When that rich developer asshole tried to kill him and Emi this past fall, he’d reached out again. And again, I’d shut him down.
Yet, one phone call, and he’s standing at my side like nothing happened between us.
“What if she’s—what if they…” I can’t give words to my biggest fear. That the assholes who took her left her so broken, she’ll never come back to me.
“What ifs are bullshit,” Parker says softly as she takes up post on my other side. “You can what if yourself to death out here, or you can walk through that door and tell your wife you love her.”
Ain’t that the core of it? Out here, Grace is still gone. In there…I have a chance to get her back.
Despite the faded walls, the dusty roof, and the cracked, pothole-riddled parking lot, the inside of the building is pristine.
A hint of antiseptic lingers in the air. The old tile floors, though chipped in places, are hand-painted with brightly colored flowers. White plaster walls carry faint cracks, but they’ve been scrubbed spotless. Even the reception desk gleams.
“Señor Stone?” a young woman asks.
“Yes. Dr. Reyes?—”
“Sí, sí. I know. One minute. I will get him for you.” She disappears down a hallway, and the urge to call Grace’s name—to tear through the clinic until I find her—is so strong, I’m two steps after the woman before I catch myself.
It only takes the doctor a minute to emerge around a corner. “AJ. I am glad—” He stops short, his hardened gaze focused over my shoulder. “Mierda. I warned you not to tell anyone.”
“You told me not to tell anyone I didn’t trust with my life. And Grace’s. Well, these are the people who fall into that category. I sure as shit wasn’t gonna go deep into cartel territory without backup.”
Jasper sidles up next to me, his hand resting on the butt of the SIG in his holster. “Might as well get this over with,” he says, his voice as gravelly and serious as I’ve ever heard it. “We’re the only ones AJ told about Grace. But there’s one more guy back in the States who knows where we are. Anything happens to us, we don’t check in at regular intervals, and he’ll blow your town—hell, the entire Sandoval Cartel—off the fuckin’ map.”
Reyes gives a small shake of his head. “Miguel Sandoval has no interest in a war with the Texas Rangers. Nor did he have anything to do with Grace’s injuries. Of that I am certain.”
I study the man for a full minute. “He’s tellin’ the truth. At least what he knows of it. Stand down, Jas. For now. Reyes, where’s my wife?”
Jasper takes a seat in the waiting room while Parker walks the perimeter and Connor goes outside to call Pritchard and let him know we arrived safely.
“Come into my office first,” the doctor says, his polished smile gone and a weariness to the set of his shoulders. “My nurse, Lourdes, is with Grace now. I have not yet told her anything about you.”
“Why the fuck not?” I want to grab the guy and shake him, but he ushers me into a tidy office—bright walls, shelves stacked with medical texts, and a small vase of flowers on the desk.
Reyes takes a seat and steeples his fingers. “Because if you did not show up for any reason, I feared what the disappointment would do to her.”
Fuck.
“All I know of you, AJ, came from the website you set up for Grace and a few news articles online. My responsibility is to my patient, not to you.”
My anger ebbs slightly, and I take a seat in his guest chair. “You can ask me anything, Reyes. As long as you don’t make me wait much longer to see my wife. I’ve lived without her for two years, eleven months, and five days. I won’t last another hour.”
He inclines his head with a small smile. “I will save my questions for later. But you should be prepared for her physical and emotional state. When she was left on my doorstep, she had a deep stab wound to her right side. The blade missed all the major organs, and that surgery was simple. Her stitches are healing well, though she will have pain for another week, at least. She had also ingested a toxin that put her heart into arrhythmia. I sent blood samples to a lab in Chihuahua for analysis, but the results are not back yet. It is the skull fracture I was—and still am—most concerned with. It caused her brain to swell. That, along with whatever trauma she experienced at the hands of her abusers, is what led to her amnesia.”
“Is it permanent?” The lump in my throat is the size of hell’s half acre.
“The brain is the most complicated, delicate, and resilient organ in the human body, AJ. I have no answer to your question. She needs to be seen by a neurologist as soon as possible.”
“The minute it’s safe for her to travel, I’ll get her on a plane back to the States. She’ll have whatever care she needs for as long as she needs it.”
“A commercial flight would not be advisable for at least a week, perhaps longer,” Reyes says. “The air pressure change at thirty thousand feet?—”
“What if we go private? We topped out at nine thousand on the way down here.”
He nods slowly, a small frown curving his lips. “You could perhaps go as soon as tomorrow then. If she agrees. She is suffering from strong bouts of vertigo, and there is significant weakness along the left side of her body. She cannot—and should not—walk unaided yet. A fall could be catastrophic if she were to hit her head. Physical therapy will be helpful.”
I know I need to hear all of this. But every word out of the doctor’s mouth does nothing but stoke my rage. When I find the fuckers who took her, I’ll be hard pressed not to kill them. Slowly.
