by Cora Kenborn
I’d barely taken three steps when a crack broke through the air as loud as thunder and with the raw power of a storm. It reverberated in my ears, ringing out in an echo and shattering the window in front of me as if on auto delay. As a second shot ripped the wood paneling off the house two feet from where I stood, I gripped the gun in my damp palm, turning to either take a lucky shot or face my executioner when a blast exploded beside me.
Holy shit.
Reaching down, I ran my hand down my shirt, searching for a gaping wound, or at the very least, splotches of blood that signaled my impending demise. As my fingers scanned the rough fabric of my shirt, I swallowed as all they encountered was shaking panic and sweat. Before I could rationalize what had happened, or thank God for the fact I was still alive, a third shot rang out, pulling attention toward the man twenty-five feet in front of me whose chest had erupted in a cloud of red. As blood poured from both corners of his mouth, his knees buckled, and he dropped face first to the ground.
Mateo lowered his smoking gun and turned back to face me. “You okay?”
“What the hell just happened?”
“You were showing me how much you’ve got this,” he mocked, displaying a wide grin.
“You know what,” I argued, throwing my arms wide, “that’s unnecessary. You think you could show a little gratitude for dragging your ass—”
“My ass?” he interrupted. “I just saved your—”
A fourth gunshot cut him off mid-sentence, but this one came from inside the house. Neither of us spoke another word as silence surrounded the blast. Not a sound or a scream followed the fire, and I didn’t have to look at Mateo to know we had the same concern.
Someone was dead.
Everything inside screamed at me to call out Eden’s name, to have her answer me and know it hadn’t been her on the receiving end of the bullet. I needed to know she was all right. However, survivalist instinct kept my mouth shut and turned my chin back toward Mateo. The look on his face told me he’d fought the same urge to call out to the man he’d sworn his life to protect.
I was a lawyer. I’d trained my whole life to be pragmatic and weigh both sides of an argument, choosing the best form of attack before going in for the guaranteed kill. But in the silence, practicality gave way to urgency as we both broke into a reckless run toward the back door.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Eden
I screamed his name before Manuel ever pulled the trigger. I counted the rhythm of his words and I knew where the rhyme would end. In a split second, I calculated the amount of time it’d take Val to reach for his ankle holster versus the short distance it took for Manuel to straighten his arm and release a bullet.
He didn’t stand a chance.
In horror, I watched as Manuel shot Val in the stomach. Angry lines of red erupted below his ribcage and spread up his chest, soaking his shirt. He mumbled my name before he hit the floor, his hand instinctively covering his wound.
My body shivered, and almost as if I exited it, I looked down on the scene. While observing it from above, the dingy basement morphed into the chrome kitchen at Caliente. In one blink, Val’s thick dark hair suddenly lightened, and one unruly piece flopped into his eyes.
I’d come full circle. For the second time, I watched my life bleed out in front of me.
Unable to take the crushing weight of the scene anymore, everything converged, and the kitchen evaporated, leaving me alone in the basement with Manuel Muñoz and his guard. In a fit of desperation and rage, with nothing left to lose, I took advantage of his momentary slackened hold around my neck. Dipping my chin, I sank my teeth into his forearm and bit as hard as I could.
Letting out a primal howl, Manuel released his hold just enough for me to launch myself at him. With the surprise of my attack, and the sheer force of my will, I knocked him off balance and sent us both sprawling onto the floor. In the scuffle, he dropped the gun, the grip landing a few feet away. I scrambled off him and lunged for it.
“You fucking bitch!” Manuel clamped a tattooed hand around my ankle, and dragged me backward on my stomach toward his chest. “You’ll pay for that.”
Movement out of the corner of my eye commanded my attention, but I forced myself to focus on getting the gun. In seconds, blasts erupted, with shouting and erratic flashes of light. Kicking Manuel’s face, I howled through the pain and lunged again. Cursing, he jerked me backward, this time pulling me flush against him
“Time to be with your boyfriend.” Pulling a knife from his pocket with his free hand, he pressed a button, popping up a six-inch blade, the edge serrated for maximum damage.
