by Bex Dane
A third shot I didn't catch where it hit, but it felt close. She grunted. Oh shit.
Her death grip around my neck loosened. No.
We thunked hard on the grass, but I broke most of her fall. I pulled her into my arms and raced the twenty yards to the McClaren. Thank god they didn't fire on us as I ran. Maybe we were too visible out here or maybe they were jumping the balcony too.
I settled her in the passenger seat. Shit. Fuck. Blood. She'd been hit. I raced around the back and dove into the driver's seat. The wheels skidded before the door even lowered.
She was in shock, staring down at her chest and the crimson stain spreading near her armpit. The wheels screeched as we rounded a corner. No one could catch us in this car. No one.
"I'm bleeding."
"Where does it hurt?"
She reached for her left breast. "I don't know."
"Hang on, babe. I'll get us to a safe spot and check you."
"Okay." Her head lolled back and she was out.
"Fuck!" Goddamn mother fuckers. Shoulda killed them when they entered. Taken a defensive position. I didn't want risk it with her in the room. I thought we could make it out clean. Like they never saw us.
Holy hell. My gut twisted as I tried to think straight. Lots of blood. I needed to find the source of the bleeding and stop it.
As I looked for a place to stop, I offered up a silent prayer. It had worked for me over the years—sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes, I received mercy and answered prayers.
Please, God. Not her. Not now. She's my girl. My future. Bring her through this safe. I've been waiting for her my entire life and I just found her. Don't take her from me. Give me one more chance. I swear I'll make it right. She'll be happy. She'll never want. Just please don't take her. I love her.
If she died, my dad was right. I was good for nothing, always running and never standing up to fight, hurting people in the process.
No. No. My dad was wrong. I'd proven myself in my career as a SEAL and over the years dealing with Greco. She would make it through this. I'd make sure of it.
Chapter 14
Soraya
Darkness. The kind of dark where your eyes never adjust no matter how hard you search.
Pain. Like a scorching branding iron to my breast.
Stop it. Stop. The pain. Make it stop. Help. Torrez?
Panic. Where is Torrez? Was he hurt? Fear pounded below the pain in my chest and constricted my throat. He couldn't be dead. I tried to call out for him but no sound formed.
A heavy thump forced my eyes open. Daylight. Suede walls. Low ceiling. Tiny windows. The familiar rocking of the RV cruising down the highway.
I was wearing my red silk PJs and lying in the bed at the back of the RV. My hand searched for the source of the pain and discovered a bandage taped to my chest above my left breast.
What happened in Biloxi? We had mind-blowing sex against the wall, and Torrez got creative with a very expensive poker chip. He received a text and jumped into action. We tried to leave, but… Oh my god, men were after us. Loud pops hurt my ears. Bullets hit the glass. Torrez jumped from the balcony like Spider-Man. In the car, blood stained my dress. Weird traces of light filled my vision. I passed out?
The bandage covered a gunshot wound?
Gritting my teeth, I threw my feet over the edge of the bed and pulled myself up. I had to see if he was okay.
The bedroom door creaked open and swung with the shaking of the bus. In the driver's seat, his muscular arm in his black tee protruded beyond the edge of the seat.
I exhaled and rested my head on the wall. He was okay. We were on the road again. Together. And his strong arms held the wheel. Driving us to safety.
Arms the size a professional wrestler would have. Arms that held me as we jumped from two stories up. Hands that had tied me up and given me more pleasure in a few days than my wildest dreams.
How could one buff arm inked in black, green, and red mean so much to me?
I didn't know where this man came from, but he'd changed me forever. I'd never been in love, but the warm glow in my heart eclipsing all the pain sure felt like what I'd seen portrayed in movies. Torrez was my leading man.
"Born to be Wild" blared from the speakers as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. His eyes caught mine in the rearview mirror. He turned down the volume, and his temples crinkled with his smile. "You awake, sleeping beauty?"
