"Oh, honey..."
"He wouldn't let me take him," she added on a full-on sob.
"Jairo?" Faith asked, meaning her son.
"A son's place is with their father, he says," she said, reaching up to wipe the tears away.
"You have the girls with you?"
She nodded, sniffling. "But my son..."
"You'll get him back, Ria," she said, her voice with so much finality that Maria somehow regained faith.
See, Maria didn't know that Faith meant that very afternoon.
Because once in a blue moon, not often, but when the situation called for it, she asked a favor of the girls at the front desk. That favor was generally the address of the shitheads who put their hands on women they were supposed to love and take care of.
Then she would grab a few things from over at the gym.
And she'd paid those men a little visit.
When she left Jairo Sr.'s place two hours later, her knuckles were bruised and bloody and she had an eight-year old Jairo Jr.'s hand holding hers hard enough to make her wince with the pain against her sore fingers, but she didn't make him let go. Not until she delivered him into the hands of his mother who hugged him for so long and tight that they both were gasping for breath when they released.
Maria's eyes went over Faith's body and a ghost of a smile played on her face as Jairo ran off to greet his sisters. "He sees what it is like to bleed," she said with a nod.
"And if he ever forgets it, Maria, I will be happy to pay him another visit."
With that, she took herself to work, running late yet again and feeling beyond frazzled because of it.
She was in the panic room behind Vin's usual table in the bar, restocking the food they kept in supply in case of an extended stay when she heard someone clear their throat behind her.
"Pretty nifty little room," Daniel said as she slowly turned. But the smile quickly fell from his face as his eyes found a splatter of blood on the lower hem of her shirt and then he got a look at her hands that, while she cleaned them up, still looked pretty bad. "What the fuck, Faith?"
She held up one of her hands, palms-out. "I don't want a lecture, Daniel."
"I wasn't going to lecture you, babe. I was going to ask what the hell happened to your hands."
She swallowed a little hard and gave him a shrug. "Sometimes wife beaters need to have their asses handed to them so they see how it feels. Especially when they're holding a woman's kid as a hostage."
"Jesus fucking Christ, woman," he said, sighing a little as he ran a hand through his hair. "I know you are strong and badass and all that shit, but would it fucking kill you to reach out and ask for backup on situations like this?"
"Look, Trey and..."
"I was talking about me," he said with a depth of meaning she did not miss. He was offended that she wouldn't even think of leaning on him.
"Look, Daniel, I'm just... I'm not used to having someone who would come when I called, okay?"
"No. No that's not o-fucking-kay. I understand it, but it's whacked and says a lot about the kind of guys you've had in your life."
"Besides," she said, attempting a smile because she was uncomfortable with the conversation. To her, this was a little soon. They'd known each other just over a week. They just started having sex the night before. Hell, most of the guys she dated for months didn't want to be called with her problems. "I don't even have your cell number," she said, attempting levity.
For whatever reason, though, that seemed to be the wrong thing to say. She knew that because where he was standing outside the panic room door a second ago, he was suddenly inside it and toe-to-toe with her, his hand going behind her and pulling her cell out of her back pocket.
"Unlock this," he demanded, handing it to her and she punched in her code and handed it back to him. He clicked around for a minute before holding the screen out to her where she saw his name and number in her contacts. "Now you have my number. And if you go off like some one woman war machine again, fucking give me a heads-up first, alright?"
"Look, Daniel," she said, tucking her phone away and lifting her chin a little.
"Don't," he cut her off, shaking his head.
"Don't what?"
"Don't give me that 'I'm a strong, independent woman who doesn't need to answer to any...'"
"I don't nor will I ever fucking answer to anyone," she cut him off.
"And if you would listen," he said, giving her a small grin, "you would know that I was going to finish that with an agreement of all those statements. You are strong and independent and you have more training than most men I have ever met and you can handle yourself. And you don't need to answer to anyone. But people care about you, Faith. I'm not saying you have to give me a heads-up so you can get my approval; I'm saying give me a heads-up so I can help. And if I can't help, at least I know to worry about you if I don't hear from you. This isn't some bullshit power struggle here, babe, so if maybe you could stop assuming I am trying to keep you under my thumb, we could avoid useless arguments."