"What?"
"Thank you. For saving him."
I hang up without responding.
My hands are shaking now. Both of them. I set the phone down on the kitchen counter and press my palms flat against the cool surface, forcing myself to breathe.
Guns. Security. A cartel hunting for the man bleeding in my bedroom.
This is my life now. Again.
CHAPTER TEN
Dante
The bedroom door feels like a prison wall. I've been shot before. Twice in the shoulder, once in the thigh. A bullet near the kidney isn't going to keep me flat on my back.
I push myself up. The pain hits like a freight train, white-hot and blinding. My stitches pull. Something warm trickles down my side.
Don't care.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. The room tilts. I grab the nightstand, knuckles going white, and force myself vertical.
One step. Two. The floor feels like it's made of water.
I reach the door and pull it open.
Marina stands in the hallway, phone in her hand.
She rolls her eyes.
"I don't care." Her voice is flat. "Die. Do whatever the hell you need to do. Bleed out on my carpet. I'll send the cleaning bill to Lorenzo."
"Well—"
"No." She holds up a hand. "You don't get to talk right now. Lorenzo just told me we might need to stay put longer than a day. Maybe a week. The cartel is watching the roads and the airfields. He's sending guns. Two Glocks. And bullets. And he's doubling the security detail to eight men around the building."
She's pacing now, her words tumbling out fast and sharp.
"Eight men, Dante. Eight armed men watching my apartment building."
I lean against the doorframe.
"And there's a special knock pattern now," she continues. "Three quick, pause, two slow. Like we're in some kind of spy movie. Except it's not a movie. It's my life. My apartment. My?—"
"Marina."
"—carefully rebuilt existence that you just demolished in one night. I had a routine. I had a job. I had plants that I watered on a schedule. And now I have cartel hitmen and Glock 19s and?—"
"No one is going to hurt you."
She stops pacing. Turns to face me.
"What?"
"No one." I push off the doorframe. Stand on my own two feet even though it costs me. "Is going to hurt you."
She moves toward me. Not away. Toward.
