Under His Protection

by Isabella Laase

“Do something,” whimpered Victoria. “He’s bleeding too much.”

  “I’m fine,” he dismissed, failing to push his brother aside in an attempt to move toward her voice. “Let me up, Casey. We can drive to the hospital, and I’ll get a few stitches.”

  “I’m Christian, not Casey, buddy... and if you’re fine, why do you look like shit? That’s got to be some sort of artery damage, so sit down. I’m not fucking around here.”

  Cruz opened his eyes long enough to stare at both twins, and for the first time since the boys were babies, he couldn’t tell them apart. The realization didn’t sit well. “No, you’re not,” he whispered, resorting to the dry humor that had always defined their relationship. “You’re Casey. We switched your hospital bracelets when you were babies. It was Matt’s idea. He didn’t like either one of you. Now, let me up.”

  “For god’s sake, Cruz, listen to somebody for a fucking change,” scolded his little submissive, the terror-filled tone making him feel even more like shit. Even lying down, the dizziness threatened his equilibrium and a bone-numbing chill accompanied a wave of nausea.

  “I think I’m going to puke, man,” whispered Cruz.

  “He’s going into shock, there’s a blanket in the back of my car,” shouted one of his brothers. Relentless pressure applied to his shoulder. His legs were elevated and head turned to the side, but finding the right words was more and more difficult, the pain dominating his senses.

  “What does that mean?” said Victoria. “I don’t understand.”

  “It means his organs aren’t getting enough oxygen. Call for the medivac helicopter and find out where the closest trauma center is.” The voices twisted together until his three brothers were reduced to one frantic tone, but Cruz struggled to fight his broken body rather than understand his surroundings. More hands. More pressure. The wet stickiness covering his chest and arm.

  The overpowering confusion ignited a sudden panic. “Victoria?” He tried to shout, but he knew that his voice was toneless. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

  She grabbed his hand, cradling it between hers, and his muscles slowly relaxed. So warm. So perfect. “I’m right here, Alec,” she said, her tone dropping to just above a whisper. “Stop fussing and do what you’re told for a change. Got it? Today, I’m the dom, and you’re the sub.”

  “I love you, Victoria,” he whispered. “Don’t ever forget that, okay?”

  There was a long pause, but when she spoke again, her voice cracked. “I love you too, Alec. But we really need to work on your romance timing, so stay with me, okay? Don’t close your eyes.”

  But he couldn’t fight the pain and the draw of a deep slumber. The distant sounds of help drew closer, but he grasped her hand tighter, his brothers by his side, and he acknowledged the incredible gifts he’d been given. He fought hard to stay connected to these powerful, important people in his life, but even his resolve to stay with her couldn’t defeat the darkness that finally brought him to a place of quiet peace.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A chilly fall downpour followed them the entire seven-hour drive from New York to DC, but Victoria was snuggled in the back seat of Christian’s SUV with a soft cotton blanket to keep her comfortable. She’d spent a lot of time with the twins since the shooting, learning to appreciate their similarities but also recognizing them for the two unique individuals that they were. Matt had headed west that morning to return to his office, but the trauma had brought all three of these guys to her side. She may have grown up an only child, but after her close call, she’d have three big brothers for the rest of her life.

  The end game was still a tough reality; Teresa, Amanda, and Trevor, all people she’d allowed into her life and all of them had been trying to harm her and her father. The fact that their lives would never be the same was no consolation. Teresa was dead, planting a bomb gone wrong and both of the Kings had been arrested along with a dozen other high-ranking members of Hardcore. But Amanda’s deception had been the hardest to bear. She’d never have a place in Victoria’s future, but their shared past was a powerful tie, and Victoria had made several phone calls to the feds in an attempt to keep the charges to a minimum.

  The horrors of these last few weeks wouldn’t disappear overnight, but a hidden strength and fortitude had emerged from the rubble to move her forward. Looking to the seat next to her, she smiled, so very grateful to have his warmth still part of her life. Cruz was sound asleep, leaning slightly against her side. His breathing was steady and calm, but she instinctively tucked the blanket a little further around his bad shoulder.

