As she lay on her side, she looked into the eyes of a man she’d trusted with her life and asked, “How could you?”
Sweat rolled down his face, his mouth twisted in agony. “Wouldn’t you do anything to protect your family?”
Her family? Images of her brothers, her father, her mother all scrolled through her mind in the fast-track life review. But then the reel slowed and focused on one face, one man.
Jose. Her family. And she’d foolishly pushed him away. Love and loss seeped through her as tangibly as her life’s blood leaving her body.
Chapter 16
Jose was in hell.
Draped over the vice president’s wife, he needed to be with Stella. Each gunshot echoing in his ears ripped a roar of denial from him. He’d done his job, protected the vice president’s wife, but at such a high cost. Stella had been shot. She’d defied the odds to stop an all-out massacre, and he doubted he could have done anything more.
The fact that they’d both been doing their jobs was piss poor comfort. His heart hammered in his ears. Where the hell were his objective instincts from years of training?
A hand clamped him on the shoulder. He jerked, looking to find Bubbles crouched beside him. “I’ve got things here. The Saint too. Go treat Stella. Go.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Jose launched off the stage into the mayhem below. Jose pushed past a couple shoving back against him, desperate to get away. His eyes stayed locked on Stella, the world around him a peripheral blur.
Security had their hands full restoring order. Fang loped up alongside him, medical rucksack in hand that carried enough supplies to treat up to three patients. How f**king ironic that Stella and Brown would be sharing lifesaving gear. Fang kept pace as they dodged musicians huddled by a bandstand. There was no discussing who would treat Brown and who would take Stella.
She was his, damn it.
Fang could care for the traitorous bastard.
A trio knelt around Stella, and he could only see her feet and a trailing edge of the kanga he’d given her. If she was dead… Even thinking it threatened to knock the ground out from under him. He could rub that sobriety coin all damn day and nothing, nothing would get him through if he lost the most important person in his life.
“Move,” he shouted, to hell with control and calm, “medic coming through.”
The wall of people parted and… Oh God. The streetlamp bathed her in stark light that revealed everything, too much. Stella lay stone still, her eyes half-open and glazed with pain. A wad of bloodied handkerchiefs lay beside her head, no doubt someone’s attempt to help.
Blood streamed from a scrape along her temple. Most would have gone for that first, but he evaluated fast and ranked it as the least of their worries.
Her thigh wound pumped blood from the femoral artery. She could bleed out in about five minutes.
“Hang on, Stella.” Dropping to the ground, he slapped a hand to her leg and pushed hard while tearing into the medic pack with the other.
He had gear for a splint, tracheotomy, intubation, and countless other lifesaving measures he prayed he wouldn’t need. Finally, thank God, finally his body went into autopilot. A tourniquet for her leg. Bandages. IV antibiotics.
Beside him, Fang treated Agent Brown who kept groaning, “Let me die, let me die.”
Fang muttered, “Not a chance. You’ll face your firing squad.”
How f**king ironic—and unfair—that Stella had aimed to maim when her enemy had shot to kill.
Her fingers clamped his arm weakly. He looked into her eyes again. Bad, bad idea. Professional distance crumbled.
Her lips moved but nothing came out other than a faint whisper he couldn’t understand.
“Shhh,” he soothed, checking her vitals, willing his hand not to shake as he counted her pulse, simultaneously monitoring the drip on the IV. “You’re going to be fine, Stella. I’m that damn good at my job.”
She blinked up at him. Alive. Awake. For how long?
He shouted over his shoulder, rage and desperation chewing through his gut. “We need medical transport. Stat!” He looked back at her, adjusting her elevated feet. “Stella, stay with us. You’re going to be fine. A transfusion or two and you’ll be kicking ass again. I promise.”
As he checked her pupils he realized… she was blinking in a pattern.
“Morse code?” he asked, focusing on her while listening for updates in his earpiece. Where the hell was the ambulance? “Are you trying to tell me something?”