Chapter 31 Mateo #2
The guy pulled a key out and undid the handcuffs before he released the belt around her neck. Her head came down heavily on her shoulders and I resisted the urge to reach out for her. I waited for Dez, and after what felt like too long, he finally called out to me.
“Get her and put her in the car.” He doled out orders and I nodded, stepping toward Cecilia just as the big asshole pushed her forward, nearly knocking her down if I hadn’t been there to catch her.
I heaved her over my shoulder with ease, unable to hide how eager I was to get out of this hell hole while also making a silent promise to myself that the big fucker would die by my hands too.
Once we were out of the room and back into the narrow hallway, I grabbed her off my shoulder and brought her to my chest not looking back as I walked out. I texted Ronan to get the car ready and I looked for a sign for the exit as I paced down the corridor.
“I got you Sunshine, you’re gonna be okay,” I said to her in a soft voice, but all that came out of her was a moaned grumble that broke my heart a million ways.
“Wait. Pluto,” she mumbled out, and I hushed her in case anyone could hear her talking to me.
“They’ll feed him to the lion,” she barely made the words out, but I was only more confused now than ever before.
“You’re not making sense Sunshine, it’s the drugs. I’ll have you home soon,” I reassured her.
“Home?” She asked and snuggled closer to me, burying her covered face deep into my neck. “Santos?” She asked, and my heart shattered again. “Mateo,” I hummed into her ear, and she pressed tighter into me, making my pulse rise a million miles an hour.
“Please, get him,” she groaned out again.
I didn’t know who she was talking about, but Ronan would beat me into the next life if he knew I wasn’t following the plan.
She seemed desperate to get whatever was down there.
I pulled the bag off of her head, even though Dez had said to keep it on until we got outside, and my heart broke doubly.
One of her eyes was swollen shut and purple, her face was a rainbow of colors in multiple areas.
There were cuts and scrapes all over her.
Her eyes were sunken deep, but they shined glossily as she recognized my face.
“I’m sorry Sunshine, we have to go,” I told her, my resolve nearly crumbling seeing the devastation on her face from my denial.
Before she could plead any further the Bulldog-looking piece of shit that destroyed my instruments, the same one that had been leading my girl by a leash on that stage, came flying out of a door.
Instinctively, I dropped Cecilia to the ground as he stomped his way over to me and swung his fist out with confidence from his size.
He was too big though, and I was quicker.
I dodged and rammed my knee into his head in the same motion as he tried to duck from my swing and then shoved him against the door.
The asshole punched me in the face, knocking me off my balance, and forcing my back to hit a fire extinguisher that was attached to the wall.
I pulled it off with a jerk and smashed it over the bulldog’s head forcing him down to the ground with the impact.
I hit him with it again, a sick crunch played in my ears, and I smiled at how music could be found even in the strangest of places.
I lifted the fire extinguisher again and brought it down on his head, once, twice, then a third time for good measure.
The fourth was to stop the twitching. Once his skull was liquid goo on the velvety floor, I picked her back up into my arms and ran through the rest of the building towards what looked like an emergency exit.
I kicked the door open and Zerkos stood outside the car while he waited for us. “Where’s Dez?” he asked, with a confused look on his face, rushing towards Cecilia.
“He was right behind me,” He tried to pry her from my hold, but she recoiled into me.
“It’s me, Céci,” Ronan said with a gentleness I had never been a witness to in the twelve years I knew him. He reached for her again, but she clung harder to me and screamed a raspy protest in my ear.
“No!” She cried painfully just as Dez came bursting out of the door in a hurried pace.
“Get the fuck in the car. Get the fuck in the car. We gotta go go go,” Dez chimed frantically as he ushered us all in and Zerkos was begrudgingly forced into the driver’s seat again.
I went to put Cecilia in the backseat when I noticed the open gash splitting her back apart from the top of her left shoulder, all the way down to her right hip.
“Shit,” I muttered, climbing in behind her, trying to handle her as gently as I possibly could, so that I didn’t cause her any additional pain.
“What is it?” Ronan demanded in an unhinged tone.
“It’s just worse than what we could see. Get us the hell out of here. What took you so long, Dez?” I slapped the back of the passenger seat where he was sitting.
“They tried giving me some shit, saying the transaction didn’t clear and I had to wait until they could see it on their side,” he said from the front, and I looked into the rearview mirror and met Ronan’s gaze.
Yeah, right.
I’m on to you motherfucker.
Zerkos peeled away from the strip club parking lot, and my pulse was beating a heavy sound in my ears. Every single nerve in my body was shot from tonight, and even more so from the last five minutes.
Cecilia fell asleep almost immediately with her head on my lap, and I gently combed my fingers through her hair and breathed deep gulps of relief into my lungs.
Once we made our way back to the high-rise, Ronan stopped the car at the door and got out without saying a single word, throwing the keys at Dez to finish parking.
I followed him inside with Cecilia in my arms. He kept glancing at me with a scowl etched into his face, he was no doubt seething, but I hadn’t done anything wrong.
If anything, he should have been thanking me.
“I think it’s Dez,” I said once we got into the elevator.
“It’s believable,” he responded dryly, and we both muttered a soft “fuck” before the doors dinged open into the penthouse.
We made our way in, and before Zerkos could start demanding I take her to his room like I would have expected, Cecilia began to shake in my arms and foam began to fill inside her mouth.
