Emotion cuts through the red fog of pain and horrendous memories.
“I’m right here, baby,” he’s face is near mine, his lips brushing softly against my forehead.
The fiery pain has diminished to a low burning hot simmer. I close my eyes again; I can’t keep them open. It’s a blessing really, a relief that gives me solace, however short-lived it may be. In my hazy stupor, it’s all like a revolving door in slow-motion, moving up and down. I have no idea how long I lay like that, it could be minutes, or it could be hours. Misery has no time limit, it’s selfish and unwavering.
Time is both infinite and finite in the land of rainbows and monsters.
I fall in and out of clarity and consciousness, between horror and delusion, gasping for breath and clutching for salvation.
Finally, when I think the devil has finally loosened his claws from my flesh. I open my eyes and take a deep breath.
“No more meds,” my voice is hoarse.
But it’s firm.
I want this to be over.
I’m going to fight.
I can’t fight if I’m stoned.
Or in a coma.
Or dead.
My hand is still in his, Rico presses his lips to it.
“Okay, kitten, no more. I’ll be right here with you. I’m not leaving you.
“Ever.”
The scorching iron is embedding itself in the flesh of my back again. I clench my teeth trying so hard to reach deep down inside and find the strength I know I’m going to need to get through this.
Dear Lord, PLEASE help me get through this, to survive this. Give me what I need.
I lay silently listening to the internal pounding of my heart screaming at me, the background white noise to a long battle I know is just beginning.
I silently wait.
What am I waiting for? An answer? A sign that I can do this? Some kind of divine intervention?
What?
Finally, I realize what it is I need. The confirmation that this battle will be the final one, the last of what I’ve lived with for the past six months. But it may be the only one that’s important, the only one that will mark the beginning of the end.
I have to know.
Still face down in the bed, I can’t roll over because of the massacre I’m sure my back is, I’m alert for the first time in I have no idea how long. I have to be perfectly aware for this.
“Is he dead?” My voice wavers when I ask.
Not from fear or uncertainty.
But from hatred and loathing.
Rico hesitates.
The waiting seems endless as I count out the seconds with each beat of my heart.
Finally, I hear him breathe deeply. “Yes, kitten, he’s dead.” The news comes gift wrapped in fury and finality.
I need one more gift.
I shift my head so I can look into Rico’s eyes. I have to see what I need, the sustenance my soul craves for in his eyes. Eyes I knew held so many secrets from the moment I first looked into them.
“I know who he is and what happened.”
Rico doesn’t say anything, but I can feel his rage.
“Did you kill him?”
I don’t flinch, I don’t turn away.
The link that was born from the first look that bonded us together explodes to life. It’s stronger and impenetrable, forged from secrets and confessions, blood and fury.
Both his and mine
Now I realize what it was that I saw lurking in the depths of his soul when I’d first been hypnotized by him.
“Yes, I killed him. I wanted to torture him for what he’d done to you. But I only killed him. For that I’m sorry.”
This is what I saw.
This dark being that he held deep within himself. Lethal and without mercy. Powerful and immense.
The only thing that could create something so strong is the only thing that is more powerful.
Love.
Rico has a demon inside him.
He killed for me.
He’s as tortured and broken as I am. But his scars are inside, and just as agonizing and just as deep. His soul was shredded just like my back.
His cure was the demon.
And he gave him to me.
His cure is now my cure.
He healed me with his gift.
His secret is my salvation.
His demon has set me free.
We are free.
EPILOGUE
Two Years Later…RICO
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
If that’s the case, then I’ve paved that highway in solid gold and built my own private direct entrance.
Everything I’ve done in my life, every evil and horrendous deed, I’ve done for the people I care about. Even the job I chose in order to go straight was to protect innocent lives.
There, I could allow the demon who needed vengeance to claim what he wanted, all behind the safety of a badge. To the world, I was a police officer.
To me, I was a bad guy in a uniform.
There’s a price for everything.
Every sin that blackened my soul, every drop of blood that has stained my hands, every last breath that I stole. Every. Single. Thing. I did for someone.
And I wouldn’t change a thing.
I would have gladly tied myself to a stake and lit the match for the fire that would have burned me alive to save Maria.
After I did what I had to do.
The only thing I would have done differently, if given the opportunity, is to make Ivan’s death very slow and extremely painful. Just like he’d done to all his victims.
An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.
I knew from the moment I thought I comprehended life that mine would be a journey of pain and heart ache. I thought I could run from it, hide from it, lock up all my sins and secrets and barricade myself in their darkness, like a fortress, thick and impenetrable.
I was so wrong.
My secrets, my darkness, my demon made me what I am.
Thank God.
They are me, and I am them.
A lesser man would not have been able to do what I needed to in order to save the woman I love.
I stormed into the bowels of hell and ripped her from Satan’s hands. Then gutted him and smiled.