I refused to go out like this. Not without a fight.
“You first.” Clenching my fist, I put everything I had behind it and landed the hardest punch I’d ever thrown against his nose. A cracking noise preceded a blood volcano spewing from both nostrils.
Before he could react, I threw myself off him and crawled to the gun, wrapping my fingers around it. Climbing to my knees, and shaking with adrenaline, I pointed it to his head. “It’s over, you bastard.”
Smiling through reddened teeth, he attempted to sit up. “You don’t have what it takes.”
“Wrong,” I answered, my voice cold and calm. “All it takes is a lack of humanity. You took that from me when you killed everyone that meant anything to me.” With an accuracy that would’ve made Val proud, I took my revenge on the man who broke my heart twice.
And then just to be sure, I shot him again.
“Eden…” Glancing up, I looked into Mateo’s eyes, his brows drawn in concern.
“You’ve been shot,” I blurted out, the reality of what I’d done starting to sink in. “Why are you standing if you’ve been shot?”
“Flesh wound,” he answered softly. “Give me the gun, Eden.”
Suddenly remembering where I was, I glanced around. “The other guard.”
“Dead.” Mateo assured me.
Val.
Dropping the gun, it clanged on the concrete as I crawled on my hands and knees across the room. Blood pooled all around him, and I slipped once, falling onto my side, the sticky warmth coating the length of my body. Pressing my palms into the puddles, I finally reached him, unsure of where to touch him first. He lay motionless, his eyes small slits that seemed transfixed across the room.
“Blood,” I whispered. “There’s so much blood.” I did the only thing I could think of. I ripped his shirt open to find the source. Reality sobered every moment of the last few days as I cried out, covering him with my hands. A gaping hole to the right of his belly button continually pumped out fresh blood as it seeped between my fingers. “Mateo!” Screaming in sheer panic, I kept one hand on his stomach, while checking his face for signs of breathing with the other. “Mateo, I need you! It won’t stop bleeding. God, I need you, please!”
As Mateo appeared at my side, pressing his balled-up shirt against Val’s wound, a familiar voice called out from the top of the stairs.
“A car is on its way.”
“Brody?” I blinked again to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
What the actual fuck?
Flashing a smile, he nodded toward Val’s pale body. “Don’t worry, Cherry. He’ll make it. If not for anything else, but to kick my ass for this…” Raising his voice, he leaned over the railing and cupped his hand around his mouth. “Hey, Carrera, if you die, that means I get Eden, right?”
“Brody!” If I wasn’t so focused on Val, I’d kick his ass myself.
Val’s breathing was shallow at best by the time Emilio’s SUV arrived. Lifting Val’s shoulders, Mateo and Brody loaded his motionless body into the back. Unable to have Houston’s assistant district attorney seen with criminals, Brody drove his BMW away from the scene, promising to see to it that the cops on Val’s payroll would never file an official report from the hospital.
As Mateo climbed in the front seat, I took Val’s face in my hands and dusted a light kiss across his lips. “I said I’d walk i
n front of a bullet for you, but you took one for me instead. It doesn’t end like this, Carrera. You fight for me. You fight for us.” Kissing him again, I traced the slope of his dark eyebrow as a tear rolled off my nose and landed on his cheek. “Te amo.”
Walking the floors in the hallway, I’d already bitten every nail I had until they bled. I’d abandoned the tiny waiting room an hour ago and paced the hallway in front of the nurse’s station, garnering narrowed-eye glares after each pass of their desk.
Fuck ‘em.
After the eighth pass, Mateo rounded the corner and gently steadied my shoulders. “Eden, why don’t you go get something to eat? The doctor said he could be in surgery for another few hours.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Okay, some coffee at least.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“Nobody is thirsty for coffee, Eden.”
