Chapter Forty-Luc
CHAPTER FORTY-LUC
I see my woman leap from the floor just as this dead motherfucker raises his arm to shoot at me.
I see the shot go off.
I watch helplessly as Maria’s body lurches backwards and crumbles to the ground as she takes the bullet meant for me.
And I stop being human in that moment.
A pain filled roar rips out of me, and I leap across the room, my hands closing around Matteo Sanchez’s worthless neck.
I’m thinner than he is. But I’m strong. And I’m so fucking mad.
My fury takes us both down.
I lift his head and slam it into the floor.
The sound is harsh.
“Stop!” he says.
“Please!”
But I don’t.
I can’t.
The Viper is free, and all I see is red.
I want his blood on my hands. Need to see it staining the floor.
Chaos is erupting around me, but I don’t care.
I slam his head against the floor once more.
It’s not enough. I dig my thumbs into his eyes.
He is scratching at my shoulders, trying to get away. But he can’t.
I’m straddling his chest.
I lift his head and I slam it down again.
And again.
And again.
A sick crunch echoes in the room. I hear someone yell. But I don’t fucking care.
I feel liquid warmth seep between my fingers.
But I’m not finished.
I don’t stop. I just keep cracking his head against the floor until it opens like a ripe melon.
When his brains are spilling from the mess, covering the fucking ground, that is when I stop.
It can’t take more than a minute or two to end him.
I watch his eyes glaze over as death comes to take him to hell, and it’s more time than he deserves.
Too much fucking time away from Baby Girl.
“Maria!” I yell and crawl to where she’s collapsed.
“Luc,” Angel runs to my side. Nico is with him.
Both are a little worse for wear, and I know they rained terror down on these maggots. But I can’t do anything but call her name over and over again.
It’s like I think I can fix her if I just keep saying it.
“Maria. Maria. Maria. MAARRIIAAAAAAAA!”
I roar this time, but I can’t just breakdown. She needs me.
I search for the injury. My mind insists maybe it missed her.
It didn’t.
I find the entry wound to the bullet she took for me in her left shoulder.
“Come on. Let them work. She needs a hospital,” Nico says, shaking me, but I won’t let her go.
I don’t see or hear the EMTs arrive. Suddenly, they are just there.
“Sir, please. Let us help her,” a woman’s voice says, and I look her in the eye before I place Maria on the backboard.
“Help her. Now,” I say.
Pain like I’ve never felt lances me as I watch them work.
She’s unresponsive.
Fuck.
No.
Please.
They place pads on her chest and side.
“Clear!”
Then, they shock her.
The sound the machine makes is so damn sharp and shrill. Her body jumps and her head lolls to the side.
Nico and Angel are both holding me back. I don’t even realize I am struggling until I see my own feet kicking out from under me.
They shock her again.
Her chest rises.
Thank God.
She’s alive.
And that counts for something.
It counts for everything.
I know what I am, and I know what I deserve. And it is not her.
She is too good for me.
Too young.
Too pretty.
Too innocent and sweet.
But I’m also man enough to admit she is mine.
I’m not letting her go.
Not now. Not fucking ever.
She’s with the surgeons now, and Angel is hustling me into a room.
“Take your fucking clothes off, man. I’m not undressing you, Luc,” he says, exasperated.
I haven’t uttered a single word since I talked to the surgeon.
Well, I say talk.
But it’s more like threaten.
As in she dies, you fucking die .
I think he gets the message. But just to smooth things over, I have one of my guys send fifty grand as a donation to his kid’s school’s athletic fund.
“Get in there,” Angel says, and he’s putting my clothes into a plastic bag as I step into the shower.
“Luc, snap the fuck out of it. I need you to get washed and put on these clothes when you’re done,” he says, pointing to a pile of clean clothes he just set on the counter.
“Nico is with Anna. She’s to be kept in the dark about all this. But he’s gonna want to talk to you. So, move it.”
I stare at him, but he just growls and turns on the water.
It’s fucking cold. But I still make no sound.
“Don’t go catatonic on me, asshole. Here,” he squeezes shampoo onto my head.
“And hurry your ass up, or I’ll tell Maria you asked me to wash your dick,” he says.
What the fuck is wrong with him, saying shit like that at a time like this?
But it’s just like Angel. And it gets me moving.
There’s only one person allowed access to my body, and that’s her. No one, and I mean that, no fucking one, is ever coming close to my dick again.
Just her. Only Maria.
My Baby Girl.
My love.
I scrub soap all over my hair and body.
I step into the now warm water and watch red rivers wash off my skin, spiraling down the drain.
Fuck .
I am covered in blood.
Some of it is Maria’s, and that makes me want to howl like a wounded beast.
But most, I am sure, is that dead fucking pig’s blood.
And that placates me.
I don’t care what it takes to convince her to stay with me.
But I’m going to do it.
She took a bullet meant for me.
My heart squeezes. I never want her in danger again.
She says she loves me.
My pulse races. I love her back. And I am going to tell her as soon as she opens her beautiful almond eyes.
Maria is my other half in every single way.
She sees the madness in me, and she doesn’t shy away.
She takes in the hard parts and sharp edges, and she cradles them to her breast.
So much. She does so much for me.
Soothes the rage.
Sates the hunger.
Makes the quiet more palatable.
I need her.
I will do anything for her.
Except leave her.
I will never do that.