Was it a ruse? Or was the cartel boss just old and tired?
“You.” Hector looked at one of the inmates on the stairs as if randomly calling him out. “Tell me why guns were aimed at Petula.”
“She shot Trog, boss.” The man pointed at the dead body. “This wasn’t her business and—”
“It is her business,” Hector said softly. “Trog has been stealing cocaine from my supplies, and I told Petula to deal with it.”
A wave of exhales rippled through the room.
Was that true? Ricky didn’t think so.
Hector La Rocha hadn’t interfered to save Martin or Ricky. Hell, he wouldn’t even look at them. They refused to join him, and that made them the enemy.
No, Hector had come here for Tula, to protect her and keep her safe.
“Get rid of this and move along.” Hector gestured at the dead man.
A whirlwind of motion erupted around him. Within seconds, Trog’s body was dragged away, and every prisoner vacated the stairwell.
Garra pushed away from the wall to leave, but Hector didn’t move.
Tula gripped Ricky’s bicep as she wriggled out from between him and Martin. Her gaze went to Hector, and they stared at each for an eternity.
Whatever passed between them didn’t end with a word, an expression, or a nod. Hector simply turned away and vanished around the corner with Garra on his heels.
She spun toward Martin and Ricky and gave them both a quick once-over. Her features looked molded in plastic, unmoving and lifeless, as if she’d sent her emotions far below the surface.
“Can you walk?” she asked Martin.
“Yeah.”
“Follow me.” She headed down toward the ground floor.
Where was she going? Their cell was upstairs.
Ricky lunged after her and grasped her arm, yanking her around. “Wrong way. We need to get Martin—”
Martin swayed, and his knees started to buckle.
“Shit.” Ricky caught him before he fell down the stairs.
Two-hundred pounds of muscle and dead weight strained Ricky’s exhausted, battered body as he leaned Martin against the wall.
Her expressionless mask cracked, releasing a well of tears in her eyes. She quickly wiped it away and pushed back her shoulders.
“I need to…” She coughed to clear her trembling in her voice. “I need to get you both into the showers, wash off the blood and the—”
Her gaze slipped to Ricky’s backside and darted away.
“Hey.” He held Martin against the wall with one hand and used the other to guide her face to his. “He didn’t rape me.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief. “He didn’t?”
“No, baby. You put that bullet in his head just in time.”
Her hand dropped to the railing, bracing her upper body as she sucked in gulps of air.
Beside him, Martin let his head fall back against the wall.
“I thought…” She raked her fingers through her hair and composed herself. “God, that’s such a relief.” Her eyes flitted to Martin. “I need to get you under the water. Really we all need showers since we’ll be holed up in your room until you’re healed.”
“We can’t fend off another attack right now.”
“No one will bother us in the bathroom.”
“You don’t know that.” Martin slurred past swollen lips.
“After what just happened…” She rubbed her head and whispered under her breath, “Hector never gets involved in fights. By defending me the way he did, he just established my position in the cartel.”
“What does that mean?” Ricky asked.
“No one will mess with me for a while. Maybe not ever. And lucky for you, whenever you’re with me, no one will fuck with you, either.”
Ricky looked at Martin, and his friend gave a stiff nod.Two hours later, Tula trudged to the sink in their private cell and rinsed out a bloody towel. Her neck ached from bending over, and exhaustion weighed down her bones.
She’d done what she could for the gruesome gash on Martin’s head. It had bled so damn much—through his shower, during the walk back to his cell, and the entire thirty minutes it took her to stitch it closed.
His skull had been slammed into a concrete wall. At least, that was what he thought had happened. He was struggling to focus. Hell, he was doing well enough to stay conscious.
Given his dilated pupils and staggering gait through the halls, she worried he had a concussion. Didn’t that mean he needed to stay awake? Or was that a myth? She wasn’t taking any chances.
She’d cleaned and stitched the laceration on his head the best she could. She didn’t know what else to do. It would leave a thick scar along his hairline, but at least the bleeding had stopped.
It could’ve been worse.
Her mind rewound the scene in the stairwell, shoving her in and out of horrifying moments. She’d watched a dozen men beat Martin into a bloody pulp and listened to Ricky’s agonized grunts as he fought off violent, raping men. She’d wanted to die right then and there and take every single one of those bastards with her.