by Rissa Brahm
A nurse?
A nurse, yes, but more. So much more! A member of one of the most skilled trauma teams in the biggest city in the world.
They have hospitals in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Jana. Come on!
Not the same. Not even close.
He said he wouldn’t leave for Mexico without her. Could he, would he consider waiting? Years? Many years? Would he do that for her? Because even though she was falling for him hard, she didn’t think she could ever opt to leave her position, not after all she’d done and been through to get it.
But that look in his eyes. If she cared about him, how could she ask him to give up his desire to return home? He craved home and detested the City, this entire area, in fact.
Damn it! All of this was too much to think or talk about right now, too damn much.
“Antonio, let’s talk more about…all this…once I’ve gotten through this week. Okay?”
“Jana, I’m trying to get you through this week…by ending your family’s financial problems, which would also cut your time out at the club altogether and—”
“Whoa. So that’s what this loan is about? The club and Johnnie?”
She’d handled herself before Antonio and could damn well handle herself without him still. And even though his soft look of anticipation, a sweet hope in his face that she’d surrender touched her heart, she just couldn’t fold.
No. He pushed her to the wall. “Listen. I have to continue this gig at the club, Antonio. I know that much. Aside from the money, which I need to make on my own, I made a commitment. I’m helping the girls, and I’m fulfilling the contract. I couldn’t and wouldn’t take your hard-earned money, anyway. I mean, I’ve known you for all of two weeks. Fourteen days!”
“But you and I both know it feels like a lifetime. Swallow your pride and open your eyes, Jana!”
Open her eyes? Swallow her pride? Thank God she had any pride left!
Yes, she couldn’t deny that they’d had a mind-blowing connection that eluded her most of the time, but she wouldn’t acknowledge it now. The bottom line was that she couldn’t give in here. To be with a man that she needed, that she owed, that just went against her grain. Being indebted to him, under his control, owing him anything, it wouldn’t work. It had to be symbiosis or nothing at all.
And her parents’ burden was not his to take on, no matter how much he cared about her.
She faced the front and decided not to answer him. She’d have put the earbuds in right then, but the mp3 was probably still on his nightstand. It didn’t matter. She had to focus. She couldn’t be off in la-la land, escaping her problems like Antonio wanted to help her do. No, she had to figure shit out with her mother, discuss the release of her father with the doctor for tomorrow, arrange the homecare, pay the whopping hospital bill with the forty large she’d soon have in her damn purse, then deal with the club. Her two new dancers were coming in tonight.
But it was a lot, an overwhelming tidal wave.
Antonio had just tried to give her a life raft of a solution for it all.
What was she doing, tossing it back while the waves threatened to swallow her whole?
*
Shit, now she felt awful. She was giving him the silent treatment for Christ’s sake, being defensive, stubborn and prideful. He was just trying to help her, which was more than the family she was born into had ever tried to do.
Why did Antonio even put up with her?
She gritted her teeth, stole a gulp of air, then turned to him. “Antonio, I’m sorry. Just, please, let me think. I need time to process all of this craziness.”
She watched him nod with calm, objective understanding. No guilt, no hurt, even in their newer dynamic, his expression remained stoic, sweet. He continued down the thruway, but this time, he took her hand in his and wouldn’t let go.
God, the strength and comfort and warmth of his touch. She did not deserve Antonio Ruiz. She definitely did not earn such a man.
CHAPTER 42
When they got to the hospital, he parked and got out with her. She looked at him with an inquisitive eye.
“What?” He skewed his eyes. “I’m coming in with you, Jana. I’ll wait in the waiting room, but I’m coming in.”
She wasn’t going to argue. His solid presence could only be a help to her. She smiled, reached her arms up, and clasped her hands around his neck. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She kissed him sweetly, and then he took her hand in his.