I crossed my arms and rubbed my palms down the bare skin of my arms not covered by scrubs. “What’s taking so long? If he was okay, it wouldn’t take so long, right?”
Upon arrival at the hospital, the hospital personnel took one look at my battered, bruised body and blood-soaked dress and freaked. After refusing to shut up until I allowed a doctor to examine me, I gave in and filled out paper work that I knew would disappear in less than an hour. They taped two cracked ribs, gave me a chest x-ray, stitched my face and wrists, gave me a tetanus shot, and prescribed a round of antibiotics. Even after much bitching on my part, they bagged my dress and handed it to me, offering either a hospital gown or a pair of ugly green scrubs.
So, here I stood, in army green scrubs two sizes too big.
“It’s a good thing, Eden. As long as he’s in surgery, it means we aren’t getting bad news, yeah?”
Okay, that was one way to look at it.
Two hours later, exhaustion had won out and forced me back into the waiting room. As the clock ticked off the minutes, tears ran down my cheeks…the product of hours of bottled up fear and anxiety.
Glancing at me quickly, Mateo said nothing as he took my hand in his and held it securely.
I’d never been one for public displays of affection, but I’d never been more grateful for anyone in my life. I felt like I stood balanced on the edge of a cliff, the balls of my feet teetering over the edge with every roll of my toes. One crack of a joint, and it’d be all over.
The door to the waiting room flew open, and I almost snapped my neck jumping to my feet. What I came face-to-face with was Emilio Reyes.
“Where is he? Is he all right? When can I see him?”
“Get him out.” The words sounded like they came from someone else. A man. A heavy smoker. A demon straight out of hell.
“Eden!” Mateo scolded.
“What the hell is she talking about?”
“She”—I bit out through clenched teeth—“has finally been pushed too far. She has realized, regardless of the fact that you didn’t pull the trigger, you willingly tortured her brother. And she lost every bit of reservation she ever had against shoving a gun straight up your ass and pulling the trigger when she killed a man tonight.” I stalked forward as he backed up, swallowing hard. “So, I suggest you get out of my sight.”
“You’ve lost your mind.” Emilio shot a pleading look at Mateo, who shrugged and returned to the magazine he’d been reading.
“Have I?”
“You don’t just walk into a cartel and start throwing your smart mouth around—”
“Listen, you arrogant shithead—”
“The family of Valentin Carrera?”
With five words, the brewing argument between Emilio and me stopped cold. Stepping forward, I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “That’s us.”
The doctor nodded in acknowledgement. “Very well. My name is Dr. Kirkland, and I was the lead surgeon on your…” His voice trailed off as his eyes bounced between the three of us.
“Brother,” Mateo answered, pressing a light hand to my lower back. “He’s our brother.”
The doctor raised an eyebrow and ran a disbelieving eye over my pale skin, blue eyes, and red hair.
Good one, Mateo.
Shaking his head, he continued. “Your brother suffered massive internal injuries to his liver. Those kinds of gunshot wounds are serious because the liver is highly vascularized and close to multiple large blood vessels. If a bullet hits one or more of the large vessels, a victim can bleed to death rather quickly. Even if a major vessel isn't severed, a liver laceration bleeds heavily, and it isn't always easy to get it to stop.”
“What are you saying?” I whispered, a sharp ringing building in my ears.
The doctor offered a sympathetic smile. “Luckily, only a small part of your brother’s liver was damaged, Ms. Carrera. The organ is highly regenerative. We were able to tie it off and repair surrounding damage.”
“He’s okay?”
Patting my hand, he tugged off his scrub hat and nodded. “He’s sedated right now and will be in substantial pain when he wakes up, but yes, he’s going to be okay. Give him an hour or so to recover, and you can see him one at a time.”
In a hospital waiting room in Houston.
In a pair of ugly green scrubs.
I hit the floor on my knees and prayed for the first time since I was fourteen.
