The Sister They Sent

I was DEA, three years deep on a Miami cartel heir. They called the operation THORN, and they called me Thorn too.

I took a knife for him. I took a bullet for him. I crossed every line my badge had drawn, and somewhere in there I started loving him for real.

The night before the takedown my cover broke. He broke my left leg himself, in the wine cellar under his father's house, and left me chained to the wall.

He asked me, eyes red: "What else did you lie about?"

I smiled and said, "I love you. That part was a lie."

A few weeks later he fell in love with a new woman. A young agent, fresh out of Quantico, all sunlight and clean conviction.

That agent was my sister.

She was there to finish what I'd started. To turn him.

And me — I was just the first pawn they let them take.