“Hey, before we do go in, I spoke to Jake Demonte while you were in the bank earlier. Needed to make sure things were all good. I let him know I had to diffuse a heightened situation last night, and, well, he knows his son and he knows me. Anyway, everything is fine. I’m still driving you, no matter what Johnnie says, and if you must continue this stint, I’ll continue to drive you. End of story. The fleet is mine anyway, so I say who drives who.”
She gave him a sideways look. “The fleet?”
“Yes. My company. I have a fleet. Of limos.” He laughed as if she should know.
His company?
She remembered the business card he’d given her that she’d shoved somewhere in her purse. He continued talking about ‘his depot’ and ‘the crew,’ and how he’d started with only two cars and now had fifty-four? All the while, she rifled through her bag for that damn card. She needed to see that little piece of paper.
Her fingers got to the bottom of her purse and pulled from it a small, bent-up piece of card stock. “A.R. Limousine Service, Antonio José Ruiz, Owner.”
Owner. Owner?
Like Ilana-fucking-Simon’s father owned a large limo company? The association alone made her a little queasy.
And why was he driving a limo if he owned the damn company?
“Well, at least for now.”
“What’s that?” She tuned-in finally, settling her thoughts as best she could so she could hear him and understand this new aspect of him.
“I’m selling, liquidating. So I can get home. I’ve listed it for sale, for less than it’s worth, but with you in my life, I know the money isn’t important. Like I said, I have enough. I’ve got the universe now.” He smiled at her and squeezed her hand. “So I’m just waiting on a bite.”
Her perception of him had shifted upside down and irreversible, a one-eighty in a minute’s time. Not like the day she’d watched this strong, virile, highly-skilled man in a dobak fly across a room in the library. No, not like that at all. The realization that this man was no struggling limo driver but a businessman with means and ambition, one who was accustomed to control, power––another man to be beholden to––made her breath halt.
The money’s not important to him. You are.
Yes, he had said that. She felt that, too. And she’d heard his stories of struggle. He’d started over a few times over. He’d come from nothing.
But ambition’s in the blood. And a metaphoric transfusion—giving it all up—would leave him lifeless. No ambition, no vitality, not for a man who needs that kind of power.
Confusion clobbered her. “Antonio, I should really get inside.”
“Yes, right.” But he held her arm before she took a step toward the entrance. “You look like you’re going to pass out. White as a ghost…you okay?”
“Yeah. No, I’m fine. Maybe I should’ve eaten something more substantial than a chocolate glazed,” she lied, and she headed into the hospital.
CHAPTER 43
“Hey, Dad. How are you feeling? Ready to get home tomorrow?”
He looked at her without answering, just a poker face and an eye roll. That’s fine. She’d speak to the doctor, get real information that way anyhow.
“Mom…Mom.” She gently nudged her mother awake in the chair. “Morning.”
“Ja-Na. What are you doing here? Thought you stopped coming altogether?”
“Ma, I said Thursday. I needed the time to get the money, remember?”
Her mother sat up, rubbed her eyes and sighed. “The health inspector ca
me to the restaurant, Ja-Na. Yesterday. I didn’t call you, but they closed us down.”
God is good! And, hell, why hadn’t she thought to call the health department weeks ago? A service to the community and to her family. “I guess the universe forced you to take a break, huh?”
“That’s all you have to say? It was probably you, like your father said. You probably called the inspector yourself!”
“No, I didn’t, Mom.” Fuming at their crudeness and their unwarranted disdain and their thanklessness. “But I wish I had thought of it. I really do.” Spoken in her most even tone. “Anyway, I found these.” She pulled out their bank statements. “A year or so ago you refinanced and sent eighty-five thousand dollars to Dane. After he gambled our lives away the first round, you did it again? Would you care to explain?”
“It was for his business…in LA, and it was going to ‘go global’ he said…”
“Jin!” her father piped. “It’s none of her damn business. And she shouldn’t speak so disrespectfully to her parents!” he yelled but was then overtaken by a coughing spell.