"I think I am." My first step without the wall's support didn't go so well. The pain caused me to wobble, and I had to grip the couch to hold me up.
"Stay there. I'll pull off the road here in a minute."
"No. Keep going. I can make it." Using the table and a few side bars, with my legs wide and awkward for balance, I made it to the front of the RV.
I lowered myself into the passenger’s seat and buckled in.
"You don't need a buckle if it hurts your injury."
"I'm good." We were passing through an urban city. Bums on the street. Litter on the ground. Concrete buildings with bars over the windows.
"Twizzler?" He offered me a twisted black licorice rope from a pack in his lap as he chewed casually.
"Do you have red?"
"Nope. Red sucks. Black rocks."
"I'll try it." He handed me a piece. The gooey candy stuck to my teeth and tasted like tires. "I'll pass on the Twizzlers."
"More for me."
"It's weird," I said, not able to articulate the déjà vu the licorice stirred in me. "I've never had that candy before that I can remember. Yet I know I prefer the red."
"Maybe you saw it in a drugstore somewhere."
"No. I know how the red tastes, but I don't remember ever eating it."
He grunted. "Our subconscious remembers tastes and smells even when our conscious brain doesn't."
"Hmm. Anyway, where are we?"
"Crossing over the Rio Grande into Mexico via Laredo."
"Wow." The brakes squeaked as we came to a stop amidst a bunch of other cars being funneled over a narrow bridge.
"This doesn't make you nervous? I mean so many cars standing still on a bridge in a scary neighborhood."
"Just relax. No one will mess with us. We look like tourists."
The nagging feeling that Torrez was lying to me persisted and doubt kept creeping in. "This doesn't look safe."
"It's not if you're a drug lord or a gang member, but we should pass no problem."
"I hate to tell you this, but you look more like a drug lord than a tourist." Oh shoot. That came out totally wrong. I didn't mean to accuse him of looking like a gang member.
He stopped chewing his licorice and clenched his hands on the wheel. "You throwing low blows today? The way you take my cock, I'm thinking you like the way I look."
"I do. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm just freaking out. Why are there so many police?"
"Hotspot for trafficking cartels. Cocaine, meth, heroin, weapons. Word right now is, the Reynosa Cartel controls the bridge after the last bloodbath in Nuevo Laredo."
The last bloodbath? As if there had been many? "And why are we here?"
"Because Dubare's soldiers won't cross into Reynosa territory, even if there's a sweet bounty to be had."
"There's a bounty out on us?" He'd mentioned bounty hunters last night but it didn't register.
"Just me." He sounded so casual for a man fleeing the country because there was a price tag over his head.
"And why won't they cross the border to get you?" I was afraid to ask.
"It could spark an international war. The Dubare Syndicate keeps a healthy distance from the Reynosa Cartel. Falcon's idea was actually really good. They won't find us in the belly of Mexico's drug cartels."
He seemed way too confident. "No. But the drug dealers might find us."
"Not if we don't draw attention to ourselves." His jaw clenched and his voice scratched with irritation.
"This RV is huge! How could we not draw attention?"
"Let them come after
me then. We're armed to the hilt." His nonchalance about all this grated on my last nerve.
"I don't think I can handle another gun fight."
"You're feeling scared again."
Of course I was. He expected me to sit here through all this and not be afraid? Impossible.
"I was shot!" My hands gripped the armrest to keep from slapping him.
"You were grazed by a bullet." He shrugged and sank lower into his chair. Relaxing while he talked about me getting shot!
"And you didn't take me to a hospital? Instead we're back on the road in this tank?"
"This is a lot nicer than any tank I ever drove." The condescension in his voice sent me over the edge of fury. "And I didn't take you to a hospital because I'm a trained medic. I inspected your wound, cleaned it up, and you're good to go."
"Good to go?"
"Yep."
"And this is no big deal to you? This is your reality? Drug lords and gun battles?"
"It's our reality. We're in this together."