I am not sorry for the things I’ve done.
I’m grateful.
Life is a sequence of events, moments strung together to make memories. Those moments are what defines us.
If I had to be defined, my hope is that it would be honorable.
Although I’ve done dishonorable things, too many to even count.
I would be considered loyal.
Until the end of time, and beyond.
They thought me kind.
I would give all that I have.
I have.
Many times, and more.
I am compassionate.
Most certainly.
That I am loved.
Yes.
Finally, I am.
Again.
If you’d have asked me twenty years ago if I thought I’d get a second chance, I would have answered very adamantly, “Only if hell freezes over.”
I thought I didn’t deserve it. I thought I was too evil, too cruel, that I’d done too much to ever be forgiven by the powers that be. I was certain there was no redeeming me, that there would be no salvation, no forgiveness.
No hope.
Wrong again.
Maria stormed into my life with her strength, her attitude, her fear, her resolution.
She is a savage, a brutal force.
She is the strongest person I’ve ever met.
I am humbled by her power.
She wasn’t afraid to fight. She did whatever she had to. Even go through agony to survive.
She was brave enough to go to war, even if it was with herself.
She was my hope brought to life.
The hardest steel has to be melted in the stronge
st fires, beaten the hardest, pounded until nothing is left of what they’d once been. For transformation to truly occur, their creator must break them completely. Then and only then, can they be transformed into the weapon they’re meant to become.
Every minute of my life, every God forsaken second, I’d been beaten. By circumstance, by providence, by my own hand.
I was a weapon, I’d killed, I’d destroyed.
But a weapon does more.
It’s used to achieve an end.
The end is salvation.
The hardest roads to salvation require the strongest weapon.
I survived my transformation.
Maria survived hell.
I was granted a second chance.
Salvation begins today.
This is the scariest, most incredible, amazing, glorious thing that’s ever happened to me.
The unbelievably large crowd is hushed, the only thing that can be heard is the rustling of clothing, and my breathing. I don’t notice the rich organ music echoing in the cavernous space of the majestic St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I don’t see the century old stained glass, or the magnificent work in the ceiling soaring above me. I’m barely aware of the priest standing behind me at the altar as I wait for my bride.
Bride to be, excuse me.
That’s a technicality that will shortly be rectified.
Confused?
Let me back up.
Back to the time when Maria was in the hospital, although I hate revisiting it. I guess you need to know, so I’ll fill you in on what happened.
The farm, as it turned out, was not only a camp where illegals were held and used as slaves, a holding pen for human trafficking victims, it was a drug lab as well. Not only were they producing heroin, but they were in the process of formulating a high dose opiate that was also a hallucinogenic, an acid trip specially made for the likes of Iron Man.
They’d wanted to create the super drug, the best thing since sliced bread spread with Quaaludes, cocaine, and PCP.
That shit had more chemicals in it than the janitor closet and all the labs in Pfizer Pharmaceuticals combined.
A one-way trip straight to death.
That was what was killing the users.
That’s what they’d given Maria.
She should have been dead.
She wasn’t.
Her rehabilitation consisted of physical therapy and counseling. Many, many hours of counseling.
Her nightmares tortured her endlessly, waking and sleeping.
But she was tough. God, how she fought.
She kicked its ass.
And I’ve never been as proud of anyone as I am of her.
The road back was extremely long and incredibly difficult. But there was no question she was going to make it.
She’s so much stronger than I am, a better person, and I’m fucking lucky to have her.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as cut and dry as we would have liked.
You see, the lab wasn’t Ivan’s property. The Happy Brothers, Ryan and Tyler, had been right. Ivan’s affiliation with the enterprise was only a bridge, a means to secure a more solid link with the transaction of the backers, a merger of a Mexican cartel and an American ‘business’ associate.
They were not pleased when we annihilated their venture.
They lost millions of dollars and were set back years.
They wanted compensation. Because of my history, and my affiliations outside the department, they thought they’d get it from me.
This turned into a major ring of associates including the gang I’d belonged to with Carlos, along with Alexander Black, and Jesús.
Things got messy, and the cleaning lady still hasn’t come in yet to sweep away the mess left behind.
It hasn’t ended.
They’re quiet. For now. With Black Inc. involved, and their connections and power, the bad guys think they can manipulate us into a deal.
They’re wrong.
My history was dragged out of the closet I’d spent a lifetime hiding behind my position and my professional record. The scumbags exhumed every goddam corpse I’d had anything to do with and slapped them on the proverbial police table.
It didn’t help there was a goddam dead dirty cop at the crime scene.
No one has claimed affiliations with him, not on the force, or the criminals he was on the payroll for. But sticking true to their loyalties, the boys in blue still stood by him, until Michael’s was otherwise proven to be a bad cop.
