I began carefully cleaning him up, returning to the bathroom to rinse the cloth when it became red with blood. I started with his face and worked my way down, dropping glass fragments into the cup when I found them. Tending him was therapeutic for me, allowing me to get past the fear and anxiety that had overwhelmed me on the bike.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered when he hissed as I tried to carefully work a larger than average bit of glass out of his lower back.
He didn’t appear to have any broken bones, but by tomorrow I was afraid he’d be one big bruise. His back and feet were the worst, cut by the glass fragments from the shower, but no part of him had escaped unscathed… even his penis. It wasn’t bleeding, but there was a nasty looking abrasion on the side near the head, as if it had been roughly scraped against something.
“It’s okay.”
“Where did you learn to fight like that?”
“I took some jujitsu as a kid. I haven’t practiced it in years, but I still remember some of it.” He paused for a moment. “Not enough to keep me from getting my ass kicked though.”
I paused in my cleaning to look at his reflection in the mirror like he was crazy. “You walked away… he didn’t. I’d say it was that creep that got his ass kicked.”
“Maybe,” he mumbled.
“No maybe. How’d they know where to find me?”
“I don’t know. It makes no sense.” He hissed again as I carefully wiped at a long, angry scrape on his hip. “Why is the Víbora Cartel so dead set on killing you they’d send a hitman to Houston?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is there anything you’re not telling me? Any secretive old boyfriends? Know anyone with that snake tattoo under the hairline? Anything at all?”
“No.”
“Shit! Careful! Easy!” he begged as I held gently held his penis and dabbed at it delicately, trying to make sure there was no hidden cuts or embedded glass.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“I have to get you to somewhere I can protect you.”
“Where?”
“Rio Lago maybe. There were no attacks there. We can stay at my place, and the brothers can help.”
“Are you sure they’ll want to… after what happened before… and again tonight.”
He was still and silent for a long moment. “I think. It’ll be easier since you’re not out in the field.” He paused for another long moment. “If not… at least at my place I’ll see them coming, and that’ll give us a chance.”
I rose from wiping away the blood and picking pieces of glass from his foot to kiss him ever so gently on the lips. “You did pretty well by yourself tonight, even without seeing them coming,” I said as I went to the bathroom to rinse the blood from the cloth.
“I was lucky,” he murmured when I returned.
I didn’t say anything as I started working on his other foot, but it didn’t look like luck to me. He’d disarmed and beaten the absolute shit out of a muscle-bound gorilla in sparse moments. I’d gotten the gun, thinking I could help him, but the men were moving so fast I was afraid to pull the trigger lest I hit Colt instead of the gorilla. It wasn’t until he’d yelled ‘run’ that I realized there was nothing I could do to help him and had darted from the room.
I’d dashed into the guest bedroom at the front of the house before I stopped and turned, listening to the gorilla and Colt thumping, snarling, and bellowing as they fought for survival in my bedroom. It was a straight shot from the guest room down the hall into my own bedroom, and I had the gun up and ready. I knew I wasn’t the best pistol shot, but I was sure this close, with fifteen or so shots, if that creep stepped into the door, I was going to ruin his day. When the sounds of their struggles stopped, I’d put my finger on the trigger and waited for one of men to appear, softly chanting ‘Don’t shoot Colt. Don’t shoot Colt. Don’t shoot Colt,’ to myself. At the time it didn’t occur to me how ridiculous I probably looked, standing naked in the doorway with a pistol in my hands ready to ventilate some asshole, but I’d held the weapon steady until I’d heard Colt’s voice call me. I’d wilted with relief, lowered the gun, and hurried back to my bedroom.
“How are we going to get there? You can barely ride… and what about Mafic?”
“We’ll spend the night here. Maybe tomorrow night, too, depending on how I feel in the morning. Can you call that woman who took care of Mafic the last time?”
“Yes,” I said slowly, drawing the word out.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said with equal slowness. “You don’t think Angela will get hurt, do you?”
He shook his head. “No. The cartel might be watching the house, but I don’t think they’d do anything that stupid… especially if she goes in the morning and evening when people are leaving and arriving home from work.”
“You don’t think they’ll take her and try to get her to tell them where I am?”
He shook his head again. “They haven’t done that yet. Why would they need to? It seems like every time you pop up, they know.”
I realized I’d left my phone beside my bed. “Do you have your phone?”
“No. I left it in your bedroom.”
“I don’t have mine either, and I don’t know her number. It’s in my phone.”
I rose from cleaning his feet and looked him over. All the cuts had stopped bleeding again. Thank God the shower had been made of tempered glass, otherwise his injuries would have been much, much, worse.
“He’ll be okay for one night. You’d just fed him and cleaned his litter box.”
“How are we going to get our phones back… and lock my house?”
“We’re not… at least not tonight. To dangerous.”
He was right, and I knew he was right, but I didn’t like leaving my house open. I hadn’t realized how dependent on my phone I’d become until now, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I also didn’t like having a dead man in my bedroom… assuming he was dead. Colt had said he was only knocked out, but the sound of his pistol hitting the man in the head had made me sick to my stomach.
“What about the guy in my bedroom?”
“He’s not there. Not anymore.”
“How do you know? What if you killed him?”
“Even if I did, his buddy got him out of there. The Víbora aren’t going to leave him behind to tie them to this. This may be all fucked up, but at least we won’t have to deal with a dead body.”
“How can you be so sure?” I asked. He held my gaze. “Oh… right,” I murmured, remembering Colt and the BDMC had once been tied to the cartel themselves.
“Tomorrow we can get Mafic?” I asked.
“No. Send Angel in, and have her lock up the house when she leaves. We need to stay off the cartel’s radar for a couple of days, but we won’t forget him, I promise. We’ll come back and get him in two or three days. We’ve got no way to transport him right now anyway. Once we get to Rio Lago, we’ll come back. A quick trip up and back, and we won’t tell anyone we’re coming.”
“My Jeep will be ready tomorrow. We could carry him in that,” I suggested.
“That’s going to have to wait too.”
“What? Why?”
“Didn’t you say Larke is paying for it?”
“Yes.”
“Then someone at Larke knows you’re going to be around to pick up. They’ll know where, and maybe even about when.”
I stared at him for a long moment. “You think it’s someone at work?”
“Willow… I don’t know, but it’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense.”