Rough Around the Edges (37 page)

What really made him break out into a cold sweat was considering that she might be discharged from the hospital before he found the last of the men who’d tried to murder her. Where was the guy? What if he was biding his time, waiting for someone to return to the Rivera household?

What if Ally and Maria went home and the nightmare happened all over again, possibly with deadly results? The thought filled him with a hot rage. The shooting, her injuries, Manny’s involvement and the long search for her would-be killer … it was all so fucked up. He wanted to find the man who’d put those bullets in her, wanted to make him pay and make sure he never maimed another person or took another life. But there was one desire even deeper than that one – more than anything, he wished none of it had ever happened.

But it had, and the disaster had been years in the making, a horrific by-product of the poor choices made by the people she loved, or had once loved, at least.

“Here.” Manny parked the car at the curb in front of a house not unlike the one Ally and Maria called home. The siding was pale yellow instead of white, but other than that, it was noticeably similar.

“Do you regret it at all?”

Manny turned, eyes dark and assessing as he froze with one hand on the door handle. “What are you talking about?”

“What you put your sister and mother through. Do you regret it now that Ally’s blood has been spilled?”

“Regret is a waste of time.” He pushed open the door and stepped out of the car. “Besides, I’m going to make things right. Or did you forget why we’re out here acting like we don’t want to fucking kill each other?”

They stepped over the sidewalk and approached the house in silence.

The sound of metal-on-metal broke the quiet spell as Manny pulled a set of keys from his pocket and proceeded to use three of them.

“I’ve never been so pissed in my life. She’s my sister. We grew up together. Whenever I saw her wrapped up in all those bandages, I remembered when she was maybe seven and went on this big kick where she wanted to be a nurse. She had a little plastic kit with gauze rolls in it and used to beg me to let her practice on me. She’d wrap anyone who’d hold still up like a mummy in five seconds flat. I remember shit like that every time I see her and I think…”

He turned the last key in the last lock. “When I find the motherfucker who put those bullets in her, I’m going to enjoy putting twice as many in him.”

The lock released with the
thud
of a heavy-duty deadbolt. “I’ve got some shit in the fridge if you want something to eat before we go back out.”

Manny stepped inside and Ryan followed, one hand brushing the doorframe as Manny flipped on a light that illuminated the entry area.

Oof
. There was a rustle, a hard rush of breath – no time for even a single swear word – as Manny keeled forward, frozen just a couple steps inside the door.

“This one’s from Inés, motherfucker.”

Sheer instinct drove Ryan as he moved forward, his mind still piecing things together as he threw himself at the man who was locked in a clench with Manny.

The stranger had a weapon – it wasn’t visible, but there was no question about it. Manny was hunched and frozen, breathing loud, like it was all he could do in the wake of whatever wound he was suffering from. The way he held his gut made it seem like he’d been hurt there. A knife wound?

With a hard jerk and a twist, Ryan used the man’s body weight against him, tearing Manny’s attacker away and sending him toward the floor.

His grip was weaker than it needed to be, thanks to his cast. His right hand slipped from the man’s upper arm as his wrist ached in protest, and the man stood straight again, knife in hand.

The blade dripped red onto the carpet and something inside Ryan clenched up when the acrid tang of fresh blood filled the air. Combined with the adrenaline rush brought on by the knife blade that arced through the air just a few inches from his cheek, it was enough to put the scent of sand and sweat in his nostrils, too.

The air inside Manny’s house suddenly felt stiflingly hot, as if the air particles themselves had been scorched by the sun. The scent of blood was thicker than ever and the sounds of labored breathing blended with the explosions going off inside his head.

Reality clashed with thoughts of the past as the blade neared him again, flying toward his chest, flashing silently. He did the only thing he could – threw up an arm.

The blade hit his cast and rasped against the plaster, jarring the bones inside.

It didn’t hurt – the adrenaline flooding Ryan’s system left little room for pain. Raising the same arm again, he drew it back and let it fly.

The knife glanced off the cast again as Ryan brought it down across the man’s face, using the plaster to his advantage.

Manny’s attacker stumbled backward, one hand flying to his face while the other still gripped the knife. Ryan rushed forward, hitting him in the gut with a hard punch.

He crashed to the floor, the air rushing from his lungs in a loud gasp. As soon as he could breathe, he began a string of obscenities. By that time, Ryan was on top of him, wrestling him onto his belly and driving a knee into his back.

Ryan caught the man’s arm as he attempted to stab Ryan’s thigh. With his cast inhibiting his movements, he fumbled through a hasty joint manipulation. Muscle memory and brutal force carried him through, and the knife fell to the floor.

Deprived of the weapon, the man swore even more furiously. “Motherfucker! Get the fuck off of me! I’ll fucking kill you.” The threats meant nothing. Like most people, the man had no idea how to defend himself on the ground. Ryan had him under control. With a knee in the guy’s spine, he kept him pinned with little difficulty.

“He’s the one.” Manny’s voice vacillated between a guttural scrape and a wheeze. “The guy we’re looking for.”

Ryan stared down at the nondescript face that was half-pressed into the carpet. Short dark hair and dark eyes that were wide with rage – there was nothing special about the man, but he matched the description, and Manny had encountered him before. Every muscle in Ryan’s body tensed with the urge to pummel the man’s face into the floor.

So pale, so weak – he couldn’t stop thinking of Ally in that hospital bed, lucky to be alive.

“Don’t!” Manny half-shouted, a note of urgency in his voice. “Don’t do it. I need to know what the fuck he was saying about Inés.”

