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I muster up all the strength in my body and throw the beam off the woman, my fingers sizzling as they make contact with the blaze. I collect her in my arms, and try to wake her up. I don't know if she's dead already. I check for a pulse, and it's there. Although faint, I think she's still alive. I slap her to wake her up, and her eyes open, cloudy and unsure of what's going on.
"Where's my baby?" she asks in Spanish. "Where's my baby boy? Save my baby, not me!"
I force her to stand on her own two feet, and point for her to get out of the room while she still can. The walls are crumbling all around, small explosion sounding from the rest of the house. I gather the woman's child in my arms and follow her shaky steps out of the burning house.
As I walk through the rooms and lead the woman out of the building, I'm unsure whether my mind is playing tricks on me or not. But I can smell her. I can smell Tallulah's scent, white peaches lingering in the hallways, everlasting even though the whole damn floor is burning.
As we make our way out, the staircase crumbles in front of us into a pile of burning ashes and ember. I ignore it and pull the woman to safety along with her child. I shove the kid into her arm, still screaming and wailing for his mother.
She looks up at me grateful and almost enchanted by my presence.
"I need to go," I tell her darkly. "You need to get the fuck out of here before someone else finds you and treats you much less kindly than I just did."
"I don't know where to go..."
I groan, pulling out my wallet and thrusting some money into her shaking hands.
"Just leave," I tell her darkly. "You need to get the fuck out of here. Now."
I scream at her in Spanish when she doesn't move, and that finally gets her going. She clutches her child and shakily walks away from the fire. The baby wails.
My heart is pounding. I can tell I'm still drunk, and I need to get the fuck to Tallulah before anyone else. But suddenly I'm frozen to the spot.
Saul texts me, and I realize he's not here yet. He gives me the location where Tallulah is, though.
in the shed in the back of the garden of the house which hasn't been set on fire yet.
I make my way across the grass, the golden blades crunching beneath my feet.
I want to run, but something is stopping me, something's slowing me down. I make my way across the gardens in slow motion. My hand lingers on the doorknob of the shed, wondering.
Am I ready to submit myself to Tallulah's whims and desires again? Am I ready to make her mine, even though it possibly means she'll betray me again before we have our happy ending?
She's already proven to me once that she's ruthless. She has been trained to kill me. And even though we had a special connection, she never went back on her family's wishes. I only realized it when she plunged the blade into my shoulder. When she poisoned me, Tallulah had the intent of killing me, I have no doubt about that. And now here I am ready to save her, even though what I should be doing is plunging the knife into her traitorous heart myself.
But I don't think I have it in me to kill Tallulah Gunn. I don't think I can live with myself if I kill her... not now. Our story's not done yet. And I have so much love to teach her, except now, my lessons aren't going to be as enjoyable for her as they once were.
It's going to be a lesson in pain, humility and love. These are all the things I have left to teach her. I silently make a resolution with myself, promising myself not to give up and not to stop until I make Tallulah convinced she's my beloved toy and nothing else. She will not plead allegiance to anyone else. She will not be part of any other cartel. From the moment she was born, she's belonged to me, the leader of the Scorpion cartel. The very one who stole his rightful throne, first from my brother, and then from the family I forced myself into.
But now it's too late to worry about any of that. All that's left to do is for me to enter the room and come face to face with the girl who tried to end my life.
Just then, another car pulls up in the golden grass a little way off the shed. Several men pile out, and my eyes instantly focus on Saul who approaches me with a troubled expression.
"Is she in there?" he asks.
Even his own voice is shaking and anticipating something terrible once we walk into that shed. I don't know what to say. I just stare at him with an unrelenting expression, silently trying to convey how afraid I am of going in the room. I don't admit I'm afraid, ever. But right now... she's made me fucking helpless.
"I'll come with you," he says, placing his hand on the door, but I shake my head.
"I need to do this alone," I say.
"You need a gun, at least," he says, "Maybe she isn't alone in there."
"You worried about me, Saul?" I chuckle. "Do you think anyone's capable of hurting the don of the Scorpion cartel? Anyone who gets a good look at me will soon realize they have no business mixing themselves up with me. Tallulah's mine. And that's always the way it's been. I'm not going to let any other man have her."
"Take it."
Saul ignores me, pushing a gun into my hands.