Oh hell no. "What am I in, Torrez? Because I never signed up to be shot at. I don't want to take an RV through the drug center of the world."
He turned down the radio and pinned me with a glare. "If you're gonna be with me, you'll need to grow some hair on your balls. Toughen up. Fast. Don't panic like you did in Biloxi."
"I didn't panic." I thought I handled it well even though I was terrified.
"You were a bumbling mess. You shoulda jumped on my back, and you wouldn't have gotten shot."
"You don't know that." God, what an arrogant prick. I wouldn't even have been there if it weren't for him.
"I do. I've been in the exact same situation enough times to know where and when the bullets would hit. We had seconds to get out and you wasted them." He shook his head and clicked his tongue, making me feel stupid for getting shot.
"Excuse me for not keeping my calm when two thugs were shooting at me! How dare you blame me for getting shot?" My voice screeched through the cab.
"Grazed."
Oh my god. He wasn't going to take any responsibility for this? "A bullet pierced my skin! This is your fault. I would never be on the run from some crazy Mafia dude and a bunch of hitmen if you hadn't kidnapped me."
His eyes narrowed and turned cold. "No. You'd be at home on your knees for your prince. Bowing down and worshiping his dick."
Oh, I'd seen this Torrez before. He'd crushed my soul with his hurtful words. I should've never forgiven him.
"Shut up, you ass." I crossed my arms over my chest, but it hurt, so I gripped the armrests again. This conversation was done. I refused to utter another word.
"What's better? Living large and having earth-shattering sex or being held captive and sucking small dick?"
Okay, I had to respond to that. "You are infuriating."
"That the best you got? Need to teach you how to fight dirty." He chuckled as we finally inched up to the inspection point. "Quiet now. Your name's Della Robinson if he asks you."
My blood boiled at his shushing me and giving me a stupid alias.
A stocky border-patrol guard with dark glasses glared at our RV from front to back.
Torrez lowered his window and gave the officer a polite smile and two American passports. "Hola." He looked cool and calm, no hint of the fight we were having.
The guard sniffed and turned the passports over, not even looking inside. "You do not have the correct papers."
Oh no. We were going to get stopped at the border. Torrez and his stupid machismo would get us in even more trouble.
They exchanged words in Spanish, their voices deepening and ratcheting up in intensity. My heart thudded, both from the fight and the fear that we'd be spending tonight in a Mexican prison.
Torrez reached over and opened the dash. He gave the man a blank piece of paper folded around a hundred dollar bill.
A gold-toothed smile filled the guard's mouth. "Gracias." The guard pocketed the cash and nodded his head, waving us through.
We passed under the covered structure and slowly emerged onto tiny neighborhood streets. The RV barely squeezed around the turn.
I let out the breath I'd been holding. "Why didn't you just give him the cash in the beginning?"
"I had to bargain with him first to earn his respect. Then he looked like the winner when he took the cash."
"Ahh, tricky. So are we in Mexico now?"
"Yep."
The Mexican side of the Rio Grande was much more rundown than the American side. A woman sold shoes out of a dilapidated house. Shops with broken signs offered to buy gold.
My comfortable life suddenly seemed far more privileged than I'd ever realized compared to these poor families just trying to get through to the next day. I shrank back in my seat and tried to hide the shock on my face by staring out the window.
"Never been to a Mexican border town?" he asked me softly.
I shook my head. My eyes teared up. Darn it.
"You're feeling bad for them?" God, how did he read me so well?
"Yes." When my eyes closed, a tear fell and I swiped it away. "I wish I could do something. Can we spend money here like crazy to help them?"
"We can do that. I've seen poverty all across the world. It gets much worse than this."
"How do you handle it? It's so sad." I'd seen poor areas in the media and done some venturing into the run-down parts of Boston and Veranistaad, but I felt immersed in this neighborhood. Like they could be my family and their pain was my pain.
"You try to help the worst off. Stay focused on your mission. Trust everyone is on their own journey and you move on with yours. I can't save everyone." He spoke like he'd thought about it a lot.