  “How’s he holding up?” asked Casey from the front passenger seat. “We shouldn’t be much longer as long as the traffic stays clear.”

  “He’s still asleep,” she said quietly. “I’m kind of surprised after he refused the opioids. After three surgeries and days in an ICU, I thought he’d be a lot more uncomfortable during this trip.”

  “I’d never been to Rochester before,” said Christian, turning off the expressway to negotiate the last few miles to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “But they did an amazing job piecing him back together. I’m not going to lie to you, Victoria. I thought we were going to lose him.”

  “Me too,” she said, her voice choking. “And I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t know how I’d ever live without him.”

  “You think I need to work on my romance skills?” mumbled Cruz, clearly not asleep. “You wait until I’ve got a couple of bullets in me and a few pints of their creepy blood to tell me that you can’t live without me. I’m tainted, now.”

  Victoria kissed him gently on the cheek. “Technically, it was one bullet and that was removed in your first hours-long surgery while I chewed my nails to the quick, so don’t exaggerate. And you should be thankful that they matched your blood type. You must have lost ten pounds of blood back on that roadside before they got you to the hospital.”

  Casey turned from the front seat with a frown. “So, just checking, Alec. That comment you made about switching our hospital bracelets? That was just a joke, right? You didn’t really do that.”

  Slipping a covert wink to Victoria, Cruz replied seriously, “I have no memory of that conversation, a lot of blood loss, you know, but you should ask Matt what he knows. I don’t want to be a snitch.”

  The twins exchanged an identical questioning glance, before forming an identical questioning frown. “He was like two years old when we were born,” challenged Christian. “He couldn’t have done that by himself.”

  “He was an evil two-year-old,” said Cruz seriously. “He used to bite you all the time, too. I have pictures.”

  “How’s the pain?” asked Victoria with a chuckle, taking his wrist to check his pulse. She’d learned a lot during that week-long hospital stay, never leaving him for more than a minute or two, no matter how much the four of them had threatened the sanctity of her ass. There was probably going to come a day when she’d have to pay up to at least one of the Cruz brothers for her domineering attitude, but she was pretty safe for at least the next eight to ten weeks while this one’s arm was immobilized.

  “Yeah,” mumbled Christian, still appearing to be a little unsettled over his newborn bracelet drama. “How’s the pain, princess? Are those baby aspirins working good enough to take you back to work today?”

  “I took big boy aspirins,” Cruz said defensively. “Besides, I don’t think work is going to be a problem after my last few weeks. Let’s think about it. I went AWOL, stole a car and totaled it by intentionally ramming it into domestic terrorists before allowing it to be riddled with bullets. Then, of course, I kidnapped my protectee, took her in a kinky sex scene with my brother, let somebody else kidnap her, and got myself shot in the process. In what order do you think I should put all of that on my resume? I’ll be lucky if I don’t end up in jail.”

  Turning toward Victoria, he rested his head on her shoulder. “And to answer your question. It still hurts. A lot. And I plan on whining about it for a long time, so yo
u’d better get used to it.”

  “That’s fine,” she said absently. “You can have a little more Gabapentin in about an hour and that’ll help. But you know damn well that Matt wrote a check for the truck and gave the guy more than it was worth, so he made out just fine. And you’re lucky you have a shoulder at all with all the nerve damage that bullet did. You’ve got months of therapy and probably at least one more surgery before you’re done. You’re going to hurt for a while, so get used to it, but you sure as hell better believe that you’re going to get workers compensation and government disability checks, cause none of those assholes want to mess with me when I’m riled up.” She gently tapped the tip of his nose. “And, while we’re on the subject, could we please stop mentioning to people that I had sex with your brother? It’s really not polite conversation, even in front of them.”