“Oh shit,” I called for Ronan’s attention, but before I could set Cecilia on the couch he was already dialing for Emory. I laid her on the bullet-ridden sofa and turned her to the side so she wouldn’t choke.
“She says we need to get her to throw up if we can, in case they gave her pills.” He shouted back at me and I frantically ran to the bathroom to grab a trash can.
“Sorry about this Sunshine, it’s for your own good,” I said softly, but not quite enough and Zerkos raised an eyebrow at me even though he looked fully occupied with Emory on the line.
My hands were trembling at the familiar image below me. I tried to shake my sister's face out of my memory. I steadied my shaking limbs and shoved my finger into her throat, she pushed my hand away moaning a weak “No.”
I couldn’t let her decide her own fate here. I sent my finger down her throat again and this time I didn’t let her frail little hands control me, I wiggled my finger until I heard the heaving and bent her over the trash can. Nothing came out, so I tried a few more times until it was certain.
“Nothing’s happening,” Zerkos told Emory over the phone and with a few quick words he disconnected and made his way into the elevators.
I could hear each tick of the second hand on a nearby clock, so unbearably loud, almost mocking me, while I was left alone with her to spiral into the chasm of my mind.
Her body shook and convulsed right in front of me, but there was nothing I could do to keep her here. I shook her and screamed her name until defeat crashed over me, forcing me to realize I had been cursed to watch the same fate the universe laid out for my little sister, with Cecilia as well.
“Don’t give up, Sunshine. I need you, okay? Ronan needs you. Santos needs you.” I whispered to her as I held her tightly in my arms, doing my best to not let my emotions take the reins though I felt closer and closer to spiraling out of control.
“MOVE!” Zerkos came crashing out of the elevator with something small in his hand as he ran through the foyer and jumped over the couch.
I darted out of the way and without a second thought he shoved the tiny white container into her nose and pressed it in.
“Start a timer,” he instructed me, cool as a cucumber.
Even though we trained together, it still impressed the fuck out of me that he could keep such a level head when he was so emotionally invested in the situation.
I let my head and my heart get in the way too often.
He began giving her mouth to mouth, and I told him every time sixty seconds passed. Once we reached the four-minute mark, he got another little nasal sprayer out of his pocket and activated it into her nose again.
“What is that?” I asked him.
“Narcan,” he said and almost immediately she took a big gasp of breath, her eyelids fluttering open. He tossed the nasal sprayer on the ground and gave her mouth to mouth again, but this time it was mostly a kiss.
“Heroin?” I asked him, and he shrugged. Clearly, he was just as clueless as I was, but whatever it was, the Narcan worked.
“Emory said she’ll be by in the next day or so to check on her, but she’s pulling an ER shift at Saint Murphy’s and can’t leave tonight,” he explained.
She began shivering on the couch, so I lifted her head up and laid it back down over my lap while Ronan covered her with a blanket. She tried to say something, but a dry cough came out instead.
“Water?” he asked her, and she nodded her head in the tiniest, almost unnoticeable way. Zerkos stood and filled a glass from the dispenser in the fridge before putting a straw in it and bridging it to her lips. I lifted her head up slightly so she wouldn’t choke and reminded her to take small sips.
“Everything hurts,” she rasped, still not opening her eyes.
“It’ll get better now. You’re safe baby,” Ronan encouraged, but she scowled at the sound of his voice and curled in towards me.
Zerkos growled and I cut a look at him that meant not now and somehow, for once, it worked.
He stomped away heavily before the sound of his door slamming rang out through our penthouse making her flinch in response.
“I’m going to bring you into my room, is that okay?
” I asked her and she nodded, her teeth chattering hard while she trembled against me.
I lifted her up and carried her through the hallway.
Glancing in the direction of Santos’ room to find the door open as he stood there in the doorway, a blank expression on his face while he watched me take her into mine.
With the most care I could offer her, I gently laid her on the bed, stomach down, and I unhooked the bra they put on her.
My gut churned in the worst way, as I examined more closely the brutal gash splitting her open.
It cut across the entirety of her back diagonally, ripping apart some words that had been inked onto her shoulder.
I walked to the bathroom and pulled open the medicine cabinet, removing the cheap, unopened first aid kit.
I soaked the gauze pads in the saline solution and gently dabbed them over her back, each time I made contact with her skin she groaned in pain.
I thought about the possibility of her back sticking to the sheets, or to a shirt if I were to put one on her so I adjusted her onto the bed so she could comfortably sleep on her stomach while her wound dried.
Then I remembered that she was still recovering from being stabbed in the stomach just a few days ago, and my guilt intensified.
She’d already suffered under our hands so many times.
How could I claim to care for her, if I was just going to continue to let bad shit happen to her?
I made a vow right then and there that I would do whatever it took to never allow something like this to repeat.
Doing my best to keep it brief, I hopped in for a quick shower to wash the Bulldog piece of shit’s brains off of me and then turned the lights off before crawling into bed next to her.
Tonight, was a shitshow.
But at least it felt like home again with her next to me. I tried and tried, but couldn’t fall asleep yet, too much adrenaline, fear, and rage was coursing through my system, and it needed somewhere to go before I started bouncing off the walls.
I’d watched plenty of people overdose since my little sister died, but it never made it any easier and every single time brought me back to that moment. But with her, it was somehow the most scared I’d ever been since I could remember.
Fuck, war had somehow become less frightening than the thought of losing her.
I rolled out of bed and found Zerkos pacing the hallway, his adrenaline no doubt still fueling him on as well.