35. Chapter 34
Chapter 34
R amiro held Summer’s hand. It felt so fragile, cupped between his. He stared down at the blood under her cracked nails.
Nothing else existed. Nothing but Summer’s hand.
The hospital had ordered a rape kit. Of course they had. She’d been with Ovidio and his men for days.
Ramiro’s eyes squeezed shut, but he forced them open again, forced himself to stare at that delicate, bruised hand.
The doctors had checked the baby’s heartbeat, and he’d heard the thrumming that meant there was hope, but they hadn’t promised anything. They’d done their tests, and they’d continued to monitor, but their faces remained so damn remote.
Summer was no longer bleeding, but she lay so still, like the very essence of her had leaked away. She hadn’t once looked at him, hadn’t talked to the doctors. The pain medication they’d given her had let the tension in her face ease. She looked like a lifeless doll, motionless except for the slow rise and fall of her chest, and those damn beeping machines, the sounds increasing the pounding in his head.
His mind clung to the beeping even as he hated it.
Summer was alive. She and her daughter. Ramiro hadn’t been there for them, but they were alive. It had to be enough.
She was there, no matter how broken. She was still there.
His vision fogged, but he blinked, wanting to see her, no matter how the sight tore into him.
“Ram.” Diego’s voice seeped into his awareness. “We need to get you checked out.”
The pounding in Ramiro’s head wanted to shatter his skull. His bandaged hand had become one steady ache. His shoulder had gone numb at least, but the ache in his stomach kept making him think of the baby.
“I’m not leaving her.”
“Because passing out next to her hospital bed will be so fucking helpful.”
Ramiro had already refused medical treatment and didn’t want to waste energy arguing. The fingers of his good hand stroked over hers, rewarded with a slight twitch.
Diego moved around him, trying to pull his gaze away from her. Ramiro refused to look at him.
“Fuck,” Diego muttered, sinking onto the edge of the unused hospital bed.
Tears soaked Ramiro’s face, but he didn’t care who saw them. If he ignored Diego long enough, he’d go away .
“It wasn’t your fault,” Diego murmured.
He was wrong. So wrong. Ramiro had failed. He’d promised to take care of her, always, and he hadn’t.
“They bashed in your head. Shot you multiple times. You weren’t even fucking awake.”
Excuses. Broken fucking excuses.
Ramiro’s vision narrowed to her delicate hand, covered in green and purple bruises. Bruises that he wished he could carry for her, but he couldn’t.
Summer hadn’t said anything since they’d reached the hospital. The words she’d spoken while bleeding on the ground in that house rang in his ears. “You never came.”
He hadn’t. He’d promised, but he hadn’t.
More tears dripped down his face.
“I was awake,” Diego said. “If you need to blame someone, blame me.”
Fury flared for a brief instant but seeped away again. “I kept her close,” Ramiro rasped, his throat dry and tight. “All these years, I kept her too close.”
Diego rose, his hand heavy on Ramiro’s shoulder. “Fine. When she’s all healed up, just let her go.”
Ramiro’s eyes squeezed shut. He couldn’t do that. Summer needed him. She would need him now more than ever, and he’d promised to be there. He couldn’t break that promise again.
“I—”
A sharp sting throbbed in his neck.
“Sorry. Doctor’s orders.”
Ramiro’s eyes fluttered open, and he stared up at Diego, who tossed something in the trash. Diego moved around the bed, two of him, then back to one as he shoved the second bed as close as he could, pinning Ramiro’s chair in.
“Get your ass into this bed.”
Ramiro’s hand tried to slide off hers. “Summer,” he mumbled, curling his fingers around her but barely feeling it.
“She’ll be here. You both will.”
Diego was pushing and prodding him. Ramiro wanted to punch him, but just shifting made him stagger.
His hands felt cold. They no longer touched Summer. He tried to say her name again, but a pillow cushioned his aching head, and his eyes closed against the dizziness taking over.
“Summer.” His lips formed the syllables.
The world shifted and swayed. The beeping still hummed in the room. He clung to that as the dizziness rose and swept him away.
“ I t’s fine,” a voice said quietly. A male voice.
There’d been a lot of those voices. Too many. Ones from the past and new ones melding into a nightmare Summer couldn’t wake up from. A nightmare filled with voices and hands and grunts and pain .
“He needed the fucking treatment. We admitted to the break-in at his house, even sent the cops there. It’s not a lie to say that’s where the injuries came from.”
Forget about the voice. Think about the bridge.
She’d wanted to die on that bridge. When had it become a refuge?
That had happened the moment Ramiro dragged her into his arms. She wanted to be there again, curled up with the person she loved. His warm presence wrapped around hers would make her feel safe, even if it was a lie.
