14. Sal
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Sal
I didn’t think.
I grabbed Cami. Pulled her against my chest. Curled my body around hers, shielding her from the impact.
Glass exploded inward. The world spun. Metal screamed. Pain bloomed in my side, my shoulder, my head. We were rolling, tumbling, the car flipping once, twice.
Then stillness.
Silence.
“Cami.” My voice came out ragged. “Cami, are you...”
“I’m okay.” She was trembling against me. “I’m okay. But you... Sal, you’re bleeding.”
I touched my head. My hand came away red.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re hurt...”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Voices outside. Footsteps. Shadows moving past the shattered windows.
Not my men.
I knew my men. These weren’t them.
Three figures. Dressed in black. Armed. Moving toward the wreckage with purpose.
“Stay behind me.” I pushed Cami toward the far side of the car. “Don’t move until I tell you.”
“Sal...”
“Don’t. Move.”
I kicked out the remains of the window and pulled myself through. Every movement sent agony shooting through my ribs. Cracked, at least. Maybe broken. My head was ringing. My vision kept trying to blur.
None of it mattered.
I shrugged off my jacket. Turned back to the shattered window where Cami was watching me with wide, terrified eyes.
“Put this on.” I shoved the jacket through the opening toward her. “Stay down. Don’t come out until I tell you.”
“Sal, you’re hurt, you can’t...”
“Put it on.”
She took the jacket. Wrapped it around herself, her hands shaking, the fabric swallowing her small frame.
“Stay down,” I repeated. “I mean it.”
Then I turned to face the men.
The first one reached me and I met him with a fist to the throat.
He went down, choking, clawing at his neck.
The second swung a knife and I dodged, barely, the blade slicing through my shirt and the skin beneath.
Pain flared hot and bright but I pushed through it, grabbing his wrist, twisting until the bone snapped with a satisfying crack.
He screamed. I took the knife from his limp fingers and buried it in his chest.
The third raised a gun.
I moved faster.
My hand closed on his wrist, forcing the barrel away from me, away from the car, away from Cami. A shot rang out, wild, the bullet disappearing into the night sky. I headbutted him, felt his nose crunch beneath my forehead, blood spraying hot across my face.
He staggered. I grabbed his head with both hands and twisted hard.
The crack of his neck was loud in the sudden silence.
He dropped.
I stood there, swaying, surrounded by bodies. Blood dripping from my head, my side, the cut on my chest. My vision was tunneling. My legs were starting to give out.
They had come for her.
The thought cut through the pain, through the ringing in my skull, sharper than any of it. They had come for what was mine. Had aimed a gun at her. Had put glass and metal and violence between her body and the night air, and one of them had walked away breathing.
Unacceptable.
My hands were shaking. Not from the blood loss.
From the want. The need to find the one who ran and take him apart slowly, joint by joint, make him understand exactly what he had reached for.
She was mine. Mine to protect. Mine to keep.
The word beat through me in time with my pulse, louder than the pain, louder than the part of my brain screaming that I needed a hospital. Mine. Mine. Mine.
I would burn the whole city to keep her. I would die standing in this street before I let anything touch her again.
But I stayed standing. Had to stay standing. Had to make sure no one else was coming, had to keep her safe, had to...
“Sal!”
Cami’s voice. She was climbing out of the car, my jacket still wrapped around her shoulders, her face pale in the streetlight.
“I told you to stay down.” The words came out slurred.
“They’re dead.” She was at my side now, her hands on my face, my chest, checking for injuries. “They’re all dead. You can stop now. You can...”
“The third one.” I blinked, trying to clear my vision. “There were three. Where’s the...”
Running footsteps. Fading into the distance.
The third man. The one whose nose I’d broken. He was fleeing, disappearing into the darkness between buildings.
I tried to follow. My legs buckled.
Cami caught me. Tried to hold me up, her small body straining under my weight.
“Stop.” Her voice was fierce. “Stop, you idiot. Let him go. You’re hurt. You’re...”
Tires screeched. Headlights. Voices I recognized. Julian. Pedro. Hendry. My team, finally arriving, piling out of vehicles with weapons drawn.
“Boss!” Pedro was at my side in seconds, taking my weight from Cami, slinging my arm over his shoulder. “Jesus Christ, what happened?”
“Find out who sent them.” My voice came out as a croak. “The third one. He ran. Find him.”
“Boss, you need...”
“Find him.”
Pedro looked at Julian. Some silent communication passed between them. Julian nodded and took off running in the direction the third man had fled.
“We’ve got you, boss.” Pedro was guiding me toward one of the cars. “We’ve got you. Just stay with me.”
I turned my head. Found Cami.
She was standing by the wreckage, still wearing my jacket, her arms wrapped around herself. She looked small. Fragile. But she was alive. She was safe.
I’d kept her safe.
Then my legs gave out completely and everything went dark.
***
I regained consciousness to the smell of antiseptic.
The compound’s infirmary. I recognized the ceiling, the lights, the steady beep of monitoring equipment. My body was a map of pain, dull and throbbing, kept at bay by whatever drugs they’d pumped into me.
“He’s awake.”
Pedro’s voice. I turned my head, slowly, and found him sitting in a chair by the door. He looked exhausted. How long had I been out?
“Cami.” The name came out rough. Desperate. “Where is she? Is she...”
“She’s fine.” Pedro nodded toward the other side of the room. “See for yourself.”
I turned my head the other way.
She was there. In the bed next to mine, curled on her side, fast asleep. Bandages on her arms, a bruise on her cheek, but alive. Breathing. Safe.
The relief that flooded through me was so intense it hurt.
“What’s the damage?” I asked.
“You’ve got a cracked rib, some nasty cuts, probable concussion.” Pedro’s voice was carefully neutral. “Doctor says you’ll heal fine as long as you actually rest for once in your goddamn life.”
“The men?”
“Two dead. Third one ran like you said.” Pedro paused. “We found him.”
I met his eyes. “Who sent them?”
“That’s the thing, boss.” His jaw worked. Anger, maybe. Or disgust. “We traced the payment. The men were hired through a back channel, paid in cash, but we found the source.”
“Who?”
“Logan Caldwell.”
I stared at him.
“He liquidated the last of what he could access. Scraped together enough for a hired hit.” Pedro shook his head. “A desperate man’s gamble. Stupid. Sloppy. Like everything else he does.”
Logan.
The pathetic, cowardly piece of shit had actually tried to have me killed. Had put Cami in danger. Had nearly gotten her killed because he was too weak to face me himself.
“Where is he now?”
“His townhouse. We’ve got eyes on him. He hasn’t moved since last night.”
I started to sit up. Pain exploded through my side.
“Boss.” Pedro was on his feet, hands out like he was trying to calm a wild animal. “Boss, you can’t. The doctor said...”
“Fuck what the doctor said.”
“Sal.”
Cami’s voice. Soft. Tired. I turned and found her watching me, her dark eyes heavy with exhaustion.
“Don’t.” She reached across the gap between our beds, her fingers finding mine. “Please. Just... stay. For a little while. Let yourself heal.”
I looked at her hand in mine. Small. Fragile. But holding on like I was the only thing keeping her anchored.
“Okay.” The word came out before I could stop it. “Okay. For a little while.”
She smiled.
And for a moment, lying there in a hospital bed with cracked ribs and a concussion and the knowledge that my enemy had tried to kill me, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years.
Peace.