Chapter 1

Flying into the Rio Grande Valley felt like descending into a haze. The land flattened into a patchwork of scrub and citrus, the airport small enough to remind me of the ones I’d flown into for soccer tournaments as a teenager. Harlingen wasn’t technically in Brownsville, but it was close enough for someone traveling light. My backpack was the first off the belt, which felt like a small blessing. The kind that shouldn’t matter but still did.

The Uber vehicle smelled faintly of sweat and coconut-scented air freshener. The driver didn’t say much—just tapped his phone once to confirm my hotel and turned up the Tejano music, leaving me to watch the terrain blur past. Flat land. Power lines. A few low-slung strip malls. Palm trees here and there, trying to look natural in the heat. Everything felt sun-bleached and still.

It was my first time in Brownsville. I was only supposed to be here for the weekend, helping out with a housing initiative connected to the nonprofit I sometimes volunteered with back in Salt Lake. Fixing roofs, clearing brush, delivering donated supplies—whatever they needed. A long weekend of sweating and hammering and sleeping in unfamiliar sheets. I’d done it before. It wasn’t supposed to be anything memorable.

The hotel was what I expected—modest, low-budget, with stucco walls and a receptionist who barely looked up from her tablet. My room had an air conditioner that rattled like it was fighting for its life. Still, it was clean. I dropped my backpack on the second bed, washed my face, and checked my phone. No texts. No voicemails. No missed calls.

I stared at the screen for a second longer than I needed to. Then I shoved it in my pocket. I hadn’t eaten since Dallas, and I figured I could use some fresh air. The park wasn’t far—a fifteen-minute walk, maybe less. Close to the Rio Grande. I remembered seeing it on the map while half-dozing through the flight. There was something strange about being so close to a border I’d only ever read about in the news. A thin blue line on a map. A river and a fence.

I left the hotel just as the light began to turn gold. Early evening. Warm breeze. The kind of weather that made you feel like maybe things could be okay, even when they weren’t. I passed a couple of convenience stores, a small taco stand with two men laughing loudly at a plastic table, and then the sidewalk curved into the edge of the park.

It wasn’t crowded—just a few people scattered across benches, a woman jogging with earbuds in, a group of kids kicking a soccer ball near a patch of dry grass. A younger woman sitting on a bench, scribbling something in a tattered notebook. The river wasn’t visible from where I was standing, but I could sense it nearby. A slow, hidden presence beyond the trees.

I took a path lined with low shrubs and followed it past a rusting playground, the kind with a chipped slide and a fading shade cover. The sun was lower now, throwing long shadows across the dirt.

That’s when I saw them.

Three young women in their twenties walking together, laughing softly, their voices carrying through the warm air, maybe two hundred feet away. One of them was the girl I’d seen writing in a notebook minutes earlier. I probably wouldn’t have noticed them—wouldn’t have thought twice—except that something changed in a heartbeat.

The laughter stopped. Their posture stiffened. And then—a van. Too fast. Too close. And before I fully registered what was happening, they were screaming.

I didn’t hesitate. I ran toward them, instinctively.

The van screeched to a halt half on the path, half in the grass—no markings, white, dented along the side. The back doors flew open before it even stopped moving.

Two men jumped out. One had a gun. The other had something in his hand—I couldn’t tell what, maybe a Taser or a knife. I stopped in my tracks ... I couldn’t move for half a second. My brain froze, trying to file the scene into something it recognized. A prank? A film shoot?

But it wasn’t that. It was real. Too real.

The three women stumbled backward, startled into stillness. One of them—taller, with straight dark hair and a pink top—put herself in front of the other two without even thinking. The man with the gun raised it just enough to let her know: Don’t.

I didn’t think. I didn’t decide. I just shouted.

“Hey!”

All four of them turned toward me—three with fear, one with rage.

“Back off!” I yelled, taking a step forward, hands raised. “What the hell are you doing?”

The man with the gun turned his aim on me. The other man grabbed one of the women—she screamed, kicked. The tall one in front tried to pull her back, fists flying, and got shoved hard enough to fall.

I heard myself yell again—no real words, just a noise, pure panic and fury. With the gun no longer pointed at me, I resumed running in their direction.

A third man appeared—must’ve been driving. He came from around the van, grabbed the woman on the ground by the arm and yanked her up. She fought—God, she fought—even bit his wrist, kicked his shin.

I was almost on the scene.

Then the man with the gun stepped into my path.

He didn’t fire. But he didn’t need to. The muzzle was pointed straight at my chest.

“¡Alto!” he barked. “No te muevas, cabrón.”

I stopped. My breath punched out of me. I held up both hands. I spoke very little Spanish, but the gun aimed at me got its message across fluently.

“Okay, okay. Look, I don’t want trouble—just let them go.”

He stepped closer. I saw his face for the first time—maybe late twenties, sunburned, jaw tight. He didn’t look angry. He looked focused. Like this was just another job.

“Ya viste demasiado, ” he said flatly.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “Just go. I won’t say anything.”

He didn’t respond. He raised the gun slightly and motioned with his head. I didn’t understand right away.

Then someone came up behind me and shoved something sharp against my lower back. A voice I hadn’t heard yet—quiet, hard—said, “Hands. Behind. Now.”

My stomach dropped. I hesitated. The hesitation was what did me in.

Something cracked across the back of my head—maybe the butt of a pistol, maybe just a fist—and the world lurched sideways. My knees buckled. I went down hard, face scraping gravel. Hands grabbed my arms, zip-tied my wrists with brutal efficiency.