When the conversation began, Ashley didn’t speak. She simply drifted near one of the open-air garden lounges where a pet monkey had curled up on a rattan stool and was lazily picking at half-eaten pineapple slices. She reached out, coaxed its fur with gentle fingers, and let it climb up her arm. The creature played with the hem of her sleeve with its tiny hands.

  Sawyer’s eyes flicked toward her once. She still wore the hijab. Why not reveal her face?

  Harland, meanwhile, poured two glasses of scotch. He slid one across the glass table toward Sawyer. “You military types never appreciate how hard it is to run an international conglomerate,” he said, swirling his glass of red. “Bureaucracy, tax law, tribal rights, environmental compliance, it’s all like fighting a war.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk business,” Sawyer replied.

  “Didn’t you?” said Harland. His smile never moved. “Men like you who come chasing phantoms in the jungle usually end up chasing power instead. The jungle does something to people out here. It changes them. It’s already changed you. You just don’t realize it.”

  “I’m only here for her.”

  Harland leaned back in his seat, chuckling. “Oh come now. You really expect me to believe that? Her?” He tilted his chin in Ashley’s direction. “She’s nothing special.”

  That flicker of rage came again. It was hot and clean. He badly wanted to reach for his pistol. But Sawyer didn’t let it show.

  “She matters to me,” he said.

  “A sentimental special operative? That’s dangerous.” Harland studied him for a moment. “You see her as a lover, or perhaps a friend, but I see her as a major asset. She’s gifted and her resources are useful, but ultimately she’s replaceable.”

  Sawyer’s grip tightened on the table’s edge. “You’re saying something that will make my inner operator come out and I don’t think you’re going to like where that goes.”

  Harland smiled like he’d heard it all before. “Let’s not threaten each other. That’s what lesser men do. I invited you inside the nest to negotiate like gentlemen.” He snapped his fingers.

  A servant boy with a little white hat emerged from the hotel shadows. They moved silently. In his hands was a polished redwood box with strange markings. It was clasped with gold. Behind him came three women, each as immaculate as the next.

  The first was a tall and blonde, an American girl. She wore her hair in a polished bun. Her white skirt clung to her hips. Her perfume hit Sawyer and he couldn’t help but feel its intoxicating flowery aroma which immediately perked him up in his seat.

  The second woman was Japanese with a porcelain face and almond eyes who watched him like prey like she couldn’t wait to devour him.

  The third was a caramel-skinned French girl with sun tan lines and a beauty mark above her lip. She posed with her hip out and knew exactly how this scene was supposed to go. She looked at him like she was already his.

  The servant boy with the little white hat beside Harland opened the box.

  Inside sat three golden rings; first was ruby, second was deep sapphire, and the last was a twisting emerald that all shimmered like ancient treasure and could have been hundreds of years old based on the blemishes and wear on the metal.

  Harland gestured. “Pick a ring. Then pick a girl. Each one comes with a passport, all customs pre-cleared. No ties. No consequences. Consider it your exit package.”

  The girls approached and encircled Sawyer.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The blonde touched his arm.

  The Japanese girl whispered. “Are you tired, Sawyer?” He looked at her stunned. “You know my name?” She just blushed and said, “You look like someone soft to rest against.”

  The French girl licked her lips and ran a finger along the edge of the redwood box.

  The American girl ran her hands down Sawyer’s shoulders and squeezed gently, massaging him. She leaned in close and whispered in his ear. “We both know who you want to take home...”

  Ashley stopped playing with the monkey. She sat frozen now, her posture rigid, her face unreadable beneath her black veil.

  Sawyer exhaled through his nose. “Can I have all three?”

  Harland raised an eyebrow. “If that’s what it takes.”

  Ashley looked away.

  The girls returned to the wall and lined up. The blonde bit her lip and batted her lashes. The Japanese girl tilted her head and pouted. The French girl whispered, “You’re dangerous…aren’t you?”

  Sawyer smirked.

  Harland raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

  Sawyer got up from his seat and approached the girl. He looked them over, one girl to the next. He stopped beside the blonde and nodded. “You’re trouble, aren’t you?”

  She giggled and winked.

  He stepped beside the Japanese girl. “If I weren’t careful, I’d fall for you.”

  She blushed and looked down.

  Then to the French girl. “You’re the one who would rob my heart and clean out my bank accounts.”

  She grinned wide. “Oui.”

  Returning to the box, he grabbed the ruby ring. Then he walked right past the girls. The monkey in the room squealed as Sawyer stopped in front of Ashley. He knelt in front of her. She looked down at him, stunned. He slid the ring onto her gloved finger.

  “I already chose my girl. I’m only here for you.”

  Ashley didn’t speak. She only stared down at the ring as if it were a venomous snake coiling around her wrist about to bite her.

  She pulled it off, walked past Sawyer, over to Harland, and placed the ring back inside the redwood box. “Don’t play games. Not here,” she said. Then she turned to Harland. “I’m sorry.”

  Harland sighed. “Wrong answer.”

  The guards, who wore Panamanian military uniforms, emerged like wolves from behind the velvet curtains blocking the nearest corridor. They were quiet, fast, and automatic. There were four of them with AK-47s and they approached in silence. Their eyes were bloodshot and their veins pulsed fresh with some unknown stimulant.

  Harland remained still for a moment, confident as ever, but then something changed and his figure blurred with movement.

  Sawyer barely registered the incredible speed and reflexes. His wrinkled hands clamped around Sawyer’s neck. He squeezed hard with immense strength and forced Sawyer to choke and spasm and claw at Harland’s paw, but Harland remained unmoved like stone. He squeezed harder and lifted Sawyer up off the ground. His feet dangled as he squirmed in the man’s grip. No. This wasn’t a man.

  He was going to die.

  No.

  He dove his knee into Harland’s ribs.

  Harland didn’t respond to it.

  Sawyer slammed an elbow down.

  There was no reaction.

  Harland changed, something black pulsed behind his blue eyes. He leaned in and whispered. “You’re stronger than the others. I like a fight, but you’re still no match for me.” An instant after that, Harland’s lips peeled back, not into a grin, but something more deliberate and calculated. The skin at the corners of his mouth split slightly and revealed twin crescents of bone-white ivory. The teeth were too symmetrical, too smooth, and too long. The way they glinted over the overhead light, like surgical instruments, made Sawyer’s stomach twist.

  And in that frozen moment in time, his reality ruptured and he saw the truth that his father tried to warn him about; it was a truth he never took too seriously until that moment.

  There were no more rational explanations. There were no more plausible denials. His father’s war stories, his hunting trips, the muttered warnings over his fifth whiskey and thick cigar smoke, it all made sense now. His father used to say, “They drink power, not just blood, son. Creatures walk in the night. Never forget it.”

  Sawyer’s pulse spiked. His breath hitched.

  It’s real. It’s all real.

  It didn’t feel like he was in Panama anymore, but in a twisted dark alternate reality where the supernatural were too real and everything he knew before that moment was a lie.

  Sawyer’s heart jackknifed in his chest. He thrashed once, violently.

  It was too late.

  Harland bit Sawyer’s neck. He arched his back in pain and blood streamed down his collarbone. His legs kicked but then a numbness fell over him, and then a coldness, and then Harland shoved him to the ground.

  The monkey in the room screamed and fled.

  Ashley fell to her knees. “What did you do?!”

  Harland and his associates strolled away as if late for a golf game.

  “I’m sorry, Sawyer,” Ashley said. “I’m sorry.”