The jungle had returned to normal. The hitmen's bodies were gone, swallowed by fire and soil. But peace wasn't coming back. Tia hadn't spoken all day. She just sat near the fire, clutching Rosa's necklace, tracing the chain with small, trembling fingers.
I cleaned the weapons, every motion mechanical, like prayer beads for a man without a god. But my mind wasn't on the rifles. It was on the way the men had moved.
Disciplined. Professional. These weren't mercs looking for a paycheck. These were soldiers. Soldiers who had been given a very specific order: kill the girl.
One of them had carried a tattoo on his wrist — a serpent devouring its own tail. I'd seen it before. On files. On corpses. The mark of men who worked for him.
The name hissed in my memory like venom. A man with more blood on his hands than a thousand wars, a spider with webs in every government, every black op. But he didn't come after children. Not without reason.
I stared at Tia; her small frame huddled in the firelight. Rosa's necklace gleamed faintly against her skin. And it hit me, she wasn't the target because of Rosa. She was the target because of something else.
When she finally looked up, her eyes met mine. So young, so fragile, and yet carrying a weight she didn't understand.
"Why are they after me?" she whispered.
I opened my mouth. Closed it again. Then I said the only thing I could:
"Because of your father."
Her brow furrowed. "My father? But… he's gone. He died before I was born. That's what Aunt Rosa told me."
I felt my heart grind against bone. My hands clenched around the rifle. How do you tell a child the truth when that truth could kill her?
"No," I said, my voice rough as gravel. "Your father isn't dead. He's alive. And the men hunting you… they hate him more than anyone."
"Who?"
I took a breath. My mind went back to the SEAL teams. To the man who always led from the front, who never asked his men to do something he wouldn't do himself. My brother in arms.
"Commander Steve McGarrett."
Tia's lips parted, eyes wide, confusion mixing with a hope she didn't even understand.
I leaned forward, my voice low, steady.
"He doesn't know. He never knew about you. But the people coming for you? They know. They'll use you to hurt him."
The fire cracked between us, sparks leaping into the night.
For the first time since Rosa's death, I felt something cut through the numbness. Not rage. Not grief. Purpose.
I pulled the sat-phone from the weapons crate, the one I swore I'd never use again, and powered it on.