Diego squeezes me tighter and it hurts, but the pain is sweet, poignant. It’s the best feeling—one of being safe and protected, knowing that the torment has come to an end.
“I know,” he says. “I should have known better. You would never have left me that way. I should never have doubted you.”
I want to be angry with him for assuming the worse, but I don’t have it in me. It was all part of Viktor’s plan, making Diego think I had left with him willingly. What he didn’t count on was Diego’s determination to keep me by any means necessary. He didn’t count on me being willing to fight to the death to get back to the man I love.
Jovan’s voice interrupts before I can respond. “What the fuck? What did that motherfucker do to her? I swear to fucking God—”
“Open the door you idiot,” Diego snaps. “I need you to get her out of here. Now.”
I cling tighter to Diego’s shirt as my body dips and settles on to the leather seats of a car. “No … don’t … don’t leave …”
I crack my eyes enough that I can see Diego looming over me, his hands sweeping my hair back from my face. He looks like murder on legs, like death personified. Through the veil of worry over me, I can see the determination in his features, the resolve driving him.
“It’s only for a little while, gatita,” he says, stroking my battered cheek. “Jovan’s going get you home so Antonella and Mariana can clean you up and Dr. Molena can examine you. I have to finish neutralizing the threat to us … to you. Do you understand? I have to take care of Viktor. I can’t breathe thinking of him walking the same earth as you. But when I’m done, I’ll never let you out of my sight again.”
I let go, my hand falling limp at my side. The strength to respond escapes me and I turn my head away from him, closing my eyes. I understand what he has to do now, but that doesn’t stop me from hating it.
“Go,” Diego says to Jovan. “Take care of her, Jovan. I need her safe.”
“Consider it done, jefe.”
My head is heavy, my neck too weak to go on holding up. I register Jovan maneuvering me so I’m more comfortable, then clicking the seatbelt across my lap.
“Hang in there, tiger,” he murmurs, patting my arm. “You’re the toughest bitch I know. You’ll make it through this.”
It’s the last thing I remember other than the roar of the engine when Jovan starts the car. With a jolt, it speeds off into the night and I finally allow myself to fall back into the dark void of nothingness.
33
Diego
In the days following Elena’s homecoming, it feels as if a heavy blanket of death has fallen over the house. The staff are silent when I walk past, but I hear them whispering among themselves—talking about my wife’s ordeal and speculating over whether she’ll ever be the same again.
After returning home that night, I went straight to the bedroom to find Dr. Molena bent over Elena, inspecting her injuries. I was helpless, impotent in my fury at the sight of her, broken and bruised from head to toe. Molena assures me that there are no broken bones or signs of internal injuries—just superficial wounds that will heal, a bit of dehydration, and fatigue. He leaves her a bottle of pain pills and a nurse who will sleep in the room next to ours to monitor her progress and keep fluids flowing through the IV embedded in her arm.
Once we’re alone, I stand for what feels like hours and watch Elena, who’s lost to a drug-induced sleep. Her face is black and blue, one eyelid swollen. Fingerprints show me where Viktor had his filthy hands all over her—her cheeks, her throat, her waist, one of her breasts. Her stomach is an angry reddish-purple, and her legs are slashed with cuts caused by what I find out was glass.
With her out cold, I have no way of knowing what exactly he did to her, and it drives me crazy to speculate. He wouldn’t have stripped her down to almost nothing if all he wanted to do was smack her around a little bit. The thought of him taking her against her will, degrading and using her, makes me tremble and fills my throat with bile.