“He was extremely lucky. Shot three times, and all three missed anything vital. Someone was looking out for him.”
“Now you remind me of Hannah.”
Summer forced her eyes open. The back of a man was close to her. Too close. She bit down on a whimper.
The man had a white coat on. He bent over the nearby bed as a beeping thudded in Summer’s ears.
“The hand will be the worst because of all the muscles and tendons and bone damage. Granulation tissue growth has already begun, which is a good sign, but he’s sure to lose some functionality. Still, Ramiro is a lucky bastard.”
Summer’s eyes moved past the man. Ramiro’s face shined under the fluorescent lights, washed out, with a stark white bandage wrapped around his head. He didn’t look at all how she’d been imagining.
Her throat became even more dry as she stared. Ramiro had been shot. She’d thought he was dead .
The doctor shifted away, and Summer saw Ramiro’s torso. Long seconds passed, but when it rose under the white hospital sheet at last, she finally took her own breath.
Diego was in the room talking to the doctor, but their voices faded to indecipherable noise as she stared at Ramiro. His arm hung off the bed, the unbandaged hand dangling in the space between them, as if reaching toward her.
Summer wanted that hand. She could imagine the heat of it so clearly against her own.
She reached into the space, but she couldn’t close the distance. Her fingers brushed against his.
“Here,” Diego murmured as he moved to the opposite side of Ramiro’s hospital bed and shoved it closer until they were side by side.
Ramiro’s hand no longer hovered. It rested on her bed, limp and huge. Summer laid hers over it, watching the lines near his mouth fade.
“He came for you as soon as he could,” Diego said. “You know that, don’t you?” He wasn’t looking at her, which she was glad of. She didn’t want to be seen.
Ramiro had been with her during all of it. The memory of him had been the thing she’d clung to.
Summer’s fingers linked with his. She tugged his hand up near her face. His skin didn’t smell of Ramiro; it smelled of soap or antiseptic or something.
“I’m so sorry,” Diego murmured .
Summer didn’t want to hear any more. She nuzzled against Ramiro’s hand and closed her eyes, imagining him the way she was used to—steady and strong and larger than life. She could almost hear him calling her his baby girl.
The thought made her afraid to look at her stomach. She no longer felt the pain there that she’d felt before. Did that mean the baby was already gone?
Her eyes burned behind the closed lids.
Diego said something else. She didn’t care enough to listen.
Instead, she remembered the flash of headlights passing so fast below her on that bridge.
Ramiro had done the wrong thing that night. He should have let her jump.
R amiro felt like a boulder had crushed him, but the feeling faded when he opened his eyes and saw Summer.
She was right in front of him. She was crying, the tears silent and shimmering in her blue eyes, but she was there.
“I’m here,” he rasped, reaching for her with his bandaged but numb hand.
Summer flinched away, making him freeze, ice piercing his chest. Her tears fell faster.
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words cut by a sob.
Her apology ripped him open. “No,” he choked out. “Don’t be sorry. ”
She moved closer, reaching for him. “Please. I need you.”
His arm wrapped around her, and then she was pressed against him. He held her close, as tight as he dared, and she buried her face in his neck. Her tears there felt familiar. Holding her through them never got easier.
He realized he probably shouldn’t have moved her, but it was too late for that. “The baby?” he asked thickly.
Summer cried harder.
Tears rose in Ramiro’s eyes, and he pressed them into her hair. He might never get to hold her daughter. There would be a permanent hole inside him if that were true.
But he got to hold Summer. She was hurting, but she was there with him, despite him not deserving it.
“I’m sorry,” he cried into her hair. “They hurt you. I’m so sorry I didn’t get there in time.”
Her body curled into his as if she could hide inside it and disappear. He couldn’t let her disappear, but he also couldn’t take away her pain. All he could do was hold her and let her cry.
T he nurse wasn’t happy when she found Summer in Ramiro’s arms. Summer tuned her out, clinging to him even tighter.
His hand cupped her face as he lifted it. Her face was a mess, puffy from crying and from all the times they’d hit her. She blocked the thought .
“I’m here,” Ramiro reminded her. “I’m going to be here, but let’s let them listen to the baby.”
Summer blinked as the words penetrated. “But isn’t the baby—” The word choked in her throat. She didn’t want to say it. “I was bleeding,” she whispered instead.
“Let me call the doctors,” the nurse said.
Ramiro moved her back to her own bed before they arrived. He covered her jittery hand with one of his own as the doctors talked. There was more than one.
Blunt abdominal trauma—that’s what they called the kicks to her stomach. Kicks she’d lost track of before she’d curled into herself so they couldn’t do it. Then their kicks had fallen on her legs and arms instead.
