Tina was barely clinging to consciousness by the time the four exhausted little slum boys ferried her across town and into the red light district of Baixo Augusta. Marcos was already waiting for her outside his club, or perhaps she had passed out and one of the boys had run in to fetch him. He was looking down at her from the side of the rickshaw. His bald head shone with the blue holographic signage of his establishment: The Crazy Horse. His thin, salt-and-pepper mustache twitched, but he didn’t say anything.

That meant he was angry. Very angry. Had he found out what happened already? It was entirely possible. News traveled quickly through the favela and, considering what she’d done, the repercussions couldn’t be good.

“Bring her inside,” he said eventually, and motioned to two goons wearing ugly brown suits behind him. “Get these favela rats to help.”

Marcos didn’t seem to want to talk, and that was fine with her.

Tina assisted as much as she could as the two men and four boys helped her out of the rickshaw and into the cool, air-conditioned confines of the strip club. The pounding bass and flashing holograms did nothing to ease the ringing in her head. The girls on stage stopped their routine to gawk at her. One of them even had the nerve to laugh. The little bitch. The rest of the patrons gave them an extra wide berth as they made their way through and into the back.

They dumped her onto a black leather couch, and Marcos entered with an ampule of green liquid in one hand, a silver syringe in the other.

“You should feel lucky I’m even doing this.” Marcos loaded the ampule into the syringe with a click. “I should let you die and be done with you for good, you big dumb bitch.”

The mere utterance of that phrase had her blood seething with rage. His pet name for her—his ‘big dumb bitch’ that he used to take out rival gangs and stand as his champion in pit fights and blood tournaments. And that was just the stuff her body was actually built for. Worse still were his daily threats of making her earn her keep on the stage, or in the seedy back rooms. Frig that!

But she’d fix his ass one day. One day when she could finally get free from him, and out of this hellhole called Brazil.

Tina used what was left of her strength to give him a one-fingered gesture. “Yeah  . . . lucky me, asshole.”

He smirked, and then pressed the syringe to her neck.