  “You’re kinda sexy when you get all nasty with somebody else,” said Cruz with a grin. “But make sure that you remember who’s the dom in this relationship and who’s the submissive, otherwise I’ll have to get one of these lads to pull you over to the side of the road and administer a few reminders on my behalf.”

  The twins caught her gaze with happy grins, and she stared Cruz down. “You’re kidding, right?” But the arched eyebrow she got in return didn’t relieve any of the threat. Pointing her finger at the twins, she added, “Turn around and drive the car up there, little boys.”

  “Never push Agent What-the-Fuck around,” said Cruz, closing his eyes with a sigh and leaning back into the seat. “I have some amazing allies.”

  * * *

  Victoria had only been gone a few weeks, but the comforting familiarity of the Executive Mansion grounds provided a welcome end to her long, emotional journey. The expansive green lawns defined some sense of privilege, separating the tourists behind the iron fence taking photos with zoom lenses and those lucky enough to stand in the shadows of the two-hundred-year-old, locally quarried sandstone. Exiting the car, she offered a smile and wave to the press, who shouted welcoming messages from a respectful distance, while Casey and Christian carefully helped a slow-moving Cruz from the back seat.

  Two smartly dressed Marines stood at attention to hold the door at the North Portico, never smiling, or even making eye contact, but the taller of the two spoke quietly. “Welcome home, Ms. Bradford. Agent Cruz. We’ve missed you.”

  Dozens of staff and servants were waiting on the main floor to greet them with happy smiles, hugs, and congratulatory handshakes. The official formality found in the first floor staterooms mixed beauty and elegance with timeless history. A few of the angry, sad thoughts returned, but they were quickly defeated by her new appreciation for life and living to find the dozens of better memories—the first time her parents had come down the main staircase on inauguration night, her shining mother dressed in an elegant ball gown with sparkling diamonds, and her father in a formal tuxedo, all the way to last Christmas season when she’d joined hundreds of volunteers working to decorate for the holidays with a show of reds and golds that were truly awe-inspiring.

  Joe MacMillan quietly greeted Cruz with a gentle, alternate hand handshake. “Glad to see that you’re doing well, Agent Cruz, but you look like you might need some time off. I’m assuming that you’ll follow all of the doctor’s orders, but I expect you back in my office as soon as you’re cleared for duty.”

  Cruz nodded solemnly. “Thank you, sir,” he said, still leaning a little on Casey’s arm. “I’m looking forward to discussing my future with you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, son,” said MacMillan quietly, “cause I’m going to ride your ass and give you the crappiest assignment I can find until you remember what it means to follow orders. How does standing in front of the Stuart painting in the East Wing for hours sound to you?”

  “Yeah,” said Victoria, taking Cruz’s hand. “Following orders is an area of growth for him, Agent MacMillan. Let me know how you manage it though, because I might take a few notes.”

  But when she turned away from MacMillan with a grin, the crowd parted to reveal her father patiently waiting for her by the big marble staircase that she’d run up and down a thousand times in the last few years. Stoicism had been necessary during the hours of surgery and days staring at the four walls of the ICU, with beeping machines summarizing the full weight of what she didn’t understand, but his gentle smile and outstretched arms broke past her strength to ignite the tears. Hurling herself into his embrace, she sobbed quietly, breathing in his familiar scent and allowing the little girl feeling to bring her additional comfort. The room grew quiet, and he led her up the stairs to the privacy of the residence with all three Cruz brothers following close behind.

  “Alejandro!” shouted a woman before they’d fully closed the door. A burly man with clear Hispanic heritage followed behind her, and the tall, beautiful woman broke into rapid Spanish accompanied by tears.

  “You brought my mother to work?” Cruz asked, pulling the sobbing woman into his one good arm and offering his matching grin to the large man behind her. “I told you on the phone, Mom, I’m fine, but why didn’t you tell me that you two were in DC? You two could have stayed at my apartment.”

  “Stay in your one-bedroom place?” asked his father with a chuckle. “We’ve been staying at the White House since President Bradford sent for us. Have you seen the gardens and flowers in this place? There’s even a florist shop on the first floor. It’s taken me days, and I still don’t think I’ve seen everything.”

