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CHAPTER1
Omar
“We’re losing him!” Someone, a nurse maybe, in pale blue scrubs, pushed the “Code Blue” button on the wall. I could hear the footsteps pounding on the linoleum floors as the code team rushed into the tiny ICU hospital room, filling it from corner to corner as they assembled, shouting orders at each other.
I watched as a nurse lowered the hospital bed, threw down the railing, and started chest compressions.
“Fluid wide open,” someone shouted.
“We’ve lost the airway. We need to intubate!” someone else yelled.
A respiratory therapist squeezed his way to the top of the bed and forced a tube down Angel’s throat while this small nurse stood beside my brother, shoving her palms into his chest. CPR didn’t look the same in real life as it did on TV. There was far more movement. Far more shouting.
“Swap out,” the nurse called. Another nurse replaced her, his hands the only thing keeping my brother alive.
Vaguely, I could hear Emma crying. Sobbing, really. She was begging for something,anythingto be done that would save Angel—that would save her husband. Lili, my sister, had her arms around our sister-in-law, and I stood, staring, as they forced my brother’s heart to beat.This isn’t happening, I thought over and over again.We were just celebrating Manny’s birthday. Why did Angel evengoto that damn hospice? So what if the man was dying? The whole point of sending him there was to ensure he did die alone.
“He needs another surgery. We have to go back in.” A no-nonsense doctor, puffed up with his own importance, stepped in front of me. “I need your permission.”
“Mine?” I sounded dumb even to my own ears.
“His wife’s,” the doctor said, and I couldhearthe man calling me a dumbass in his head.
Emma howled. “Yes, yes, whatever you need to do!”
Lili soothed her with a hand over her shoulders. “You have to calm down,” she begged, bringing a hand to Emma’s belly. “This isn’t good for your blood pressure or the baby.”
“Fuck. Off. Lili!” Emma glared at my sister, and if I didn’t know her better, I’d say that the woman looked like she was capable of actual murder. Lili, for once in her life, cowered and stepped back. “You do whatever you have to do to save my husband.”
“We’ve got a rhythm!” a nurse announced. “It’s weak, but it’s there.”
“Let’s get him to the operating room,” the doctor ordered, and suddenly the entire team was moving, rolling Angel’s bed out of the room and down the hallway. Emma’s cries only got louder as he was taken out of sight. If I remembered correctly, her mother died in a hospital; this was doubly traumatizing, then.
I grabbed the doctor before he could get too far away. “Save my brother, do you understand?”
He frowned. “Mr. Castillo.” He pronounced itwrong. My free hand clenched into a fist, but I couldn’t punch this man. Not when Angel’s life lay in his hands. “Your brother is in critical condition. We thought we got everything last night. I won’t know if there’s additional damage or to what extent until I get in there. There are too many factors to consider here.”
I gripped the front of his scrubs, hard enough that I saw a tremor of fear run through his face.Good, he should be afraid of me. “If my brother doesn’t make it,” I murmured, low enough that only he heard me, “neither will you. Do you understand?”
He nodded jerkily. “I understand.”
I let him go. “Good. Now go do your job.”
Once he had disappeared in the same direction as Angel, I turned back to my sister and sister-in-law. Emma was falling apart, and Lili was hanging on by a thread, I could tell. It had been bad enough when they’d brought him in last night. The hours in surgery. The measured optimism from the medical staff. We’d all held our breaths, pacing the hospital halls. Waiting. Thenthishappened. My vision turned…hazy. Almost red-tinted. Someone needed to answer for this.
My father was responsible. There was no way two Rojas assassins lay in wait at my father’s hospice andonlyshot Angel. They were working for my father. “He needs to die.”
Lili jerked to attention. “What?”
I held up a hand to stop her tirade. “Padre,” I explained. “He did this. He needs to die…so do all of the Rojas scum.”
She sighed, almost in relief, until I turned and stalked away. “Wait!” she called after me. She shuffled a sobbing Emma into a seat and ran after me. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I grunted. “What I’m good at.” I looked at her, and whatever she saw in my face scared her. I could tell just by the way her body froze. “Stay here. Call me if you learn anything.”
Lili grabbed my arm. “Don’t do anything stupid, like get yourself killed, all right? I can’t be down two brothers in a single night.”
I glared. “You still have two brothers, and it better stay that way.”
