Chapter 1

My childhood best friend lost contact while working deep undercover abroad. I immediately filed an application with the department to go in and assist him.

When I finally found him, he was rotting. He had been tortured beyond recognition in a dark basement. But thankfully, he never opened his mouth. He kept his cover, and he kept his life.

Over the next few years, the two of us worked in perfect, silent sync. Step by step, we climbed the ranks until we became the top two lieutenants of the cartel. We got closer and closer to the very core of the organization. Finally, on his 33rd birthday, we took them all down. The mission was complete.

Looking at the plane tickets back home in my hand, my eyes suddenly welled up with tears. I hadn’t even flinched when I took a bullet to the shoulder last year, but now, I was sobbing.

"Leo, our parents are avenged. We can finally go home."

I was just about to pull out the birthday gift I had prepared for him when Leo suddenly sighed. "Yeah. It’s been so long. I wonder if the old oak tree we used to climb still stands."

His eyes were red with emotion, but my heart stopped. A cold dread washed over me.

Our parents had both been brutally murdered by drug traffickers when we were kids. Before we even entered the police academy, we knew we would face these monsters eventually.

Back then, I suggested we cut our palms and become blood brothers, so that if one of us died, the other would carry on for both of us.

But Leo had pointed at the oak tree in the backyard and said, "We’re already brothers, Mason. We don’t need a silly ritual. The ashes of our parents are buried right beneath this tree. All we need to do is get revenge. If there ever comes a day when one of us is captured, we must find a way to say the words 'blood brothers' to the other."

"It means: *I’m compromised. Do not believe a single word I say.*"

But right now, we were completely safe. And yet, he had just looked me in the eye and brought up that tree.

He wasn’t Leo.

Then where was my best friend?

Who was this man who had stood by my side, risking his life on the edge of a knife, fighting with me for years?