Chapter 36

ELLA

The next morning, we drove back to Venezuela, and I soon found myself back in the first house Andrea had taken me to.

I shuddered as I entered the bedroom, the memories seizing me. The sheets had been changed and were fresh and neat, hiding evidence of my struggle, but it was still alive and well in my mind.

“It won’t be long before the effect of those pills has set in,” Andrea said. “Then we will celebrate our marriage.”

His words sickened my stomach.

“Anyway,” he began, taking his shirt off. “I’m going into Caracas to deal with the last of Richardo Gonzalez’s cockroaches that avoided my little birthday gift to him. I will be back late this evening.”

By “birthday gift,” of course, Andrea meant the bomb that blew up Gonzalez’s entire house, all his friends, and his body, which had been strangled only two minutes before.

“Chico will be here,” he added, putting on a new shirt. “And I have told him to make sure you take that pill this evening. Don’t you dare cause any trouble, okay?”

I nodded.

“Adiós, señora,” he said, kissing my cheek.

“Bye,” I replied quietly as he left the room. “Hope you get shot…,” I added when I was sure he was out of earshot.

When I heard the front door close, I instantly ripped the ring off my finger and threw it onto the nightstand, unable to look at it any longer.

It felt good to be rid of it, but I was still in this room, which his scent overwhelmed so strongly.

So I made my way down the hall in search of a fresh room to sit. One Andrea clearly hadn’t spent much time in.

My first thought was a library. He was clearly an intelligent man, but he didn’t strike me as much of a reader. But surely a man as rich as him would have a book or two?

And he did. A whole room full. And in a room that was free of his scent. I ran my finger along the spines of the books, scanning for something to read.

Sure enough, they were all in Spanish, but there was also a Spanish-English dictionary and that combined with my preexisting Latin and Italian knowledge, I was able to sit down and slowly decipher a Latino thriller.

Although continually having to pause and refer to the dictionary, which somewhat destroyed the suspense, I found myself getting completely engrossed in the book. I also considered how much I hoped Andrea hadn’t read it.

The main character was a serial killer with some fairly creative habits, and the last thing Andrea needed was any inspiration.

At about seven o’clock in the evening, a knock on the door sounded.

“Yes?” I asked, and the door opened to reveal Chico.

A warm, spicy smell also floated in through the air.

“I made chili con carne. You should come eat and take your pill,” he said.

I nodded and followed him down to the kitchen.

“So you’re bodyguard, driver, cook, and babysitter now?” I asked as he handed me a plate of food.

“I do anything the boss desires,” he replied. “Tonight, that is making sure you swallow this,” he added, handing me a plate with just one of the singular pink pills on it and a glass of water.

“Anything he desires?” I asked with a wink.

He almost smiled before turning back to the pot of chili.

“Eat with me,” I said.

“No, gringa. I don’t fraternize with the prisoners,” he replied.

“Please. And I’m not his prisoner. I’m his wife,” I said, patting the table opposite me.

“Really?” he asked. “I don’t see no ring.”

I smiled awkwardly and put my hand under the table.

“Fine,” he said. “I will eat with you, but you better put that ring back on before he gets home.”

He then sat down opposite me and didn’t say another word as we ate.

Just as I had finished, a car pulled up outside, its wheels screeching on the drive.

The car door then promptly slammed, and multiple sets of fast footsteps came to the door before it flung open, and five or six men flooded in.

Andrea was at the front with his arm around a man whose head hung low and was being dragged, his feet scraping on the floor behind him and another man on the other side.

The others followed quickly behind as blood poured onto the floor.

“Shit,” I cursed.

Andrea began barking orders to the men in fast, deep Spanish as they brought the casualty who I could now see had a gaping wound on his side to the kitchen table.

Blood gushed out and had instantly covered the table and the floor, and I could see that Andrea’s shirt was already entirely red.

“Move the plates, Blanca,” he said to me, and I only had a few seconds to get mine and Chico’s plates out of the way before the man was laid down on his back on the table.

He let out a deep groan as people rushed around him.

A bucket of water was brought over and a pile of rags, which Andrea held on the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

I watched dumbstruck as his shirt was cut off him, and his head lolled backward.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He was shot,” Andrea replied, lifting up the rag to look.

“Don’t do that,” I said quickly. “You need to keep the pressure on it, or he’ll bleed out in minutes.”

He looked up at me briefly before nodding and putting the rags back down.

“Push down hard to stop the bleeding,” I said. “But try not to crush the ribs because they’re right there,” I added, pointing to just above the wound. “And that could cause internal bleeding.”

He nodded again and did exactly what I said.

“The woman is in charge, okay?” he told his men in Spanish.

They all looked from Andrea to me hesitantly but nodded, knowing better than to question him.

“I need a clean cloth,” I added, looking at the man’s pale face. “And somebody put some antiseptic or salt in that water.”

Andrea repeated in Spanish, and his men began scrambling around, and soon enough I had a new cloth in my hand, and the water was being sterilized.

I brought my ear to his chest and listened to his heart, and then his breathing.

“Fuck,” I cursed.

His head was flopped to the side, and his eyes were half-closed as he let out a hoarse croak.

“What?!” Andrea said.

“He’s stopped breathing,” I replied and tilted his head back.

“Then do something—” he began, stepping forward.

“You just keep the pressure on the wound and let me deal with it, I know what to do,” I shouted.

He immediately shut up and just held the rags on the man’s side as I glanced down his throat. As far as I could see, there was nothing, so I brought my mouth to his and began to breathe for us both.

Andrea watched as I inflated his lungs three times before listening to his chest again and repeating.

“Is he conscious?” he asked.

I shook my head. “He’s lost a lot of blood and has been starved of oxygen.”

“Will he live?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet,” I replied.

