Bow Down(186)

I wasn’t sure I was pregnant. It was probably too soon to take the test, but I didn’t need it. I knew I was having his baby, knew it the second that danger started. I’d had this overwhelming urge to save myself, not for my own life, but for the life growing inside me.

In the end, we’d gotten out of there, both of us. And we’d gotten out of there with our tape. I felt the weight of my bag against my shoulder and took a deep, steadying breath.

It was time to go find out what we had nearly died for.





26





Rafa





Three days in a fucking hospital bed.

Three fucking days. I hated sitting still for an hour, let alone for three fucking days. I wasn’t the kind of man to go and actually listen to a doctor’s orders, and I would have been out of that bed in a day if it weren’t for her.

Cassidy never left my side the whole fucking time, except for when I begged her to go eat a meal or to take a shower. Otherwise, she was sitting with me, talking with me, laughing with me, or just watching television in silence with me.

Three days. That was a long time when you were stuck in a bed with only one person to keep you company. We learned a lot about each other in those three days.

I told her things I never thought I’d tell someone. I talked about my childhood. I talked about my wants and my fears, my deepest fucking desires. And she told me the same. She talked about her ambitions, her need to try to save the city. It only made me admire her all that much more.

She was stronger than she realized. The girl was a champion. She could do absolutely anything if she wanted to, and the more we talked, the more I was convinced of that.

And the more I wanted her. I kept thinking about coming deep between her legs and wished that I could get out of the damn fucking bed and take her like I really wanted to.

Instead, we talked. She told me about her parents, about her first boyfriend, and about college. I told her about the first man I killed, a story I never thought I’d tell.

Time slowly dripped past, and finally the doctor gave me the okay.

I woke up that morning, excited as fuck to finally be getting out of bed and out on my own. There was a knock at the door, and Cassidy came inside.

Wheeling a wheelchair.

“Fuck no,” I said.

She stared at me. “You’re getting in it.”

“Fuck off,” I said.

She couldn’t help herself. She cracked and broke into a huge smile. “I’m just kidding.”

“Asshole,” I said, standing up. I was wearing clothes she had brought me from our room the day before. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Doctor signed off?”

“Fuck the doctor. I signed off.” I walked past her, out into the hall and back toward our room.

“How’s it feel?” she asked.

“Damn good. I hated being in that room.”

“Oh come on, at least you had company.”

I grinned at her. “True. Damn sexy company.”

“Enough with that.” She couldn’t hide her smile.

“Come on. We have some work to do.”

She sighed. “Already?”

“Already. We talked about this.”

She stopped, crossing her arms. “You need to recover more.”

“No. We need to show Vince.”

I could see the uncertainty, but we were doing things my way from now on.

The first morning, Cassidy came into my bedroom. She didn’t say a word, just hooked up a VHS player to the television in the corner and put the tape in. We both watched as one of Ernesto’s top lieutenants joked about stealing money from the mafia to start his own whorehouse on the side. He bragged that nobody knew about it.

I had no clue how it had been recorded. It was probably a security tape, though the sound was pretty fucking good. There wasn’t much context, just Marco the idiot sitting on a blue couch wearing his usual dark suit. I couldn’t tell who he was talking to, and the tape stopped when he stopped talking.

We were showing Vince, and then we were deciding where to go from there. No more fucking around; no more making mistakes. We needed his help.

“Come on,” I said, “hand it over.”

She reluctantly gave me the tape. “I still think we should do this ourselves.”

“Yeah, I know. We’re doing it my way now.”

“Okay.” She followed me when I started walking toward the office.

I knew Vince would be in there. He always was. That bastard was constantly working, which wasn’t so bad. I opened the door and stepped in, and he looked up from what he was doing.

“You’re alive,” he said.

“Barely.” I grinned at him.

“Good to see you up.”

“You act like I’ve never been shot before.”