“No!” I lurch to my feet and rush him head-on, aiming at his shooting arm. But I’m too late. The gun goes off. J.J. lurches and his body goes limp. I crash into the wall on the other side. Gustavo falls to the floor with a thud, then turns and aims the gun at me.
“Amador’s coming for all of Papá’s little whores,” he says, and fires again.
Pain rockets through my left side like wildfire and I’m instantly back in Afghanistan. The explosion of an IED rings in my ears. Zag huddles over me but he can’t protect me from the ensuing fire. He needs me. They all need me to live, to get them out, because otherwise, why did Zag save me?
Within seconds the bloodred darkness clears from my mind, leaving a sharp pinpoint of agony just beneath my ribcage. The deafening ring in my ears fades into Leo’s deep voice yelling my name and I’m back in the cold airplane hangar office.
I struggle to rise, to reach J.J., to get to Gustavo, who has collapsed and is struggling to breathe. I need to put that final bullet into his head for what he’s done. My head swims when I move and I only make it a few feet before blackness seeps in again.
39
Leo
“Maddox!” I bellow as I rush through the door. I stop short at the sight of the carnage inside. J.J. hangs from the ceiling, limp, a bleeding wound in the center of his chest. My vision tunnels and my skin goes ice cold. Suddenly, it isn’t his face I see, but my brother Manny’s. I rush to him, grappling at the chains above to unlock the winch mechanism holding him aloft. He rouses when I lay him on the ground.
“Manny . . .” he croaks out. No, wait, that makes no sense. He said Maddy. As he coughs up blood and struggles to turn, reality comes crashing back. I spin, heart in my throat, toward Maddox’s unconscious body. He’s twisted in a heap on the floor, arms bound behind his back. Blood pools beneath him and I turn him over, hands shaking as I press them to the bleeding wound in his side.
I dart my gaze around, hunting for something to help stanch the bleeding. J.J. is unconscious again. Maybe even dead, but I don’t want to think about that. I finally see Gustavo slumped against the wall and scramble over to him, tearing the shirt off his limp body to use as a makeshift bandage.
I pause, then grab the gun in his hand, rise to my feet, and aim the muzzle at his forehead. My blood surges as I squeeze the trigger, but all I get is a click.
“Fuck!” I toss the gun to the floor and turn back to Maddox and J.J. Ripping the shirt down the middle, I make two wads and jam them each against a bleeding wound, then close my eyes and pray.
Only a moment later I hear sirens. Then the place is teeming with people in uniforms, which is the last thing I expected when Celeste said help was on the way. Paramedics pull me off the floor and take over checking Maddox and his brother’s wounds. They check me out too, but none of the blood on my skin is mine. They wheel J.J. away first, an oxygen mask covering his face, which I take as a sign that he isn’t dead.
When they lift Maddox onto a gurney, I tear myself away from the paramedics to follow him.
He regains consciousness halfway to the ambulance, staring around at the sea of people in Navy-blue raincoats with an alphabet soup of letters on their backs: DEA, ATF, FBI. He probably thinks he’s hallucinating, and the scene is just as surreal to me, but I’m not about to argue with the people who are here to save his life.
“J.J.,” he croaks, then begins to struggle, staring around himself in a panic. “Leo!”
The paramedic at his side glances down. “Don’t move, buddy. You’ve been shot.”
“I know, asshole. Where are they? Are they alive? Where the fuck is my brother?” he yells, clambering to sit up.
“We need to restrain him!” one of the paramedics yells.
I push my way through the crowd, frantic to reach him, and finally make it to his side. “I’m here,” I say, grabbing his hand. “I’m with you all the way, got it?”
He stops struggling as I run alongside and climb into the ambulance along with them. “Celeste?”
“She’s home. She’s safe,” I say, never letting go of his hand. “I think she’s the reason all these people are here. Woman’s full of surprises.” The paramedics wrap me in a Mylar blanket as I stare down at Maddox, filled with dread.
“I’ll be okay. I’m pretty sure the bullet didn’t hit anything important.”
“It’s J.J. He’s in bad shape.”
He twists his head around to look at the two paramedics riding on either side of him. One checks the IV and the other shakes his head. “We don’t know much. He endured some pretty heavy trauma, not to mention a gunshot to the chest. It’s a miracle he was alive when we got here, but it’ll be touch and go.”
Then Maddox gives me another look. “How are you even riding along with me? That place was crawling with feds. Aren’t you worried about . . .” He lets the question hang, as if he doesn’t want to jinx anything.
I don’t have an answer, but if they were going to arrest me, they would have. I have a feeling Celeste and her father are going to have a doozy of a story to tell
