I pick up her hand and kiss her knuckles. “I’m fine. But I don’t know why we couldn’t just do everything the way we talked about. If anything bothers me, it’s that you didn’t trust me to back you up.”
Her dark brows lift. “You are not capable, Joaquin.”
I hitch my shoulders. “I’m totally capable. I took care of those douchebags who came to my house.”
“You snuck up on them on your own turf,” she says simply as Dr. Mike continues to dress both sides of the wound that tore through her left oblique muscles. He’s not being any more gentle with her than I’d guess he’d be with a 1,500-pound steer, and she doesn’t even flinch at it. “This was not your turf. It was mine. You would have gotten yourself killed, and I… would not…” She shakes her head slowly, and the faintest tremble plays on her bottom lip. “I could not allow that.” Another tear trips out of her eye. “I have to protect you.”
“You don’t though.” I sweep the tear off her cheek with my thumb. “I can take care of myself. And I can take care of you, too.”
“With this, you couldn’t,” she says, her voice steady again. “I had to do it.”
It’s a moot point given that it’s all over now, so I simply shrug. “I get why you feel that way. I’m just glad you didn’t end up dead.Icouldn’t allow that.”
Natalia’s face grows stone-like, and she pins me with an icy blue stare. “They had no power to kill me. The only thing in this world I have ever possessed is my own life. And no one will ever take it from me.” Her delicate jaw flexes as she clenches her teeth and releases them. “Now I have my freedom. No one will take that from me either. Not again.”
The pure grit that’s infused in her very soul is so astounding that I’ll probably never grasp the depths of it. Same goes for all the shit she’s lived through. Everything I’ve lived through, including the night of chaos and blood-letting months ago, pales in comparison, and I’m lost for any kind of words to respond to that. All I have is the truth that now makes up the reality of my life; that I honestly don’t care about anything anymore other than her and us.
I settle for, “No, nobody will. But, you know…” The tell-tale sting on the rims of my eyes causes me to offer her a casual and totally out-of-place wink. “Those aren’t the only things you possess now.”
Dr. Mike moves to her shoulder to begin cleaning and dressing it, and Natalia arches a brow at me. “Is that so?”
“Yep.” I release her hair, draping it over her good shoulder, and then pick up her hand to hold it against my heart. “There’s also this.”
I’ll admit it’s cheesy, but it appears to both mean everything to her and also trigger anguish in her face.
“When your father learns the truth about me, he will never allow this marriage to continue,” she says to me, switching to Spanish. “If you don’t leave me, he will disown you.”
“Maybe.” I shrug again. “I don’t really care though.”
A crinkle forms between her dark brows. “You are prepared to walk away from your family and your wealth for me.”
“Natalia.” A long, loud sigh escapes my throat, tripping over the boulder that’s suddenly choking me again, and I have to drop my head as I take a knee in front of her. “I love my sisters. I love my mamá. But my family sucks. Okay? My papá is a dick. All he cares about is honor and wealth. And his idea of honor is honestly kinda friggin’ skewed. Like, yeah, he got away from the cartel because he wanted nothing to do with crime and violence, but the way he runs this family isn’t that much better, honestly.” I look back up at her and blindly flip my hand toward one side of the room in an indignant gesture. “Malachi was beating up on Isla, and he knew… we all knew… and Papá was just like, ‘the press photographed the bruises on her face, don’t make me look bad like that again.’ And then she got pregnant when we all knew how badly Mal was treating her, so we knew he was doing worse shit behind closed doors.” I raise my eyebrows. “Shit I know for a fact that you’re familiar with. I mean, maybe not as bad as what they did to you, and Mal did come around and start treating her well, but still. Papá didn’t give a fuck. He didn’t do anything to protect her when she needed it most. His own daughter.”
The sheen on Natalia’s eyes persists, and her throat pulses with a swallow. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to.
“So, if he decides to disown me over you?” I hitch my shoulders and turn over my palms, shaking my head. “I have plenty of reasons to not give a fuck. I’m not going to make him happy unless I conform. He won’t ever really be proud of me for just being me. I learned that a long time ago. Trying to do things his way isn’t going to make me happy. I already knew that. Butyou do. And you said in that note you left me, you’d never experienced any kind of love before now. And the truth I’ve been trying to make you understand is that I’ve never experienced love like this before.”
Rubbing my hands over my face, I lower my forehead to the top of her thighs and wrap my hands around the back of her calves. “Please don’t ask me to let go of it. Please don’t ask me to let you go. You’re already my wife. Let me be your husband. Let me take care of you. Let me love you like this for the rest of my life, because I’m going to anyway. And I’d rather do that with you here with me, instead of while I’m trapped in a life I don’t want without you.”
Natalia is silent for long enough that Dr. Mike wraps up what he’s doing and clears his throat. “All right, girly, you’re all patched up.”
He pats the metal table, and I pick up my head so I can stand. Thick, white bandages are taped to her torso, the dark bruising already spreading way beyond its edges. Another bandage is wrapped around her shoulder, and he points a finger gun at it.
“I don’t have a sling, but you need to keep that immobilized for a few weeks.” He rubs his clean-shaven jowls. “Any pharmacy should have some kinda sling that would work, so go pick one up. Then just take it easy for a while if you can. You’re going to be sore.”
Dr. Mike reaches for another gauze pad and douses it with alcohol then approaches me to grab the back of my neck and jerk me down to his level. He abrasively wipes down the cut while squinting at it and tugging at my collar to inspect everything. “You’re fine. Just keep it clean,” he concludes, releasing me.
“Right,” I say automatically while unbuttoning my overshirt. I pull it off, then help Natalia gingerly slip it over her arms. “What’s the damage?”
“Erm.” Dr. Mike rubs his chin again. “Two grand.”
I pull out my wallet and grab a handful of cash, not missing the fact that Natalia’s eyes shift as she appears to digest the cost. I catch her gaze and shake my head at her.
Dr. Mike pockets the cash and places his hands on his hips as he casts a long, sympathetic look at her. “I hope this is the last time I see you, young lady.”
Her big, blue eyes drag to meet his. “It is.”
With that, he nods and then tosses used gauze and extra tape into the trash, then removes his gloves, tosses those as well, and slips through a door. “You know the way out.”