Frankly, I didn’t give a fuck.
Legally, it was all conjecture, nothing could be proven.
My captain raised an eyebrow at me.
I reminded him, “Need to know. If you need to know, you’ll know.”
I didn’t admit a goddam thing. Still don’t.
Needless to say, my position is questionable, at best.
What the fuck else is new?
I’m still with the force, the looks I get on the surface are wary, but behind closed doors, I’m the guy that’s done what everyone else has always wanted to do.
I’m a leprous hero.
It doesn’t change the fact that my soul is permanently tainted, and my hands are stained with blood.
I don’t give a fuck about that either.
It made me who I am, and who I am allowed me to do anything I had to in order to get to Maria.
Maria’s the hero. She went to war with them, and herself, and came out stronger, she’s the baddest warrior I know.
She’s been able to get the life back that she left when she went into hiding.
One of the thing’s she’d missed most was designing.
She’s doing it. I can honestly say that my heart hurts with profound happiness knowing she is.
Elsie decided to open a boutique, something she’d silently dreamed of doing for a while. One condition was that Maria had to do it with her. It took some convincing and cajoling, but she did it.
And she couldn’t be happier.
It was the final thing Maria needed to get out of the funk blockade that had trapped her and kept her from entirely healing. It’s doing phenomenally, but even if it weren’t, it’s what she loves, both she and Elsie. THAT’S what matters.
Maria weaned from attending several counseling sessions a week to one and joining both Elsie and Brooke at the Survivor group meetings they attend. Having the support of people of she knows and trusts, along with a network, who have experienced similar things she has, has been monumental in her progress.
I love that woman so damn much, it hurts.
The organ music begins to soar throughout the church. My heart palpitates like horses thundering through the race gate.
Here she comes!
I’m ecstatic.
I’m beyond joyous.
Nerves threaten to shatter my happy place.
Fuck you, she’s mine and I’m never letting her go!
Pushing everything else aside, the past, the ghosts, the secrets, all of it, I fix my eyes on the train of people walking down the ridiculously long aisle in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
How was I able to procure one of the most famous churches in the world?
With the almighty dollar, the second, sometimes first, most worshipped thing by mankind.
Turns out I’m fucking rich. So is Carlos and Jesús, and their mother Hilda.
You see, apparently Alex bought stock for each of us in his company when he first started out. None of us knew about it and only found out right after Maria’s attack when I began looking for a house.
There was no fucking way I was bringing her back to the place her nightmare started.
I’d received a notice of funds availability from my portfolio. I was like, What the fuck?
Alex had his Chief Financial Officer send us each a letter of explanation, along with a statement of funds availability, suggestions to move forward, and some other information I’d paid no attention to.
The first thing I did was call Black to find out what
this was all about.
The second thing I did was thank him.
From the bottom of my heart.
The third and last thing was getting Maria in the car and taking her to the beach. I made her pick out which oceanfront house she wanted, a peaceful place where she could heal and start fresh, a place to bring her family to her. The place where we’d spend the first day of the rest of our lives.
I’m getting married today to the most amazing woman in the world.
I don’t deserve her, but I’ll destroy anything or anyone that tries to stop it.
Alex steps in next to me, patting my shoulder as he takes his place as my best man. Elsie moves to her spot next to where Maria will be, she’s the matron of honor. Apropos, because if it weren’t for her, Maria and I would never have met. Next are Brian and Brooke, she’s pregnant, then John and Gemma Black, Alexander’s wife, who is also pregnant with their second child. Both women are radiant, their faces glowing with it. Following them are Carlos and Jesús, they’re accompanying two friends of Maria’s from her old neighborhood in New York. It was a long road back for Jesús, with physical and occupational therapy, but he’s here now, and kicking it. Next is Scott and Janie. The expression on Scott’s face strikes me as strange. He looks tense as he glances over at Janie.
Not my concern today.
It seems like it’s taking forever for this parade of people to finish.
Behind the wedding party is Maria’s cousin acting as the flower girl, with Alex’s son who is the ring bearer. The whole church raises up Ooh’s and Ah’s at the adorable sight of the children.
I even smile.
Finally, the bridal march sounds through the spectacular church, vibrating through every single body in attendance. The notes dance with every beat of my heart.
As Maria steps into the doorway at the other end of the room, my heart explodes.
She’s exquisite.
She’s radiant.
And her mother is escorting her.
Emotion clamps my throat closed bombarding me with every damn thing I’ve ever felt in my life.
Sorrow for a girl who grew up without a father.
Immense gratitude for fate bringing her into my life.
Despair for the horror she endured.
Love, love, LOVE.
Maria begins to walk slowly toward me.
It doesn’t matter to me what she’s wearing, she could be in a pair of jeans, sneakers, and baggy t-shirt, and she’d still be the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen.
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