Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
NIKKI
How could I have been so wrong about so many things? About myself? About Alex? About my friends? Looking down at my hands, I open and close them, squeezing them tight, hoping to release the tension and tremors, but they don’t abate.
When Erin and I finally found our way out of the hidden closet that we’d been thrown in by Kevin, we quietly tried to find a way to escape the premises without drawing too much attention to ourselves.
There was no door in the garage where our prison cell lay hidden, so we moved into the house, trying to be quiet, praying no one would see us.
But they did. Only it wasn’t who we thought it would be.
Alex’s brother Angel noticed movement and watched us enter the room, and then everything happened both at the speed of light and in slow motion.
Kevin, a fellow nurse and colleague, the man my mother and sister had been trying to set me up with for the past couple of years, the man who kidnapped Erin and me from the parking garage at the hospital, broke free from the men who were holding him captive.
Only, he wasn’t helpless. He wasn’t trying to fight his way free with fists swinging.
No, he was more dangerous than that. In his hand, he held a gun, aiming it at Alex.
I reacted without thinking. Before he could pull the trigger, I grabbed Angel’s gun, raised my arm, and fired, killing the monster instantly.
I couldn’t let him hurt Alex. Wouldn’t let him hurt the man I’d come to love.
Everyone swarmed me, afraid I was going to break or become some bumbling fool who couldn’t string two thoughts together, but I didn’t. I had no regrets. If faced with the exact same situation, I would do the same thing again and again.
Two days later, I still have no qualms about what I did. If Kevin had lived, others would have died, including myself and my best friend Erin.
“Hermosa?” Alex calls out before he enters the bedroom in his giant condo in downtown San Antonio.
“Hmm?” I hum from my seat out on the balcony overlooking the city. It’s gorgeous up here, and on a clear day, I can see further than I ever could from my small one bedroom apartment in the burbs.
“You okay?”
I glance over my shoulder and smile, taking in the man I’ve fallen in love with from toe to head. His eyes…they pull me in, and I lose myself in them every time he looks at me as if I hung the moon for him. “Yeah, why?”
He’s been walking on eggshells since the incident.
I think he’s waiting for me to break down and completely lose my shit, but it hasn’t happened, and it won’t.
Maybe I can compartmentalize better than others, or maybe I just don’t have any issues with taking another life when warranted, but I’m fine.
No emotional trauma or nightmares. If anything, I sleep better than I have in a while.
But that could be because Alex is next to me, his strong arms wrapped around my body, holding me tight as if he’s afraid that if he lets go, I will disappear.
“With everything that happened. I want to be sure—” he stops when he sees me roll my eyes, and I can see a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. The man needs to take off the kid gloves and stop waiting for the nervous breakdown to come. It won’t. I’m not fucking fragile.
“Alex, I’m fine. I was fine then, and I’m fine now.
” It’s true. My issues were not from killing someone; it’s about the man I killed.
He was someone that while I found him a bit obsessed and off-putting, I never thought he would kidnap me or threaten me and a friend.
I can still see a gun being leveled at Alex, and the thought of losing the man I’ve come to think of as my other half puts me on edge.
No, it isn’t that I killed a man; it’s that I almost lost someone I love to a crazy person.
Personally, I hope Kevin rots in hell for everything he has done.
Maybe I should have more issues than I do.
I’m a surgical nurse who helps put people back together like Humpty Dumpty.
I’ve repaired more bullet wounds than I care to count, and I know a good portion of them are from gang violence.
I’m not stupid. I know how the world works even if I sometimes act like I have blinders on.
The world is a fucking dumpster fire, and sometimes, I like to pretend it’s all sunshine and rainbows.
Or I should say, I tried.
But then Alex came crashing into my life (quite literally) with a bullet wound that I had to fix, and everything changed. I still sometimes want to wear blinders, but it is a lot harder than it used to be. Especially given who Alex is. Leader of the Luna Cartel, El Lobo himself.
“Don’t worry, Hermano. Pajarito is tough,” Angel says as he saunters into the room, a giant grin on his face.
“Someone got laid,” I tease.
Stopping in his tracks, he narrows his gaze at me. “I wish.” He’s lying, and I’m a little curious as to why, but I won’t say anything.
“Then why the good mood? And will you stop calling me little bird?”
“You’re right. You should be called…águila!” He chuckles, and Alex joins in.
Shaking my head, I release a frustrated sigh to cover up my laughter. I have to keep them on their toes, after all. “I’m not sure if ‘eagle’ is much better. Why do I have to be a bird? Why can’t I just be Nikki?”
“Hermosa, I’m going to give you the best advice I can,” Alex says and pauses with a quirk of one eyebrow.
