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I don’t even realize Mateo is here until he kneels down beside me in the sand, assessing my injuries. He looks pissed. No, scratch that. He looks down right livid. Yet his anger doesn’t seem to be targeted toward me.
Mateo barks something to Niko in Spanish that I don’t understand, his eyes locked on me the entire time he speaks.
“Thatputatried to knee me in the nuts,” the older man protests, pulling Mateo’s rage filled glare to where he’s standing, a gun still pressed into the back of his head.
Without a word, Mateo stands, pulling out his own gun holstered on his hip. At first I think he might shoot the man, but with swift speed and precision, he clocks the man in the side of his head, knocking him unconscious. His body crumbles to the ground a few feet from mine.
“Call Ian. Get him over here to help you,” he tells Niko before turning to the young man from the dock that’s standing a few feet behind Mateo. “You did good, calling me.” The boy nods once before taking off back toward his post. Leaning back down to me, Mateo’s voice is surprisingly gentle. “Can you walk?”
“I think so.” I nod slowly, trying to take a mental surveillance of my injuries.
I move to sit up, but before I get more than a few inches, Mateo’s arms are around me, lifting me to my feet.
“Get off of me.” I push him away as soon as I’m upright.
Just because he saved me from that man doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten who brought me here in the first place.
“Are you okay?” He’s not the least bit deterred by my objections, pushing my hair behind my shoulders so he can examine my face.
“I’m fine.”
I don’t know what else to say. My mind is a swirl of confusion. My body is pumping with so much adrenaline it causes my knees to shake. I’m honestly not even sure I understand what just happened.
Every single moment of it feels like a dream. Me running for the dock, trying to get away. The man pulling me from the boat by my hair. It feels like the whole ordeal lasted only seconds yet a lifetime at the same time.
I don’t know how else to describe it.
I cringe when his knuckles brush along my cheekbone, pain radiating down the side of my face.
“Come on, let’s get you inside.” He swoops down and picks me up as if I weigh nothing. One arm is wrapped underneath the back of my knees, the other around my shoulder, cradling me as if I were a child. Or his bride.
“Put me down!” I try to protest, moving in his arms.
“Will you fucking stop?” The sharpness of his voice snaps me to attention. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to help you.”
“Maybe I don’t want your help,” I snap back.
“Well too fucking bad.” He tightens his grip on me to keep me from squirming.
I open my mouth to throw back a hateful response, but nothing ends up passing through my lips. Maybe because deep down IknowI need his help, even if I don’t want it.
Pride be damned.
Mateo makes his way up the beach with ease, my body feeling the effects of the assault more and more. He doesn’t set me down until we’re through the front door. And in some bizarre turn of events, a wave of disappointment washes over me when he does. Maybe it’s because it’s the first human contact I’ve had in over a week. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. Something I’m not willing to let myself entertain.
“Oh my dear.” My head pops up at the sound of a female voice. I almost think I’m seeing things when an older woman comes bounding toward us.
It takes a few seconds for her face to come into focus, but when it does I find that she reminds me a lot of Skyla’s grandma, the woman who raised her.
She has gray hair pulled back in a tight bun. Her aged skin is wrinkled and peppered with dark spots. Skyla’s grandma calls them liver spots. Her nose sits slightly to the left and turns up at the end. And she’s wearing an apron smeared with flour.
Is she who’s been cooking for me all this time?
I didn’t know there was another woman in this house, let alone one that clearly isn’t here against her will.
“What happened?” She reaches out, tipping my chin up as she looks over my face.
“Pauly,” Mateo tells her, understanding marring her motherly face.
