Page 81 of The Complete Truth Duet
Her face paled, but her words were resolute—a pep talk for herself. “No. We don’t do hospitals. She’s going to be fine. She just needs to sleep it off.”
I reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “Cora, baby. She needs—”
“No!” she yelled, her desperation morphing into anger. “Pick her up and put her in her bed. I’ll keep an eye on her. She’s gonna be fine.”
But you couldn’t sleep off an overdose. Not if you ever wanted to wake up.
“Get her in the truck,” I called out to Drew. I tried to gather Cora in my arms, but she fought against me, becoming feral as she tried to keep Drew away.
“Don’t you dare touch her. She’s not going anywhere.”
Wedging my way in between her and the kid, I said bluntly, “Then she’s going to die.”
Her body turned to stone, so I gentled my tone.
“Look at her. We gotta get her to a hospital so they can help her. God only knows what Dante gave her. Or how much. He was trying to punish you. Punish her. I would not be surprised if he gave her enough to put down a horse. She needs a doctor, baby. Or she’s gone.”
She burst into tears. “But she’s gone if you take her too, Penn. She’s an underage runaway. Social Services will get her and they’ll send her back to her family in Indiana. Her father will beat her within an inch of her life and her mother will give her more drugs to numb the pain. The kid has been an addict since she was twelve. She gets back in that life, she won’t get out. She’ll end up back on the streets with nowhere to go, using and selling her body to pay. I will never see her again.”
Pressure built in my chest until I wasn’t sure I could take it anymore.
Plain as day, Cora’s heart was breaking.
My heart was breaking for her.
But she wasn’t thinking clearly.
She was thinking like a mother.
I was thinking like a man who would have done anything to take the pain away from his woman.
No matter the cost.
One in. One out.
I wrapped her tight in my arms, as if I could keep her from falling apart, and pointedly tipped my chin at Drew.
“No!” Cora wailed as he took the cue and lifted Savannah off the floor, carrying her with hurried steps out of the bedroom.
Her whole body shook with waves of despair.
I kissed the top of her head. “I’ll get her back. I’ll take her to the hospital and drop her off at the emergency room. That’s all we can do for her right now. The minute she is healthy again, I swear on my life, I will get her back for you. I promised you I would make them safe. And I will. But I gotta do it now. Time is a big factor, and us standing here arguing isn’t helping her.”
“Oh God, you’re right. Go take her,” she croaked, stepping out of my arms. “Check her pockets before you drop her off.”
“What?” I asked, backing toward the door.
“He did this to me too. When River was a baby, I almost died and then spent a year in prison because he planted heroin in my pocket before dumping me on the side of the road.”
My bones turned to concrete, and my vision flashed red. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
She shook her head, hooking her arms around River’s shoulder and pulling her into her chest.
Yeah. Dante was a dead man.
“Right, okay. I need to go. Lock the door behind me. I’ll be back soon as I can.”
“Take care of her,” she whispered.
“I will. I swear.”
Despite the distance only being a few miles, it was the longest drive of my life. As the only member of the family without a record—yet—I carried that girl in my arms straight through the front doors of the emergency room, yelling for help like a madman. As soon as they got her on the gurney, I sent up a prayer for her and then ducked out the same way I’d come in.
Drew was idling at the curb when I climbed back into the truck. “She gonna make it?” he asked.
“I have no clue,” I replied, scrubbing my hands over my face. “I want them dead. Both of them. If there is one Guerrero left walking this Earth, it’s too many.”
He kept his eyes on the road as he turned into traffic. “River’s gotta be a Guerrero.”
My head snapped to his. “You thinking she’s the one?”
“I don’t know. This doesn’t make sense.”
And he was right.
None of it made sense. Not since day one.
After Lisa died, I’d been a cyclone of pain. I’d thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars at private investigators, searching for answers. I hadn’t been able to save her, but bringing the men responsible to justice became my obsession. The police had written her murder off as a robbery gone wrong, both suspects killed by officers. But I’d spent twenty-nine minutes watching those two men beat and torture her for sport.
