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“I’m not going to let you starve yourself to death, little lamb,” I shout through the door in between banging on it. “Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes. You can come out on your own or I’m coming in.”
Still, complete fucking silence from the other side of the door.
“I’ll fucking hold you down and force-feed you if I have to.”
For the first time in days, I hear sounds other than her cries coming from beyond the door. But, they aren’t of her opening it.
“Thirty minutes,” I shout again before I turn on my heel and head toward the kitchen to make dinner. I’m in the middle of dicing an onion when a loud crash immediately draws my attention to the back of the apartment.
Glass. Shattering glass.
Pulling my gun from the back of my pants, I quickly make my way down the hall and turn the knob on the bedroom door. Locked.
“Open the door,” I call, giving pause for a moment before checking it hard with my shoulder. It jars the lock loose but doesn’t open. I hit it again, and immediately realized she’s moved furniture in front of it. I hit it again and again, nudging the dresser across the floor with each shoulder barge.
Pushing through the crack in the door, my eyes are immediately on the windows, and I’m surprised to find they aren’t broken. Scanning the room, I spot Lucia’s foot through the cracked bathroom doorway. “You have two seconds to open the door, or I’m coming in,” I threaten, but she doesn’t move.
I shove open the door, my heart stops, and I exhale. “Little lamb, what have you done?”
twelve
RAFAEL
Reaching over her, I grab two towels from the hook on the wall as I fall to my knees into the pool of blood surrounding her. Lucia is sprawled across the floor, glass from the shattered shower door surrounding her, and the knife from the kitchen beside her.
The fucking kitchen knife.
Her near-lifeless body turns more gray by the second as blood pumps from the deep gash running up her forearm. I wrap one of the towels around her arm, tight enough that she winces in pain.
Good. That’s what you fucking get.
I pull at her limp body until she is sitting up against me, her back to my chest. Squeezing around the towel, I pull her wounded arm over my shoulder and dig my cellphone from my pocket. I sent a quick 911 text to Doc, unlock the front door, and drop the phone to tend to Lucia.
“Just…let me…die.” Her eyelids flutter as she pushes out the words. “I can’t.”
“Yes you can,” I firmly grip her chin and pull her fluttering gaze up to mine. “You fucking can.”
“Please….” She draws out the plea. “It’s almost over.”
The number of men—and women—that I have killed for my family is so vast that I lost track of my body count over a decade ago. Hundreds—maybe even thousands—yet the idea of this woman dying on my bathroom floor stirs something indescribable inside of me. It is as though I am flooded with sadness and an infuriating rage.
Her body has fallen lax against me. Heavy. Lifeless. Releasing her chin, I feel for a pulse. It takes me a moment, but I find it—faint and slow. I slap her cheek, and she releases a soft breath. I pull back and strike her again, and once more even harder. Her lashes flutter, and I firmly grip her chin and pull her face toward mine until I am the only thing she can see.
“Fucking look at me, little lamb, and listen to every fucking word.” My tone is deep and laced with anger. “You didn’t survive fucking hell to bleed out on my bathroom floor. Don’t give them the fucking satisfaction of breaking you. You. Fucking. Fight.”
Her eyes lock onto mine, my grip on her chin forbidding her from looking away, I feel her whole body tremble against me as her breath sputters. Tears well in her eyes, and a lone drop rolls down her cheek.
“Good,” I snarl as I release my bruisingly hard grip on her chin. We sit in silence as I continue to hold pressure on her arm with it raised above my head.
“Jesus!” Dr. Aguilar exclaims when she rushes into the bathroom. Her eyes immediately go to the knife on the floor.
“She fell,” I interject before she has a chance to say anything further. She nods her head in agreement and immediately gets to work on Lucia’s arm.
“It’s a clean cut,” Dr. Aguilar informs me as she inspects the wound. “And while there’s a lot of blood, she somehow managed to miss the radial, ulnar, and interosseous arteries.”
She wraps a fresh towel around Lucia’s arm. Glass crunches under the soles of her shoes as she walks in front of us and holds Lucia, prompting me to stand.
“Can you carry her out to the table for me?” she asks. “It’ll be easier to work on her out there.”
