Chapter 39
thirty-nine
Matias
California, Four Years Ago
It’s rare the day someone looks at me with pity.
The nurses that flit in and out of her room look at me with somber eyes and tightly pressed lips, not one of them daring to give me a smile. I don’t know if it’s because I look like death, caked in mud, dirt, and bits of blood, or because the woman lying on the bed in front of me is dying.
She’s not dying, I remind myself. The nurse said she should be waking from her surgery soon. But she looks so small in that bed, surrounded by an army of machines…
I overheard the doctor talking to Sylvia, while I was sitting in the hall hiding.
“The bullet nicked one of the arteries pumping blood into her heart. We were able to repair it, but her heart stopped two times throughout the surgery. She’s stable now, but these next few days will be crucial.”
If I close my eyes, I still hear her voice, begging me to escape the bunker with her. To leave with her, while I still had the chance. I wish more than anything that I would have picked differently.
“What are you doing here? You know the cops were just searching the hospital for you like, two hours ago?” Sylvia’s voice is an unwelcome distraction from the woman in front of me, and it takes everything to drag my gaze over to Natalia’s big sister.
She looks like a huge fucking mess.
“I needed to see her.” I hate how small my voice sounds, but I’m in no mood to fight. And neither is she, apparently. Sylvia drops into the shitty chair beside me with a sigh.
“There was so much blood.” She says quietly, looking at the blood-stained clothes draped around her body. “Why is it always the good people that go through shit like this?”
I glance at her wordlessly, because she’s not wrong. And because I have no answers.
“Natalia and I have different moms. You know that? And when the social workers dropped me off with Papa’s perfect little family, Natalia snuck out of bed to watch.
She sat next to me on the big staircase, wearing pink pajamas and pigtails…
with these huge, hopeful eyes. And then pushed her favorite doll on my lap and said ‘I always wanted a big sister’ with a dumb little smile on her face.
And these stupid little glasses. Fuck.” Sylvia’s voice breaks on a silent sob, her hands coming up to scrub at her face. “She can’t die, Matias.”
“She’s going to be okay.” I say roughly, clamping a hand on her shoulder. The interaction is awkward, I’m not a naturally comforting person, and Sylvia has never been one to take comfort in another, but I’m glad when the tears stop.
It’s what Natalia would want.
We watch the machines beep for a long moment before Sylvia speaks up.
“She’s going to choose you again and again, even if it kills her. That’s who she is.” Sylvia turns to glance at me. “Please don’t let her.”
And I know in my bones, that even though she’s full of bullshit about a lot of things, Sylvia isn’t lying about this.
Today confirmed it. Natalia will always put the people she loves on top—even to her own detriment.
If I was a different breed of monster, I’d take her.
I’d take her as she is, love her, keep her, even if it sucked the life out of her.
And I was a monster, until we locked gazes in that church, and something in me changed. And all I want to do now is give her a good life—even if I’m not in it.
“I’ll do what needs to be done.” I assure her, swallowing thickly, watching Natalia’s small chest move up and down with each breath. Her face is scraped up from the fall, hair tucked into a haphazard bun at the base of her neck.
Sylvia inspects me for a long time. And whatever she finds must satisfy her, because she climbs to her feet with a somber expression. “I’ll give you two some time alone.”
“Someone will be by tonight with some money.” I say tightly. “For the both of you to get out of here and get a clean start somewhere.”
Sylvia stiffens immediately. “We don’t need your money?—”
“Sylvia, you’ve never had a job. She just had open-heart surgery. I’ll be on the run. I need to know she’ll be taken care of—this is my one condition.”
The young woman rises to her feet. “Fine. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Her shadow doesn’t so much as disappear across the doorway before my burner phone vibrates in my pocket. I know who’s calling before I even fish the shitty cell and look at the screen, the abyss in the pit of my stomach screaming when the name registers.
“Where are you?” He asks sharply. No pleasantries. No preambles.
“Taking care of some loose ends.” I say quietly, praying he doesn’t hear the beep of machines in the background.
“What the fuck happened at Hernandez’s house?”
I can’t say the truth. I can’t tell Reynaldo everything was Natalia’s idea and it all went horribly wrong, and I was the idiot that let her do it. So, I settle for:
“I don’t know. It all happened so fast…”
“There’s too much heat in LA right now. The boss is not happy. We’re getting out of here.”
I freeze. “What? Now?”
“Yeah, pendejo. You wanna stick around to get arrested?” I pause. What are the chances he’ll just…let me go?
He cuts me off before I can say anything.
“Any attachments I should know about?”
“No.” I say immediately, even though I know Reynaldo probably has a feeling. But confirming it would put Natalia in danger. “When are we leaving?”
“Van Nuys tarmac. One hour. We’re not waiting, Matias.” The call beeps three times, indicating its abrupt end, and I resist the urge to crush the phone into dust.
I’m shoving the phone in my pocket when I notice it. Natalia, laying in bed silently, watching and listening to my phone call. I force a smile on my face, trying really hard to sell it, my boots squeaking on the linoleum floors when I master the strength to shuffle to her bedside.
“Hi, baby. You gave us a scare.” I say gently, like I’m talking to a spooked horse.
Natalia immediately responds with: “Please don’t leave me.” The rusty, needy words hit me harder than any accusations she could’ve thrown at me.
Tears gather at the corners of her eyes, and I wipe them away, the sight ripping the heart from my chest. The light from my eyes. The will to live from my soul.
“I have to go.” I try smiling, but I think it comes out like more of a miserable snarl. “I have so many officers on my ass right now. I just…I wanted to talk to you before I left.” I needed to see she was okay with my own two eyes.
“When I’m all better, I can come find you.” She says shakily. “Tell me where to go.”
I open my mouth, the address of the big farmhouse in Georgia on the tip of my tongue, and then Sylvia’s warning flashes in the back of my head.
Natalia can’t put herself above others. And I won’t let her get killed to be with me.
I shake my head gently, the few swigs of water I had earlier threatening to come back when she starts crying.
“Hey, hey, hey.” I stroke her face. “Remember when all you wanted was a fresh start where no one knew who you were?” My lips pull into a grin. “You can do that now.”
“I don’t want that anymore.” She says tearfully, her eyes big and watery in a way that makes my chest hurt.
“You will.” I say firmly, wondering how far from LA she would’ve made it if I never knocked her out of her trajectory all those months ago.
“I want you to live for me, okay?” My throat clogs with the images of all those things I won’t be able to do for her.
I can’t live a normal life, with a mortgage, and kids, and quiet snuggles in front of the fire.
The thought of another man giving that to her makes me green with envy.
“Please.” She says, voice so vulnerable it feels like she’s reaching into my chest. “I can’t do this without you, Matias. I can’t do this alone.”
I glance above her bed in a bid to gather my composure, to stuff down the feelings that threaten to tear me down from the inside out. Loving someone like Natalia was always going to be a lose-lose situation. Because I still feel like a monster, when I grind my jaw, and tell her:
“I have to go.” I kiss her forehead, relishing the feel of her skin and the sight of her face.
A wave of emotion, of unadulterated pain, settles in the center of my chest when I walk out of the room.
Her soft cries echo in the hallway, and with each step I take, it feels like what little there’s left of my heart is stretched like a rubber band.
By the time I settle into the private plane in Van Nuys, I’m not sure there’s any of it left.