There’s nothing I can do right now. Wait till I finish him off. Then I’ll help you,” Oliver snapped, his tone harsh and cold.

Adam listened to every word and wondered: *Is that kind of treatment what made Sabrina turn on me?*

“If you survive this, Sabrina, you’d better never cross my path again,” he warned, his voice thick with menace.

He was close to the door. Lucky for him, he hadn’t gone far into the apartment, but his odds of getting out alive were slim. He’d have to pop up fast, yank the door open, and bolt—even if he ran dry on ammo. He’d leave or die trying.

Adam checked his gun and rounds one more time. Pain stabbed through him with every move, but he had to act, even if it made the bleeding worse. He sucked in a deep breath, then sprang into motion, firing toward where Oliver was holed up. Even if he missed, the shots would force Oliver to duck, buying him seconds to reach the door.

Staying low, Adam kept squeezing the trigger. He flung the door open and practically dove through it. Return fire cracked the instant he cleared the threshold. Gritting through the pain, he hauled himself up and sprinted for the elevator, glancing back with every stride. Just as he got close, the doors slid open, and a couple stepped out.

The woman screamed in terror when she saw him—gun in hand, blood soaking his shirt. Adam tried to warn them:

“Get out of the hallway!” he shouted, shoving past them into the elevator and slamming the close-door button.

Gunshots cracked again. The couple hit the floor as Adam jabbed the button frantically. Footsteps pounded closer down the hall, and his ammo wouldn’t last much longer. When the doors finally slid shut, a wave of relief washed over him. He pressed hard on the wound to slow the bleeding and fished out his phone to call one of his guys. Dead. At that moment, Adam knew he was on his own—he’d have to pray they didn’t catch him in the lobby.

While Adam fought for his life in the apartment, across town Samantha Navarro was dealing with a situation that wasn’t life-threatening, but deeply humiliating.

Samantha, twenty-eight, worked the front desk at a five-star hotel in Seattle. Daughter of a Mexican mother and an American father, she’d inherited her dad’s five-foot-seven frame and her mom’s striking Latin beauty and curves that turned heads wherever she went.

She lived alone in a small house in the suburbs. Ever since she was eighteen, she’d learned to fend for herself. Her father, crippled by a car wreck, lost his job and drowned himself in booze. Even with Samantha and her mother busting their asses to keep the roof over their heads, money was always tight. Dad’s meds were brutal on the wallet, and the anti-Latino bias around town made decent-paying gigs hard to come by.

Then things got worse: her father borrowed from a casino owner—a loan-shark with a reputation for broken kneecaps. One day she came home to the crack of two gunshots and saw men slipping out the front door. When she stepped inside, the image burned itself into her brain forever: her parents dead on the living-room floor. She only escaped the same fate because a friend held her back until the killers were gone.

That friend was Pedro—her buddy since middle school. Samantha’s first kiss had been with him, but Pedro always laughed it off, insisting the kiss just proved he was gay.