4
Trees recoiled as if he’d suffered a mortal body blow. Laila screamed, watching helplessly as blood sprayed from his right side. Then warm wetness splashed across her cheek. A splatter of red stained her pristine white blouse. He stumbled back. Horror filled her as he tripped on his huge feet and toppled back, falling, falling…like a giant redwood felled by an ax.
As he hit the ground, his head smacked the asphalt with a sickening thud. His eyes slid shut. His body went limp. His gun fell from his lax grip.
He didn’t move.
“Trees!” she screeched, wildly elbowing Victor.
As soon as Laila got free, she skidded to her knees and crawled the remaining distance between them. Her heart raced. She trembled, tears stinging her eyes as she felt her way up his body. On his right, she encountered something warm and wet. When she lifted her hand, blood coated her fingers. Panic surged. “Trees!”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t even twitch.
That terrified Laila even more. His chest moved with each breath, and his pulse was seemingly steady, too. She was grateful for that. But he exhibited no other signs of life.
Her head screamed at her to save him, even as she prayed this wasn’t happening. But it was, and she needed to act.
Her racing thoughts jumbled, making every thought seem agonizingly slow. Instinctively, she applied direct pressure to his wound, pressing her previously white skirt to his side, just as she caught sight of a movement up the street. Matt hovered in the shadows between the two houses where Trees had kissed her minutes ago. Dios mío, she wished she could go back and make him stay there safely. But it was too late, and now she didn’t know the extent of his injuries. What if he wasn’t merely bleeding? What if the blow to his head had caused trauma or the bullet had triggered internal damage? Or what if Victor took him prisoner to torture him before finishing him off?
She couldn’t let that happen.
Help him, she mouthed at Matt.
But the stranger in the hat turned blurry. Laila hadn’t even realized she was crying. It wasn’t helpful. It wouldn’t solve anything. She needed to stop and do something more productive. But when she blinked away the wetness pouring from her eyes, Matt was gone, melted into the shadows, apparently prepared to let Trees die ignominiously in the middle of a ramshackle Mexican road.
She alone would save him.
Pressing her skirt tighter against Trees’s side, Laila tried to stem the bleeding, but red kept oozing from the wound and spreading up the white cotton. It was everywhere, abundant and horrifying. Panic set in. Trees needed medical attention now. But he wouldn’t get it here. This little village had no hospital.
Still, Laila refused to give up. She continued pressing her skirt to the wound and started silently pleading with the God she was sure had forsaken her long ago to spare his life. “Please! Trees, no. Do not…” Die. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word. “Stay with me.”
Suddenly, Victor’s cruel fingers gripped her hair, tugging her by her scalp. “Get up. Right now! The only man you get on your hands and knees for is me when I fuck you.”
Laila opened her mouth to object, but he yanked so viciously she staggered to her feet.
“You lied to me about your feelings for him,” he snapped. “So he will stay here and rot in the street. And you can remember him, bleeding out and far from home while he took his last breath. Now we’re leaving…unless your claim that Montilla’s men are nearby was a lie, too?”
Everything inside her resisted abandoning Trees. She ached to stay and get him help, until he could open his eyes and protect the world again. But if she did, Victor would only put another bullet in him.
As much as it killed her, she could keep him safer by getting Victor far away. Hopefully, Matt or some good Samaritan would render Trees aid once she and Victor were gone.
“I-it was not a lie.” She stopped fighting those brutal fingers. “I swear.”
“Now that shots have been fired, it’s no longer safe here.” He yanked even tighter on her hair. “And tonight I will remind you why I was the first man to shove his cock in your tight, dirty pussy and why I will also be the last.”
Laila wasn’t shocked that Victor had been the one to forcibly take her virginity in that dark, dank bed all those years ago, just as she didn’t doubt he would make the next rape even more harsh and painful.
She’d been a fool to believe she could play him. She’d strutted in with her guns, her bravado, and her scheme, doing her best to convince him that she knew how to game the cartel. He’d bested her instead, pretending to be her partner, saying he no longer cared about owning her body. He’d merely placated her for the bargaining chip she’d sworn she had. Once she’d opened her mouth and proven herself an amateur, he’d seized control of the situation—and her. He would use both to his satisfaction.
She had made her bed; now she had to lie in it. But Trees…
He lay sprawled in the street, a puddle of blood forming around his body. She saw no sign of Matt. A few townsfolk stood around with wary eyes, staring at his unmoving form but not daring to help.
Suddenly, Gustavo Pastrana strode from the office and toward the cluster of observers with a cocky swagger. They parted to make a path for him. He passed each by, approaching Trees with purpose.
Then he held up a blowtorch, and his grin turned evil.
Laila tried to scream, hoping someone kind would help the man she loved, but Victor slapped his sweaty palm over her mouth and dragged her inside the warehouse just as the mechanic lit the flame on his device.
She tried to dig in her heels, but it didn’t matter. Victor shoved her across the hot, musty interior, toward the truck. He only released his vicious hold on her long enough to hoist her up through the driver’s-side door and shove her into the cab. Laila scrambled across the bench seat, reaching for the passenger door so she could flee and help Trees.
Victor merely seized her hair again, his fist at her nape, and yanked her into her seat. “You’re not going anywhere. Buckle up. Don’t try anything else or there will be a price.”
There always was. But maybe she could use his greed for her to Trees’s advantage.
“I will give you every part of me without a single protest for as long as you wish if you let me find him medical attention and get him to safety,” she offered earnestly, reaching for the buttons of her blouse.
Victor cut her a nasty glance. “Gustavo is tending to him now, so it’s too late. Besides, you will give me all of you for as long as I wish, regardless. Now shut up.”
Grief sent her tears pooling and plunging down her face. Bartering her body for her bed and her food would be next, no doubt. She hadn’t taken her guns into town, and he would soon seize her phone so she would be helpless again. But she no longer cared what happened to her. Trees’s death was her fault. If she hadn’t recklessly believed she could outsmart Victor, she might still be with him. Now the man she loved had paid with his life.
Victor turned the engine over, then stuck his hand out the window, gesturing to a boy working in the warehouse. The kid opened the door, and Victor gunned the truck, taking a right out of the giant, dilapidated building. Laila tried to peer through the back window for a glimpse of Trees—hoping against all odds that someone had saved him—but she only saw a cadre of well-armed men racing down the street, pointing in their direction, then hopping into a beat-up sedan, gunning their engines in pursuit, and pointing what looked like machine guns out their windows.
Shock swallowed her gasp. Were they Montilla’s sicarios?
“Victor!” she warned him. “Behind us.”