Torsten Dahl book 1 - Stand Your Ground Read Online Free PDF Page A

one more American Fed asshole.
    A bullet struck his gun from his hand, sending fire through his thumb joint. Vega dropped, screaming, into a pile of mulch, amazed he still lived. It was clear now that this deal and this day were falling through the cracks, headed for Hell. Vega crawled desperately, scrabbling over a still-twitching corpse, seeking the getaway vehicles they had stationed in the underbrush. Suddenly, Javier was at his side, hauling him to his feet, and they ran, brother with brother, urging each other on as they plunged through the jungle, fleeing a paramilitary force that sought to incarcerate or kill them both. Sounds of pursuit dogged them, but the Vega brothers were fast; faster than a million bullets, to Vega’s then-younger mind, and invincible. Javier and he had a business to run, networks to build and electronically inhabit, viruses to plant. They would rule together forever – a deserved destiny. It came as all the more of a shock, then, when Javier screamed and fell forward, blood exploding in a cloud from his right shoulder. Vega stared first in disbelief and then in horror, finally glaring back to look at the man who dared to shoot his brother.
    Not only brother . Friend. Fellow soldier. Shield. He knew me best in all the world.
    The blond soldier, Dahl, shouted something incomprehensible. Vega wasn’t listening anyway. He raised his handgun again, but Javier shot first, discharging three bullets in quick succession. They all missed the Swede, who had the audacity to remain upright and fire right back, only his three bullets making much more of an impact than Vega’s brother’s. The first took Javier in the chest; the second in the stomach; the third blew the top of his head off. Vega tried to cry out. Couldn’t. Stunned into immobility. Every plan for the future that they’d made suddenly disintegrated. They were gods , were they not? More than men, surely.
    As Vega watched his brother collapse, he saw the meager reality of it all, the blood and brains, the fateful moment when one man left this world and the survivor realized that the same world would carry on turning without him.
    He’d looked up from his dying brother to Dahl and found himself staring down the barrel of a smoking automatic rifle.
    All the time, he thought, absurdly. I watch. Just watch. Now . . . this . . . ?
    Vega pissed himself.
    Right then, right there, deep in the rainforest, the drug lord experienced loss and terror such as he had never known before. And he’d soiled himself in the process.
    The Swede shook his head, stoic. Vega fell to his knees to hide the stain and threw his hands up in the air. Unmanned, petrified, he had never known such feelings existed. Only when Dahl came under attack by two of Vega’s men did Gabrio see his choice: He could sit or kneel here and attend his brother’s body, or he could flee. Turn coward. Run like a puppy chased by a lion.
    Vega fled, and never saw any of that day’s enemies, including Dahl, again. But he had to ask himself now:
    Why did you never try to track Dahl down? And why are you uneasy about it now?
    Vega knew why. But nobody else in the world did, or ever would. Feeling a sudden and unexpected rush of shame mixed with anger, he offered Dario a shot glass and the bottle of tequila.
    “Tip one back. And remember Javier.”
    Dario glanced at the clock on his mobile phone. “It’s early.”
    “ Javier .” The single word came out in a growl, like a sword grinding over bone, and it showed Dario exactly what was expected.
    The boy drank.
    Vega poured another.
    “Your initiation, then. Seventeen is the perfect age, no?”
    Dario’s eyes widened perceptibly. “An . . . initiation?”
    Vega felt the shrinking feeling inside he imagined every father must feel to see his son display reluctance to take up the family business. “A great and worthy induction. Kill the man who killed your uncle. Wipe out his entire family. Remove his bloodline from the face of the