Jana moved to his bedside, adjusted his pillow, and handed him a cup of water which he slapped out of her hand onto the floor.
She stared at the puddle at her feet for a long moment while she willed herself not to cry. She couldn’t let them see her tears.
“Dad…” She tried for a deep breath but only a shallow hiccup of air filled her chest. “Do you understand what I’ve been doing for you and for Mom?” Do you understand that I’ve spent years dancing naked for hordes of filthy men? No, of course, they didn’t know what she’d done and sacrificed for them. A secret she’d held for all these years, and would hold forever to come. Because she just wasn’t that brave, unwilling to sacrifice her image in their eyes, unwilling to face their loathing, disgusted looks, ones of hate and disdain beyond what she already felt from them as a lowly ‘bed pan’ bitch.
Instead, she said in a calm, clear, yet assertive tone, “I’m the slave, and you’ve made Dane the master. You continue to make decisions with my money, my blood, sweat, tears. And my education! The dynamic needs to stop. You take my loyalty for granted while Dane, who still hasn’t even shown his face here, by the way, gets—” she stopped her rant, seeing her parents’ glazed-over faces, knowing not a word had registered. They were deaf to a voice from ‘a nobody.’ She shook her head and asked, “How much more have you given him? Just tell me that.”
“Ja-Na Sun Park, it is none of your damned business,” her father stated through heavy, strained breath. Then that turned into wheezing, which became such a violent cough, the nurses rushed in since his heart rate had spiked, and the monitors were going crazy.
But all she could hear over and over in her mind was her name spat like poison from her father’s lips. It was as if the Korean meaning of Ja-Na Sun, ‘Good and Beautiful Child,’ meant anything but. Why had the man lying before her given her such a name in the first place, then treated her with such disregard and downright scorn all her life?
“Ja-Na, you should be ashamed!” her mother said, pushing her away to get to her father, holding his hand while the two nurses tended to him.
Jana left the room without a word. They had basically confirmed to her that more, probably much more than the eighty-five grand was given to Dane. Probably from other accounts or credit cards. Who knew and, really, who cared?
Well, obviously, she cared…and too damn much.
Outside the room, she felt paralyzed. She leaned against the wall to steady herself. Her body was vibrating from the depths of her being. She looked at her hands. They’d aged. Her veins were more visible, similar to her mother’s and to her grandmother’s. And they shook uncontrollably right in front of her eyes.
Dutiful daughter? Accomplished nurse? Whatever the hell she was, she was loyal to the end.
So go now, speak to the doctor, gather the scripts, organize Dad’s home transport, pay the bill.
Goddamn it, no!
She shoved her quivering hand into her purse and dug out her personal cell phone. Her finger selected her brother’s number as she walked toward the waiting room where she knew Antonio was waiting. Whatever else she had learned he was today, he was there for her. Her solid, steady anchor. And she needed him right now.
As she pushed through the door, he was already out of his chair waiting for her as if he sensed her state of urgency, which finally did not surprise her. He followed her out of the building, into the parking lot, just when her brother picked up on the other end of the phone.
CHAPTER 44
Antonio took her by the shoulders and leaned her against the limo to give her balance and physical support. She was shaking. He stood next to her with enough space for her to breathe, but close enough to let her know he was right there for her. She had placed the call on speakerphone, letting him hear the insanity first-hand.
“How much, Dane?”
“How much what, Jana?”
“How much have they been sending you every month? How much of my hard-earned money?”
“Your slut money, you mean?” her brother said with venom in his voice.
“I put myself through school, earned myself a real job, a profession. I save real lives, Dane, while I managed to pay off our parents’ home and business. I got their hole-in-the-wall restaurant back to even, damn it! I got them out of the six-foot grave you dug and shoved them—us!—into in the first place! All me.”
“Poor you. Is that why you called me? To tell me your fucking sob story?”
