“Antonio!” Charly cried.
Jacaré fell on him and tried to grab the wrist holding the knife.
But he kept the man at bay with one arm and Antonio quickly swung the knife toward his adversary, plunging the blade straight into his unscarred eye.
Jacaré emitted a bloodcurdling scream before collapsing on his side with the knife still embedded. Antonio swung a leg across the man’s torso, straddling him. Grabbing the knife, he leaned into it, lowering his face extremely close to Jacare’s until Antonio caught a whiff of his dying breath.
“Making it a head shot,” he paraphrased Jacaré’s previous taunting words. “For Luis and for Dante.” He plunged deeper.
“And this.” He twisted it. “For daring to touch my woman.” The body under him convulsed and jerked in the throes of imminent death. Antonio held him down until he stilled.
“Antonio …” Charly whispered uncertainly.
He became aware of his fractured breathing. The bloodlust surrounding his vision receded and he turned to her.
His woman.
His everything.
Charly was sitting on the floor, her smile tentative.
He tried to smile back, but the blood on his hands was still too fresh for such an expression.
It was done. Marco “Jacaré” Cordova was finally dead and he wasn’t coming back.
“Charly and I are infected,” Antonio muttered into his mic as he crawled to her. “Take precautions.”
“Copy that,” Gabby said.
A split second later, the first thump of the battering ram shook the door.
Before he reached her, she whispered, “Don’t. I’m—”
“Fuck that,” he growled, grabbing her in his arms and kissing the fuck out of her. He ignored her pushing him away and she eventually surrendered to the kiss.
The team broke into the room in a resounding crash, but they remained oblivious. Antonio was lost in the relief and aftermath of the nightmare.
“Holy mother of God,” someone commented at the mess in the room.
When he finally broke the kiss, Antonio was baffled at the look of despair in Charly’s face.
“Now I’ve infected you too,” she wailed.
“You think I give a damn?” Antonio snarled. “And what was this ‘shoot me’ nonsense earlier? You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“It gave you an opening, didn’t it?” she yelled.
“What if he actually shot you!” he roared back.
“He didn’t and now he’s dead. So, why are you yelling?”
“Don’t ever, ever do that again,” he snapped.
“Oh, you’re the only one who gets to do badass crap?” she sniffed.
A growl rumbled deep in his throat. Antonio now knew what his reaction would be when the life of the woman he loved was threatened—blind to everything except eliminating said threat with feral intensity. Someone coughed behind them. He glanced over his shoulder, seeing Kelso and some of his team hovering over Jacaré’s body, but all their attention was at the spat happening between Charly and him.
“Don’t mind us,” the detective said.
Antonio turned back to Charly. She was looking feverish, but it might be from being mad at him. “What you did was insane.” The desire to lock her up on an island fortress had its appeal.
“Said the man who stuck a knife in a man’s eye,” Charly looked over Antonio’s shoulder. “It was self-defense, by the way,” she told the LAPD.
“Gatinha.” This time Antonio captured her face so she could focus only on him. “We need to work on a code before you do crazy shit like that again.”
“It might have been the XZite in the mix. I’m feeling a bit sassy despite feeling like shit,” Charly groaned. “I can’t believe you kissed me! I’ll never forgive myself if you get it. I should have stopped you, but I missed you so much …”
“We’ll take the antiviral,” Antonio said, not understanding her distress. “You know it’s effective.”
“It’s the third mutation in the series.” She cupped his face as if to stress her point. “We’re not sure if the antiviral I created works.”
“Fuck. Are you saying it’s a new strain?” Kelso asked.
“Yes,” Charly said. “I saw Sandra die.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. When her eyes opened, she said, “Antonio, I don’t think I’ll be able to tweak the antiviral in time.”
“Don’t say that,” he said fiercely and then turned to Kelso. “Get us into Downtown Medical. I want us both in the same room.”
“That’s not my call,” Kelso told him.
“That might not be possible,” Charly said.
Antonio helped her to her feet. “It will be. I don’t care if I have to buy the whole damned hospital because I’m done being separated from you.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “You’re crazy.”
This time, a smile managed to form on his lips. “Minha querida, I never said I was sane.”
32
Garrison
He had no choice. If he didn’t do this Charly could die. Antonio too if that son of a bitch had caught the virus already.
Here in a quiet apartment complex in West Hollywood on the morning after the raid, he stood in front of a multi-family structure. He rounded the garage on the street level and went up the steps to the third floor, taking a deep breath before knocking on the door.
Footsteps filtered toward the apartment foyer, but the door didn’t open. Garrison forced himself to remain patient and waited. He felt eyes on him, the indecision of the person behind the door to let him in. He didn’t blame her. He’d been the biggest asshole to her in the past few days. The problem was he didn’t know how to handle not being an asshole especially when people got too close.
He would have pounded on the door again, but instead let her process the inevitability.
Finally, the mahogany slab opened.
Nadia stood there, her blond hair free from the ponytail or tight bun she usually wore at work. He hated seeing the dark circles beneath her gorgeous hazel eyes. But he hated seeing the fear on her face the most.
“You promised,” she rasped.
“I promised to hold them off as much as I could. There is no other way.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“Can I come in?” he countered.
Her mouth tightened but she stepped aside. Garrison entered, his eyes looking around
