Before the kill list. Before the blade. Before the red dress and the cartel and the man she wasn't supposed to want... There was a phone call from a barracks room in Germany, and a sister who answered on the third ring. Zoe Marin has spent eight years as a ghost. Military intelligence, no name, no home, no life outside the mission. Now she's out. Discharged, directionless, and holding on to the only thing that still makes sense: her sister Camila, an artist in San Diego with paint on her hands and a laugh that could rewire a broken heart. Mateo Reyes is the heir to an empire he's quietly trying to destroy. He sits at his father's table, eats his mother's food, and builds financial structures with seams only a prosecutor could pull. He tells himself the legitimate businesses matter. He tells himself the cage has a door. They haven't met yet. But the same pipeline that funds Mateo's family is reaching for the people Zoe loves. And by the time she lands in San Diego, it will already be too late. Holy Water is the free companion prequel to Prayer for the Wicked. This is the story of everything that broke before the love affair and the war began.