Jana visibly bit down on her tongue. Antonio had never seen her so incensed, not even when he’d shown her the bank statements. He took a step away, allowing her a little more space, but she reached for him, grabbed his shirt and dragged him even closer to her, then grasped his hand and squeezed it for dear life.
I’m here, princess. I’m here.
He watched her eyes lift to the sky as if praying. Maybe hoping for lightning to strike her brother down wherever he stood? Antonio knew he sure as hell wanted that. Her evil tormenter done-in, ended.
“Dane, you will send the fucking money back; you will wire it. Today. Dad needs it and I’m tapped. I spent the last of my savings and maxed out all of my cards.”
“Why the hell did you do that? God, Jana. Do you not get it? God, you’re a whore and a moron!” The fucker started laughing on his end.
Whore? Moron? Antonio was ready to rip the fucker’s throat out. He looked at Jana with his eyes no-doubt blazing, white-knuckling his free fist while crunching her hand in the other.
She placed one quivering finger on his mouth to stay quiet. To keep it together. Still her fight, remember. Then she pulled her hand free of his and shook out the obvious pain, glared at him, but then took his hand back in hers softly, easing his heightened rage.
“Gentle,” she mouthed, then gave him an understanding look and a nod. That it would be all right. She was fucking comforting him right now? Jesus, this woman. Even though her chest heaved rage and her hands still trembled, her eyes showed strength and patience, as if separate from her body’s auto responses. Like she was so used to the torment. God, how had she done this alone up ’til this point? Heart convulsing, teeth gnashing, he quaked for her.
I’m here now, though. She’s not alone now. And never would be again. He wouldn’t let this pack of wolves at her. Not anymore.
He swallowed and parted his lips behind her finger, ready to kill with words.
But she stopped him with that finger, her soft and trembling digit still at his lips, pressing firmly as a second warning to keep his words in. A reminder—her fight still, not his.
Fuck, fine. For now. He’d stay quiet for now. Only for now. He tuned back in as the asshole’s laughter finally waned, resuming his belligerent rant.
“They’ve never watched out for you, Jana. Hell, they’ve even known for all these years how you made all that money!”
What? What did the fucker say?
*
“Excuse
me?” Jana asked in a long exhale. “What are you talking about?” Even though she’d heard her brother’s words clear as crystal. Her own mother, her father? They knew she’d stripped to support them?
“Yeah. Mom and Dad, they’ve known all along, that you were slinging your sloppy cunt around.”
Her eyes closed in slow motion like she’d been knifed in the throat while Antonio asked her if the bastard had said what he thought he’d said.
She could care less about the asshole’s choice of words. Her parents knew, that was surreal and heart-stopping and devastating and disgusting. She had no words.
But Antonio obviously had words, so ready to erupt, she didn’t know if she could stop him a third time. His fury emanated from every pore. She wouldn’t dare touch him. Not a calming gaze or a word would snap him out of his depth of fury.
Antonio plucked the phone from her hand, squared his shoulders, feet anchored.
So no, there was no stopping him now. And she didn’t want to stop him. Finally, someone was willing to fight for her, and with her, to defend against her tormentor who was supposed to want to protect her but instead wanted to bury her. Pride be damned, she was ready for someone else to take a stand.
Phone to his mouth, Antonio prepared. Readied.
She watched the volcano erupt, an explosion of spewing hot baritone.
“You motherfucking COWARD! You pathetic, balls-less nobody. Who the fuck do you think you are, treating Jana this way? Anyone this way? You hollow, sorry little prick!” An eight on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, all said in fast, furious…Spanish. Only Jana understood what her guardian angel had said because Dane spoke nothing but English.
“So you got yourself a spic pimp to pull your punches for you now, Jana?” Dane laughed.
Antonio blinked once. Then again. His jaw clenched in fury, Jana slid back, away from the danger zone that was Antonio. The radiating heat and hate from her lover was too much. Air and earth shattering. He heaved a breath, and she swore she felt a solar wind.