“You’re in bad shape.” Ryan shifted his gaze to Manny as he continued to restrain the other man. A large puddle of blood had already blossomed on the beige carpet. Manny lay in the middle of it, curled with his hands pressed against his belly. Still, the hard black gleam in his eyes was unmistakable, and his face was contorted in rage, not pain.

“I need to know!” Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead and the almost-bald surface of his skull.

“Fuck you,” the man Ryan had wrestled to the ground spat. “All you need to know is that you got what you deserve, and Inés is gonna laugh when I tell her how you died asking about her.”

Ryan pressed his knee harder into the man’s spine, putting all his weight there until he gasped. “Motherfucker! Get off of me!”

Manny shuddered and a wet sound came from his direction as his hands slipped. Half a moment later, he pressed them back where they’d been with a groan.

There was no way Manny would make it out of his house until he was carried out in a body bag.

“Answer his questions or I’ll pick up that knife and cut your fingers off one by one and watch you bleed to death,” Ryan said, eyeing the dirty blade. With his good hand, he took one of the other man’s, twisting the arm behind his back and gripping one finger by the knuckle.

Manny had been right – the man was a coward.  “All right! Fucking fine.” He tried to jerk his hand away.

Ryan let go of the finger but kept the limb pinned, where it couldn’t be used to cause any trouble.

“How the hell did you get in here?” Most of the color had drained from Manny’s face, but the rage hadn’t left his eyes.

“Inés gave me her keys.”

Manny’s face went absolutely white, leaving him looking a hell of a lot like Ally had at the hospital, before her transfusion. “Liar! Why the fuck would she give you anything?”

“Why wouldn’t she? You don’t mean shit to her.” A twisted smile crept across the man’s face. “You’ve been played like the fool you are. You really couldn’t figure it out on your own?” He laughed a labored, wheezing laugh that was impeded by Ryan’s bodyweight. “Don’t believe me? Check my fucking pocket.”

Sweat trickled down Manny’s forehead in rivulets. “Check his pocket.”

Digging into the idiot’s pockets wasn’t at the top of Ryan’s to-do list, but it wasn’t above what he’d do in the name of someone’s dying wish. Even Manny’s. “Which one?”

“Left.”

The man’s jeans were baggy, which made it easy to reach into the pocket without moving much more than his hand. His fingers touched metal, and he pulled out a key ring. It hit the carpet with a muffled jangling when he dropped it.

Three keys hung from the steel ring. So did a pink daisy-shaped keychain, the little flecks of glitter in its plastic petals gleaming dully.

Manny stopped staring at his attacker and gaped at the keychain instead, his eyes creasing at the corners, as if the weight of his lids was too much. “Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck…”

“You’re dying,” Ryan interrupted, eyes fixed on Manny. There was no time to be anything but blunt. It wasn’t the first time he’d watched someone bleed out. “Is that the last thing you want to say?”

Manny shook his head, the motion weak but discernible. “Doesn’t matter.” He breathed hard, sweating harder. “Just let him up.”

“No. I won’t let him go.”

Manny’s brows plunged as he moved a hand, groping along the waistband of his jeans. “Let him up.” He pulled a .45 from his pants and held it with a surprisingly steady hand. “This is my right. Ally wouldn’t want you to kill for her, anyway. Trust me.”

He was right about what Ally would want. Still, the important thing was keeping her safe.

Manny carried his gun locked and loaded. He had to be using all his strength to hold it steady. Slowly, Ryan eased up off the other man’s back, simultaneously drawing his gun.

Just in case. He raised the 9mm and trained it on the man who’d put two bullets in Ally. Under no circumstances would he allow him to escape the house, where he’d be a danger to her again.

Manny’s attacker jumped up and ran for the door but hardly made it two feet before he fell, crumpling to the carpet as Manny’s gun’s report echoed loud and sharp through the hall.

Either Manny had aimed true, or it had been a lucky accident. A bullet wound gaped in the man’s chest, over a lung and near the heart. Maybe even in the heart – it was hard to be sure. Manny fired another round for good measure before dropping the gun, his hand landing limp and bloody beside it.

Ryan tucked his gun back into his jeans.

Manny’s outstretched hand was the only part of him Ryan could get close to without stepping in blood. Kneeling, he pushed back the sleeve of Manny’s jacket and pressed two fingertips against the inside of his wrist.

He caught the last fluttering pulse beat, a weak
thump thump
that wasn’t followed, though he knelt there, waiting, for what seemed like an eternity.

He rose. Though the life was only moments gone from Manny’s body, there was an unmistakable lack of it. His eyes were open but clearly blind, dark and expressionless. He had to look away – looking into them was too much like looking into Ally’s eyes, and he’d sooner take the gun he was carrying and shoot himself than see her lying still and lifeless, gone forever.

The thought of her caused his stomach to shrivel up as he retrieved the keys lying on the floor and exited the house through the partially open front door, elbowing it the rest of the way open. Inés’ keys were the only object he’d touched inside Manny’s house – he’d leave no fingerprints on doorknobs or the house’s other surfaces, and hopefully no one would think to search the scene for any other evidence of a third person.

The crime scene would look like two rival gang members had killed each other, which was exactly what had happened. It would be like he’d never even been there, except he’d know. He’d carry the memory of Manny’s dying words and dead eyes inside himself for the rest of his life.

The ghosts of Manny and his killer would keep those of Gibson and the other people he’d seen die in Afghanistan – brothers in arms, enemies and civilians – company. His mind was already a haunted house, shot full of holes. For once, he feared the future more than the past. Manny’s death didn’t break his heart, but telling Ally about it would.