I sit there and cross my arms over my chest, waiting for his brilliant words of wisdom. When he doesn’t continue, I prod, “What?”
“The more you argue, the more he will do it. When I was ten, he started calling me caca. The more I fought him, the more he called me that. He had others call me caca as well. When I finally stopped trying to fight him, he got bored and dropped it.”
I get up from my seat and join them in the room, stopping when I’m beside Alex and can wrap my arms around his trim waist. “How long did it take you?” Alex was as stubborn or more so than his brother.
There is no way he would have dropped it as easily as he insinuates.
And Angel…well, he has the patience of a saint.
From what I know, he can drag anything out for an eternity, waiting and biding his time, striking when he thinks his target is weak or has given up.
Angel throws back his head and laughs. Alex, clenching his jaw, pushes his brother, who falls to the floor still cackling like a loon.
“A year,” Alex finally tells me, his lips barely moving, and I now understand why Angel can’t stop laughing.
It takes every ounce of willpower I possess to not join him.
I hold my breath for a minute, biting the inside of my lips, forcing them to remain closed because I can’t promise my laughter won’t escape.
When I think I have myself under control, I exhale slowly and have to immediately breathe in again.
I’m trying to regain control of myself, but I’m balanced on the precipice of completely losing it.
I can completely imagine a little Alex trying to get his brother to shut up for a year.
I can also imagine that after a year, he was hard pressed to keep his mouth shut and not provoke Angel.
When I think I can manage it, I say, “A year. And then he stopped.”
“Yes, because I refused to rise to the bait.”
Glancing down at Angel, who is still rolling around on the floor, I notice the way he shakes his head as he clutches his stomach.
Okay, it was funny, but not that funny. He is being a bit too dramatic, but what else do I expect from Angel.
This man kidnapped me and forced me to take care of Alex when he had been shot by a rival family.
Well, to be completely honest, I refused to leave the patient, so Angel didn’t have much of a choice.
“Me thinks there is more to the story?” I quirk an eyebrow at the idiot on the floor and nudge him with my foot. “Care to explain?”
The laughter immediately stops, but the grin on Angel’s face grows. Getting to his feet, he is breathing hard and dusts off his ass before facing us once again. “Do you want the short or long version?”
“What’s the short version?” I ask almost hesitantly.
“Abuelito paid me to stop.” Angel shrugged with a smirk.
“What?” Alex roars, and I gasp. Oh shit! That wasn’t expected, and once again, I have to fight back my laughter.
Clearing my throat, I cover my mouth for a moment, and finally manage to say, “What’s the long version?”
Angel shrugged, the smirk growing. “I kept getting into trouble for picking on him. Even when he didn’t react, his little ears would start to turn red, and Alex would get this funny expression on his face.
So he might have stopped reacting with words, but I could see how pissed off he got.
I was getting a little annoyed that I couldn’t get him to blow his stack.
Abuelito had told him to ignore me. Called it a lesson in patience.
I took it on as my own personal mission to annoy the shit out of my big brother.
I tried to get our sister in on it too, but she told Abuelito, and Abuelito offered me money to back off. ”
“How much?” I don’t know how I managed to sound level, but I did.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of the black slacks he wore. “Three Benjamin Franklins.”
“Huh?” I ask at the same time Alex snaps, “Hundred dollar bills?”
“Yep!” Angel pops the “P”, and I am unable to hold back any longer. I snort as the laugh escapes me.
“He paid you three hundred American dollars to stop annoying your brother? Damn, I wish he was around when I was a kid. I got sent to my room whenever I annoyed my little sister or whenever she annoyed me.” I pause and frown.
“Come to think of it, she never really got in trouble when she annoyed me.”
Angel deadpans, “You can always borrow my gun if you need.”
Rolling my eyes, I shake my head and snicker. “I’m good.”
Alex tenses beside me, his body practically shaking. “I’ll give her mine. Her sister sounds annoying. She tried to force Nikki to be with that cabrón who kidnapped her,” he growls.
“To be fair, she didn’t know he was completely bonkers.”
“It doesn’t matter, Hermosa. She did everything she could to manipulate you.” He sounds good and pissed.
“But it didn’t work,” I tell him as I stretch onto my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I’m here with you, and he’s…wherever the hell he is.”
Angel watches me, and I can feel my annoyance grow again. “You know, I think pajarito might actually be okay, hermano.”
I pat Alex’s chest and smirk. “See?” And I don’t know why, but I ask, “Where exactly is he?”
Alex grins as Angel rubs his hands together. “Somewhere he will never be found,” Angel finally states with a gleam in his eyes. I don’t know what they did, and honestly, I don’t think I really want to know.