The fourth time I gave him mouth-to-mouth, his chest finally contracted, and he took a huge breath of air.

I allowed myself to let out a sigh of relief for a few seconds, but my work wasn’t done yet.

“How much blood did he lose?” I asked.

“The back of the car is drowning in it; the kitchen looks like a massacre scene,” he replied. “He’s lost gallons.”

“You’ve got to take him to a hospital,” I said. “He’s gonna need a transfusion and stitches.”

“And sentence him to the rest of his life in prison?!” Andrea asked. “He stays here.”

“And dies on your kitchen table?” I asked. “What’s worse?!”

“Do everything you can to save him,” he replied.

The next hour was terrible. I could practically feel this man’s life fading in my hands. Only the faintest heartbeat and weakest breaths reassured me he was still alive as I worked tirelessly to keep him that way.

He still lay entirely still, but the wound had at least begun to clot, and when I ordered Andrea to slowly remove the pressure, we were met with only a slight oozing of blood.

“Chico, get the surgical thread and needle,” Andrea ordered.

Chico nodded and disappeared and opened a drawer in the kitchen and pulled a box out, which he then handed to me. Inside was a reel of blue sterile tape and a needle still in its clinical wrapper.

“Did you steal this from a hospital?” I joked.

Andrea looked at me blankly, and then I remembered who he was and how obvious the answer was.

I then dipped the cloth in the water and cleaned the wound.

“The bullet is still in there?” I asked.

He nodded.

I turned to the medical kit beside me and dug around for a pair of tweezers.

“There might be two,” Andrea added as I brought the tweezers to the wound.

“If he wakes up now, somebody knock him out, okay?” I said, looking up to the men. “I need him completely still.”

They all nodded, and I began to search through the blood and tissue for the bullet.

It wasn’t long before I felt something that definitely wasn’t human body and pulled it out, revealing a huge metal bullet. Right next to it was another.

“Will you thread the needle, please, Chico?” I said. “But disinfect your hands with the gel first.”

He obeyed as I retrieved the final bullet and then handed it to me.

I took a deep breath and pulled the bright lamp one of the men had set up on the table closer to the wound.

“Have you done this before?” Andrea began.

“Shh,” I snapped.

He stopped and stayed quiet the whole time that I sewed the flesh of the man back together. I did a neat job, and not a drop of blood escaped once I was done.

I then wiped the entire area with the antiseptic and soaked up the blood from around him.

“That’s all I can do,” I said to Andrea. “Now we just wait.”

He nodded and stepped away into the kitchen, running a hand through his hair.

He then flicked his wrist to his men. “Go to your stations, I will keep you updated.”

A few minutes later, it was just Andrea and me in the kitchen…well, and the half-dead man.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Jaime,” he replied.

I looked at his face as he lay there unconscious. He was young. Not a kid but his stubbly beard wasn’t quite complete enough to belong to a man.

“Will you care if he dies?” I asked.

“What sort of question is that?” he asked.

“You didn’t seem to have a problem killing your own men before,” I said, thinking back to when he shot four of his men in the warehouse in Mexico after I gave their names to Leo.

“Did I shoot those bullets, Blanca?” he asked, pointing to the two still on the table that had been in Jaime. “No. So I don’t want him to die. If he does, that’s life, and I won’t dwell on it.”

I nodded and went to wash the blood off my hands in the sink.

He then poured a glass of tequila and looked back to me. “Where’s your ring?”

I looked down at my hand, realizing that due to Andrea’s abrupt and chaotic arrival, I had never put it back on as Chico had advised.

“Oh,” I began. “I didn’t want to get blood on it.”

He nodded and took a swig of the tequila.

“Get some sleep, Blanca,” he said. “I’ll watch him and wake you if anything changes.”

I nodded. “We’ll take it in turns,” I said, sitting down on a nearby sofa.

“And good job,” he added. “I was certain he’d be dead within the hour.”

I smiled briefly before laying my head down on the sofa and falling dead asleep. I woke at 3 a.m. and took over watch from Andrea, but there was no movement until 5 a.m. when Jaime slowly began to stir.

At first, there was just a low groan and then the twitch of his hand. Soon enough he opened his eyes and looked around the room before a whole wave of confusion and panic began to set in.

I quickly approached him and put my hands on his shoulders to try to stop him from sitting up and disrupting the stitches. “Stay still.”

This only made him more restless, and he pushed against me.

I didn’t speak a word of Spanish, so how was I supposed to reassure him?

“Andrea!” I shouted. He was asleep on the sofa but quickly woke up.

“Andrea?” Jaime asked. “Dónde estoy!?”

“Ughh…Casa…casa de Martinez,” I stuttered.

He just looked at me even more confused. Fortunately, he was weak from his injuries, and with every movement, he winced in agony, so my attempts to keep him down lasted long enough for Andrea to take over.

He put a single hand on Jaime’s shoulder and looked into his eyes, causing him to instantly calm and stay still.

“Jaime, Jaime, Jaime,” he said, putting a hand on his shoulder before speaking to him in Spanish.

I watched as Andrea explained everything, pointing to the stitches, the removed bullets, and then me.

“Gracias, señora,” he said to me in a weak whisper. “Thank you,” he added in his best English.

I nodded and smiled before I helped Andrea move him upstairs to a spare bed where he spent what was left of the night.

“Your skills impressed me, Blanca,” Andrea said as we lay in his bed, the light of dawn already filling the room. “I’ve had men with injuries nowhere near as bad as that die on me before.”

“Well, I had plenty of practice in my mate’s army,” I replied. “First patient I’ve treated on a kitchen table, though.”

“Hmm,” he said. “He’s your responsibility until he is well enough to go home.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

I suppose it gives me something to do.