"But you saved me?"
He pulled his gaze from the road and looked at me purposefully. God, those green eyes melted me every time. "You were not free." The compassion in his voice broke me. I didn't deserve it.
"I had a clean bed. A safe place to sleep. Fine food. I wasn't poor. Why me instead of them? It just doesn't seem fair."
"You sit down and talk to these people, most of them find a way to make the best of it. They love their families. They have faith. And they have their freedom. There's a difference between poverty and oppression. Hard to see the difference without looking deeper. I made that mistake when I met you. I saw the jewels, your beautiful makeup and hair. I knew Yegor was rolling in money. It wasn't until I talked to Zook I found out about Cecelia and made the connection you were being held against your will. Now you're free."
Free. I didn't feel free right now. "How am I free? We're on the run in fear for our lives. So bad that we'd come here to hide?"
"This is temporary."
He'd said that before. "It is? How long will we be on the run like this?"
"Till Greco is dead."
"So we're waiting for someone to kill him before someone kills us?"
"That's one way to look at it."
"Torrez."
"I'm falling hard for you, babe. Maybe already fallen. Never met a woman like you before. Sweet on the inside, stubborn outside. I knew when you swallowed your fear and walked into that casino wearing a dress you were nervous about pulling off, you were meant to be mine."
He'd basically confessed to plotting Greco's death and falling me at the same time. "This is too much. I can't…"
"I get if you're too scared to see the big picture right now, but you need to know I'm going to bust my ass to make your life golden. Once we're clear, you can be a model, an actress, whatever you want to be, but you'll be with me and you'll do it wearing my ring on your finger."
I gasped and gulped an oh my god. "Uh. So… say I buy into all this. And say for example I fall for you too..."
"You will. If you haven't already." He was so sure, but I had serious doubts.
"You've got this all planned out."
"Once the hit on me is cancelled, which it will be as soon as Greco is dead, I can concentrate on bringing Yegor and Ivan down."
"How
are you going to do that?"
"Don't know yet. Plan on talking it through with Zook as soon as we're clear. Right now the biggest threat is Greco and the bounty hunter from Biloxi, Helix. I met him a few times through my dealings with Greco. He's sent Helix to threaten me more than once. I believe Helix is also the arsonist behind all my burned places."
As we drove further from the border, the streets became wider and cleaner.
"You just confessed to a lot of crimes."
His eyes locked on mine. "I didn't."
"You confessed to laundering money for the Mafia and planning to kill Greco, Yegor, and Ivan. You've made me an accomplice to murder."
"I didn't say I was gonna kill them. I said someone would kill Greco, and I'd talk to Zook about Yegor and Ivan. That is not a murder confession. I told you the truth about the money because I need you to understand me. I'm trusting you not to share that information."
"You put me in a tough situation. Being a model isn't my only career opportunity, ya know."
"What did you study at Hale?"
"Criminal justice." His eyebrows rose and his eyes filled with surprise and respect. "If I were a lawyer, I'd be obligated to report you to the authorities."
"Did you go to law school yet? Pass the bar?"
"No."
"Then you don't have to report me. Besides, you become a lawyer, I'll make you my counsel and you can't tell anyone. Attorney-client privilege."
"That's semantics and grasping at straws."
"No. It's your reality, babe. Now I want you to think hard on it because I know I did. Spent a lot of time figuring out what I wanted. For us. We have the potential to be phenomenal together. You want to go to law school, I'll make that happen. You want kids, I'm good with that too. But you and I are gonna live free and love each other. It's going to be grand. But you need to trust me. I'll keep you safe, but you gotta move when I say move. Quiet when I say quiet. And don't shiver in your boots if we find ourselves under attack again."
"You make it sound so easy, but wonderful too."
"It will be. You'll be happier than you ever dreamed. And you'll get my cock with the deal."
"You're such an ass. You think I'd risk my life for your cock?"
