Packing Heat(50)

For what reason, though, I couldn’t guess. I was feeling too tired to really think properly. Everything felt fuzzy and heavy, the world a spinning haze of colors and motion.

Everything was moving slowly, like at the bottom of a swimming pool. I had thoughts, but they left just as soon as they came. I couldn’t hold on to anything, no matter how hard I tried.

“Rafa!”

What the hell are you yelling about?

“Rafa! Rafa! Wake up!”

I’m right here. I’m awake.

“Rafa!”

A sharp sting across my face.

I jolted back to consciousness. I blinked at Cassidy, worry and fear etched into her face. “I’m good,” I managed to say.

“I don’t know where I’m going.”

I sat up and looked around. “Okay,” I said. “I can get us there.”

“Where? The hospital?”

“No. Compound.”

“You’re dying, Rafa! We need a hospital!”

“There’s one at the compound. Drive.”

She stared at me, terrified, but did as I asked.

I felt like I was on the verge of passing out again, but I had to resist it. I had to stay conscious and keep talking if I wanted to stay alive. This wasn’t the first time I’d been shot, but this was the worst. I was losing blood faster than I would have guessed.

She started driving like a maniac, and I gave her directions. I just kept talking, babbling really, saying a bunch of nonsense. I managed to get us out of the city and on the right path to the compound.

We pulled down the long road to the compound, and she blew right through the front gate. I smiled to myself but stopped speaking. I knew shit was about to go down, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

She roared the car into the front lot. I felt so damn tired and so damn heavy. I looked down and the seat was soaked with my blood.

The last thing I remembered before the world stopped was Cassidy yelling and someone grabbing hold of my arms.





25





Cassidy





I was drenched in Rafa’s blood. I’d never been covered in someone else’s blood before.

He had just been shot in the calf. I had thought he was going to be fine, but he hadn’t stopped bleeding. It had been coming so fast, I could barely believe it.

I thought he had died. But when I hit him, he came back to consciousness, and he managed to hold on long enough to get us back to the compound.

When I drove the car straight through the security gate, they descended on us like a swarm. That was good, though, because they quickly figured out what was happening, and men were there, grabbing Rafa and pulling him out of the car.

I was slumped in a chair in the waiting room of the mansion’s health clinic. Apparently, they had a full-time doctor and nursing staff, ready and waiting for things like this. Rafa had been dragged in there, and I’d been left alone in the waiting room, covered in his blood and blaming myself.

It was my fault.

Rafa hadn’t wanted to go from the very start. He had argued against it, wanted some backup, wanted to go to Vince. But I had pushed back, insisted that the Spiders wouldn’t do this to me, wouldn’t do this to us. I was the one who had pushed, and he had gone along with it.

Now he was in surgery, and I had no clue if he was going to survive.

My mind flashed back to what had happened in that house. It had seemed so quiet, so normal. I hadn’t seen anybody or sensed any movement as we went into that kitchen. I’d grabbed the tape and slipped it into my bag, and as soon as I walked back toward the living room, someone hit me and shoved a bag over my head.

That was when the world exploded.

He had forced me to run. I hadn’t wanted to leave him there to fight for his life, but he’d been right; they hadn’t tried to kill me. And when they pinned me down in the alleyway, they weren’t trying to hurt me. They were trying to recruit me.

I could hear their voices. “Cassidy,” she had said, “you can join us. Leave those monsters. We need reporters like you to spread the good word.”

“What are you talking about?” I had asked.

“Join us,” she insisted. “Before it’s too late.”

That was when Rafa appeared and scared them off. He was already bleeding at that point, but he still managed to get them away. I didn’t waste a second. I just ran and got the car as fast as I could.

He had saved my life twice. And now he was going to die, all because I had forced him into a situation he hadn’t wanted to be in.

My child was going to grow up without a father. That thought hit me like a ton of bricks to the chest. I had a baby growing inside me, and Rafa was the father. If he died, my baby wouldn’t have a father, and I’d have one death on my hands.