  “Once the news of the shooting hit the papers,” added the president with a shrug, “I couldn’t leave them to the media blitz. Your younger sisters were invited too, but they respectively declined. I figure we’ll have them all back here at Christmas.”

  Domingo and Inez Cruz continued to speak to their injured son in Spanish so quickly that Victoria’s college-level knowledge couldn’t follow the conversation, but the tone of his mother’s voice rose until it was very apparent that she was reprimanding him. “What does tonto mean?” she asked Christian with a frown.

  “Idiot,” admitted Christian with a shrug. “My mother doesn’t mince her words. We’re all actually a little afraid of her.”

  “Good,” she said. “Maybe I can take a few notes from her, too.”

  “I thought you said that they called you Alec,” said the president with a smile. “I don’t speak Spanish, but I hear an awful lot of Alejandros in what sounds like a solid scolding to me. You should be ashamed for scaring your parents like that. Learn to duck when somebody’s shooting at you. I’m surprised they didn’t teach you that in Secret Service training.”

  “It’s only Alejandro when they are mad at me, sir. I’ve learned to accept that,” responded Cruz as his mother embraced him a second time, shedding more tears and gently rubbing her hand over his damaged shoulder.

  “You learn a lot about a man watching him with his mother,” said President Bradford, motioning the small group toward the living room. “But I think we should let Agent Cruz have a seat before he falls over.”

  Victoria was surprised to find that the bomb-damaged fireplace was already repaired, and she felt no sense of fear when she walked into the room. “I can’t believe that I’m in the freaking White House,” said Casey, looking around in awe. “I mean, I’ve done the first floor tour before, but this is really something.”

  “Yes,” added Domingo Cruz. “Thank you, Mr. President, for inviting my wife and me to spend the last few days in your beautiful home. It means a great deal for us to see our sons and know that Alec is on the way to healing.”

  “It really is a beautiful home,” said Victoria sadly. “I’d give you the full tour, but honestly, Cruz knows more about all of this than I do. I’m going to catch up to him though. I’ve wasted too many years avoiding this place. Do you mind if I move back in here with you, Dad, until after the election?”

  “Mind? After everything that you’ve been through, I wouldn’t let you move out even if you wanted to. The Constitution man
dates that I won’t be on the next ballot, so normal life is just a little over a year away, I promise. We can go back to Boston, and you’ll be a private citizen again.”

  “Honestly, Dad, I’m fine. Despite all of my sulking, I’ve had some tremendous experiences since you became president, and I’ve met some amazing people who will go down in the history books. I’m the daughter of the president of the United States. For all the challenges it’s offered, I’ve forgotten about what I’ve gained. I’ve flown all around the world on a really cool plane, and I’ve had dinner with dozens of world leaders, so I’m going to spend the next fifteen months putting all of that in perspective, with the help of a little therapy, but I’ll get there.”

  “I should have asked you to be my hostess back when your mother passed away, honey,” he said sadly. “I know that now, but the professional duties were easier to manage than the personal loss. I hope that you’ll forgive me for all of this and take the job now?”

  “Privacy’s overrated,” she dismissed, squeezing Cruz’s hand. “I’m glad you’re thinking about going back to Boston, but I think I’ll keep a place in DC after your term is over. I’ll do what I can to fill in with the hostess duties, but I want to find a paying job eventually and see what I think about the whole politics game. The only thing I’d like to do in Boston in the foreseeable future is to properly say goodbye to Mom, in our old church, with just family and close friends. Would you mind if I held another service?”

  “I’d be honored to be there with you,” said her father, his eyes filling. “No press. No staff. Just us.”

  “The press and I’ll find a place of peace,” she said. “And if not, I think I’m pretty well equipped after all these years to keep them on a shelf someplace.”

  “What are you going to do with him when you go to work all day?” said Christian, pointing to his brother with a grin. “Do they have any oversized daycare centers around here? Or kennels?”