Lowering into the chair beside his bed, the beep of the machine synced with my heartbeat as I held his hand and pressed my cheek against the mattress. “Hey, Danger. You scared the hell out of me. What was with the superhero act, huh? You told me you were a criminal and a bad guy—someone people should fear and run from.” Rolling my lips inward, I pressed them against the skin on his arm as tears I had no idea I had left rolled down the other side of it. “There’s no fear, Val. Only love. I’m not running from you anymore. I’m running toward you. Wake up and catch me.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Valentin
“I’m running toward you. Wake up and catch me.”
Why the hell did it feel like I was climbing a ladder in a lake full of quicksand? The higher I climbed, the farther I sank, with each step more and more difficult to take.
She was near. That much I knew. Either that, or I was fucking hallucinating her voice.
“Cere…” My voice broke, the inside of my throat feeling like I’d chewed and swallowed a handful of broken glass.
“That’s it, Danger. Come back to me.”
A surge of white light burned my eyes as I finally climbed to the top of the ladder. “Cereza?”
Her soft hand cradled my face, the familiar scent of citrus and vanilla immediately calming my nerves. “I’m here, Val. Take your time. Don’t make any sudden movements, all right?”
I blinked, taking in the stark, sterile room. “Where am I? What happened?”
“You’re in Houston Methodist.”
“Hospital?” The word settled in the base of my brain as the entire night came rushing back in a heated panic. Holding her forearm with my IVed hand and taking a strong grip on her cheek with the other, I winced at the intense pain that shot through me. “Eden, are you all right?” I forced myself to look her over. “If he hurt you, I’ll fucking kill him.”
She lowered my hands, a serious look crossing her face. “Calm down, Carrera. Mission accomplished.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Something had changed about her. She seemed calmer, wiser, a hell of a lot more self-assured, and maybe even a touch cocky. A hardness lined the corners of her mouth that wasn’t there before I walked into that basement.
I always swore Eden Lachey didn’t belong in my world. From the look in her eyes and the ruthless smile that curved the corners of her lips, I wasn’t so sure now.
“What did you do, Eden?”
“Shooting cans is easy, Val,” she said with a knowing glint in her eye. “You just hold the gun on your target, allow your finger to barely touch the trigger, and let it go limp.”
As she threw my own words back in my face, I knew immediately what she’d done. I looked away, not wanting to hear her say it any more than she wanted to admit it.
She’d murdered Manuel Muñoz.
Still, her supreme smugness drove me to point out one glaring omission she seemed to gloss over. “Eden, Marisol Muñoz is still out there.”
Acknowledging me with a curt nod, Eden intertwined our fingers, turning them so her palm faced up. “Marisol Muñoz won’t be a problem. Call it women’s intuition, whatever you want. She said it herself; she doesn’t have the stomach for the rough stuff. She’s a planner. Without an army, she’s nothing.”
“Cereza, she has an entire cartel.”
She shook her head defiantly. “No, Manuel had an entire cartel. Why do you think she hid behind him the entire time? Do you seriously think all those men would pledge their allegiance to a woman who couldn’t even stay in the same room to witness her biggest enemy’s execution? I don’t think so. No, she’s in the wind.”
Fuck, I loved that woman’s mind. “You’re kind of brilliant, Eden Lachey.”
“Aw, you’re just saying that because it’s true.” Flashing a devoted smile, she squeezed our hands.
“Get your ass in this bed,” I commanded, pulling the sheet back.
Her brows pulled together as she glanced around at the wires hooked up to me. “I don’t know, Val. The bullet tore your liver. You were in surgery a long time. I don’t want to bruise anything.”
“The only thing you’re going to bruise is my ego if you don’t get that hot ass beside me, Cereza.”
Moving slowly, she snuggled in, taking care to keep her weight off me. I ran my fingers through her hair as she played with the frayed edges of my hospital gown. “Val, can I ask you a question?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“Why was Brody with you? How do you know him, and how did you find me? I was out most of the time, but I know we were in a car and a plane, then a boat. Eventually we crossed the border to that god-awful house in the middle of nowhere. There’s no way you found that by accident.”
I debated on whether to tell her the truth, then decided what we went through in that basement had given us a clean slate. Lying to her would only taint it. Taking her questions one at a time, I explained my relationship with Brody Harcourt, and how he used his connections to track her to the rural house that didn’t exist.
Reaching under the neckline of the ugly scrubs she wore, I pulled out the broken Santa Muerte pendant and tapped it. “GPS.”
As she glanced down at the pendant in my hands she shook her head and frowned. “You tracked me like a dog too? What the fuck is wrong with you, Val?”
Raising a hand, I effectively silenced her. “You can be mad at me all you want, but I won’t be sorry. You were volatile before we left, and I couldn’t take the risk of something happening to you. Besides,” I said, giving it one last tap, before letting it drop back down against her taped ribs. “It saved your life.”
She sat silent for a moment. I watched her, waiting for the eventual curve of a smile that told me I was forgiven. Eden never stayed mad at me for long.
Yet, the longer the muscles in her jaw tightened, the more rattled I became. In any other situation, we’d argue, throw shit, hurl insults, then fuck the mad out of each other until we couldn’t walk. That’s just the way Eden and I worked.
But, lying in a hospital bed, with a newly-closed gash healing above my stomach, sex was off the table. I didn’t know how to reach her, and I didn’t like it. “Eden?”
“I’m still mad at you,” she finally offered, running the pad of her thumb across the top of mine. “But I don’t have a good argument for what you said. You’re right. It did save my life, and I guess I should be grateful.”
“Damn right you should.”
She fought a smile. “Don’t push it.”
I studied her face as a piece of candy-red hair fell across her eye. Pushing it back, her gaze lowered to the wires protruding from my chest. If anyone had told me a month ago—hell, a week ago—I’d have made the risky decisions I did to be with her, I’d have laughed in their face. I’d been a man who built a reputation on fear and destruction. Emotional attachments had no place in my world and only served to weaken me. I’d never missed something I’d never had.
The second Eden Lachey stormed into my life, something inside me knew I’d never be the same. As volatile as our circumstances were, I knew she’d be the one to get in and make me question everything I’d ever known. After touching her for the first time, I vowed I'd never be denied the light she brought to my darkness or the morality she crossed with my wickedness.