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“Icanget a few right, you know.”
She laughed, real and deep from her belly, and it helped the knot between my shoulders relax a little. “You really, really can’t, Omar,” she said. “They’ve got your picture all over the news, asking people to come forward if they have any information about your whereabouts.”
“Did they at least use a good one?”
Lili laughed, just like I’d intended. A wave of graying dizziness washed over me; I groaned, having to sit down. “Omar? Are you okay?”
I leaned back against the desk chair’s headrest and counted down from twenty slowly to get my breathing and heart under control. “I’m fine.”
“You’re a rotten liar,pendejo.”
I laughed, on the edge of giddy hysteria that came with blood loss and shock. “That’s not the first time I’ve been called that in the last few hours.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
I tried to explain, but it was like I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around the language anymore. “I need to get myself patched up, all right? I need to go.”
“How badly are you hurt, Omar?” Lili demanded, ignoring my goodbye.
I sighed and tried to shake my head, as if I could clear it that way, but it only made the dizziness worse.Shit.“Enough that I need to go get it taken care of,” I said. “I’ll call you soon, okay?”
“From a different number,” Lili reminded me, as if I needed it.
“I know.”
She was quiet long enough that I thought she might have hung up the phone, but then, very quietly, Lili said, “I love you, Omar. Stay safe.”
“I love you. Tell Emma that I love her and the baby too. I’ll get home as soon as I can.”
“You better.”
We hung up, and I snapped the burner phone in half, tossing the pieces in the trash can beside the desk. It might be overkill to destroy the phone after a single call, but I was going to use an overabundance of caution from here on out. I couldn’t keep playing fast and loose when Angel needed me to keep shit in line. I couldn’t be the reason that we lost everything.
As I stood up, my vision darkened and I swayed, stumbling around the desk and into the closed office door. The sound echoed through the house like a booming clap of thunder.
CHAPTER6
Omar
Pascal and Efrain hauled me onto the kitchen table, and I gritted my teeth as pain exploded through my shoulder.
“I thought the house had been struck by lightning,” Pascal joked. “Next time you pass out, try to land on the couch, huh?”
“Hijo de puta.” I turned my head as Pascal tore open the sleeve of my shirt, trying to assess the wound. There was blood everywhere. Usually I’d be able to patch up minor injuries myself, but this was in an awkward spot to do single-handedly and my vision was still swaying.
“Do you need some help,jefe?” I tried to turn toward Helena’s voice, but pain, real pain, ripped through me, and I hissed, jamming my eyes closed. “Move!” she barked at Pascal and Efrain. I could hear their footsteps receding.
I hummed softly. “Check out my shoulder? I’m pretty sure it’s still bleeding.” Helena came around the counter with the first aid kit, and by her sharp intake of breath, I knew that it wasn’t pretty. “How bad?”
“Were you… shot?” she asked. “It looks like a bullet hole.”
Fucking hell. Was I? Wait, no. I tried to think, tried to make sense of the adrenaline-fueled rampage I’d gone on. Had there been other guns drawn? I couldn’t remember getting shot, but really, could I even trust my dizzying memories right now?
“What do you want me to do,jefe?”
If it was a bullet hole and I left the bullet in my shoulder, it could get infected, and while we were fully stocked with medical supplies on the island, there wasn’t a doctor onsite. It was an hour by boat to the nearest Key and even longer to a proper hospital.
Helena started pulling things out of the first aid kit — gloves and bandages and a pair of forceps — and swore. “We’re out of lidocaine. I’ll need to find you something else before we can get started.”