I thought I’d prepared myself for what I’d find when I opened the door to Val’s hospital room.
I was wrong.
Wires, tubes, bandages, and his beautiful bronzed skin, now pale and ashen gray almost took me to the floor. Val Carrera stood as a giant among men. He spoke and people scattered. His name was murmured in quiet tones, for fear of conjuring the wrath of a killer.
But to me, he was neither a giant nor a killer. He was the man who’d crossed borders to rescue me. He was the man who almost gave his life to save my own.
Valentin Carrera was my hero.
Somehow, I forced my feet to obey and carry me to his bedside. For far longer than I cared to rationalize, I stood above him, listening to him breathe. In the dingy basement, I’d searched so hard for the slightest breath that the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest comforted me like nothing had since I ran out of Caliente.
Lowering into the chair beside his bed, the beep of the machine synced with my heartbeat as I held his hand and pressed my cheek against the mattress. “Hey, Danger. You scared the hell out of me. What was with the superhero act, huh? You told me you were a criminal and a bad guy—someone people should fear and run from.” Rolling my lips inward, I pressed them against the skin on his arm as tears I had no idea I had left rolled down the other side of it. “There’s no fear, Val. Only love. I’m not running from you anymore. I’m running toward you. Wake up and catch me.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Valentin
“I’m running toward you. Wake up and catch me.”
Why the hell did it feel like I was climbing a ladder in a lake full of quicksand? The higher I climbed, the farther I sank, with each step more and more difficult to take.
She was near. That much I knew. Either that, or I was fucking hallucinating her voice.
“Cere…” My voice broke, the inside of my throat feeling like I’d chewed and swallowed a handful of broken glass.
“That’s it, Danger. Come back to me.”
A surge of white light burned my eyes as I finally climbed to the top of the ladder. “Cereza?”
Her soft hand cradled my face, the familiar scent of citrus and vanilla immediately calming my nerves. “I’m here, Val. Take your time. Don’t make any sudden movements, all right?”
I blinked, taking in the stark, sterile room. “Where am I? What happened?”
“You’re in Houston Methodist.”
“Hospital?” The word settled in the base of my brain as the entire night came rushing back in a heated panic. Holding her forearm with my IVed hand and taking a strong grip on her cheek with the other, I winced at the intense pain that shot through me. “Eden, are you all right?�
� I forced myself to look her over. “If he hurt you, I’ll fucking kill him.”
She lowered my hands, a serious look crossing her face. “Calm down, Carrera. Mission accomplished.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Something had changed about her. She seemed calmer, wiser, a hell of a lot more self-assured, and maybe even a touch cocky. A hardness lined the corners of her mouth that wasn’t there before I walked into that basement.
I always swore Eden Lachey didn’t belong in my world. From the look in her eyes and the ruthless smile that curved the corners of her lips, I wasn’t so sure now.
“What did you do, Eden?”
“Shooting cans is easy, Val,” she said with a knowing glint in her eye. “You just hold the gun on your target, allow your finger to barely touch the trigger, and let it go limp.”
As she threw my own words back in my face, I knew immediately what she’d done. I looked away, not wanting to hear her say it any more than she wanted to admit it.
She’d murdered Manuel Muñoz.
Still, her supreme smugness drove me to point out one glaring omission she seemed to gloss over. “Eden, Marisol Muñoz is still out there.”
Acknowledging me with a curt nod, Eden intertwined our fingers, turning them so her palm faced up. “Marisol Muñoz won’t be a problem. Call it women’s intuition, whatever you want. She said it herself; she doesn’t have the stomach for the rough stuff. She’s a planner. Without an army, she’s nothing.”
“Cereza, she has an entire cartel.”
She shook her head defiantly. “No, Manuel had an entire cartel. Why do you think she hid behind him the entire time? Do you seriously think all those men would pledge their allegiance to a woman who couldn’t even stay in the same room to witness her biggest enemy’s execution? I don’t think so. No, she’s in the wind.”