She forced herself to focus on the doctors’ words, but none of them sounded good. Placental abruption, ruptures, and embolisms were all things they’d been worried about, but they’d examined her, and none of those things had happened. Anger spiked that they’d even brought them up if they weren’t important, but she swallowed it down. Anger was no good. She shouldn’t feel that way.
“You did hemorrhage. We were able to stop the bleeding, and from what we can tell, there was no permanent damage to the fetus. We’d like to monitor the heartbeat for another twenty-four hours, but if the rhythm remains steady, the possibility of miscarriage is unlikely.”
Summer’s hand moved to her stomach, stroking over the bump. The baby was still there .
“The bleeding—” The doctor’s gaze shifted to Ramiro before moving back to her. “We can discuss this privately, if you prefer.”
Summer was scared to hear what they had to say alone, but she was also scared for Ramiro to hear it. His hand tightened on hers. “Need me to leave?”
She stared down at his hand and shook her head. “Please, don’t go.”
“That’s fine,” the doctor soothed. “He can stay.”
She stared down at his hand as the doctors explained the vaginal laceration that had caused the bleeding, along with the additional genital injuries and trauma they had treated. It all sounded very technical, the words they used. Summer clutched at Ramiro’s hand, her nails sinking in as her breathing got more and more raspy.
When she was able to look up, the doctors were gone.
Ramiro was crying. His eyes were red, his upper cheeks soaked. His breath shuddered as he wiped at his face with his bandaged hand.
She couldn’t look away from his face. There in front of her, the fear and guilt she kept shoving away slammed her from all sides.
“Are you hurting now?” Ramiro took another shaky breath, another swipe at his face. “They offered things to help. Don’t—” He swallowed. “Don’t not say anything, if you’re hurting. ”
She shook her head, unable to force out any words. The numbness inside was melting, replaced by a darkness that wasn’t cold at all. No, a fire spread, one that threatened to burn her to ash.
She pulled away from Ramiro’s hand, seeing the bleeding marks she’d left behind.
“They hurt me.” Whose voice was that? The words had come from her, but she needed to stop them. Ramiro was already upset. He was still crying. Her feelings were only going to hurt him more, but they were too much. They burned too hot to keep inside.
“They hurt me,” she said again, “and you weren’t there.”
Ramiro flinched. “I know.”
“You weren’t there. They hurt me, and you weren’t there!” It was like she hovered outside of her body, watching the words hit him and unable to stop them.
Ramiro’s eyes glittered before becoming empty as he stared down at her bruised hand clawing into the sheet.
“Days,” she told him. “They raped me for days.”
Ramiro’s body shuddered before he locked it down, holding himself still.
He’d been shot. There was no way he could have come sooner. He would have come, if he could have. She knew that. It wasn’t fair of her to be so angry, but the anger felt good. Below it writhed something darker.
“I needed you,” she said, the writhing inside becoming worse when he flinched again. Her darkness was infecting him. She needed to make him leave. If she pushed hard enough, he’d leave, and the writhing would be all hers. It wouldn’t spill over onto him anymore.
His shoulders curled inward. He’d never looked so small.
Summer turned her head away. “I needed you, but I don’t need you anymore,” she choked out. “It’s too late. Get away from me.”
His breath hitched, but then his hand found hers, gripping it tightly. “No.”
Tears streamed out of her eyes, and she kept facing away from him as a sob broke through.
“I love you, Summer. I’m never leaving you.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Yes. I’m staying. I’m not taking my fucking eyes off you again.”
“You don’t know!” She turned to him again. “You don’t know what they left inside. The hate. The fear. The—”
Disgust. A writhing shame that made her not want to live. She couldn’t say it. Saying it out loud would let it spread.
“You can’t love me,” she whispered.Ramiro leaned in closer. “You’re wrong. I love you more than anything. If I’m alive, it’s to be with you.” He squeezed her hand almost to the point of pain. “Your anger isn’t wrong, Summer. Don’t hide it from me. Let me have all of it.”
Her breath shuddered. Her face twisted. “You weren’t there!” she shouted as her body curled up, as she remembered trying to stay just like that even as they pulled her legs apart. “They hurt me!” she sobbed out, her eyes squeezing shut. “They hurt me.”
Ramiro moved closer, his face against hers, his bandage scratchy against her forehead. He said nothing, just breathed the same air, his breaths as raspy as her own. He clutched her hand and stayed with her. She kept shouting the same things over and over again, venting all of her anger and fear until her voice got too hoarse to say any more, and he stayed through it all.
Then he said the words again, the ones she wanted so badly to believe. “I love you, Summer. So much.”
She cried in his arms, the feel of them around her better than what she’d imagined to keep the darkness at bay.