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“Mya,come on, Mya. Wake up, Mya. Wake up.”
She was lying across my lap, in the back of the car. Fear, my new constant companion, gripped my heart.
She was breathing, but that wasn’t enough for me. I needed to see her open her eyes. I needed her to tell me that she was okay.
“Mya, come on. Wake up, Mya. You can do it, open your eyes.”
“She’s fine, Dario,” Luis said sitting next to me.
He’d arrived just in the nick of time. I’d needed help and he had delivered.
Joseph had brought him just in time. He was the piece of the puzzle I hadn’t revealed to Mya. And where was Joseph?
Luis was my inside man on the police force.
“What do you want me to do about Matteo?” Joseph asked.
“Kill him.”
“Roger that.”
“Nope,” Luis called to Joseph. “Not on my watch. Matteo’s going to jail.”
“He’ll just walk,” I said.
Luis shook his head. “No, I’ll see to it that he doesn’t.”
Joseph stared at me, waiting for me to make a decision. I imagined the look on Mya’s face if she knew I’d had Matteo killed in cold blood. I was trying to be better for the both of us. “Just watch him. Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”
I had watched as Joseph shot Nico. And Matteo had lost his shit when it happened.
That had been all the distraction we’d needed to get the upper hand. Now Matteo was bloody and bruised, tied up in the back of a car.
Mya stirred in my arms. She was waking up.
“Mya?”
“Dario?” Tears filled her eyes as she sat up and embraced me like she never wanted to let me go. “I thought you were dead. I thought—” I buried my face in her hair, feeling my own eyes grow damp.
“Shh…I’m fine. The bullet went right through my shoulder. It fucking hurts but otherwise, I’m okay.”
“Where’s Nico?” she said suddenly, fear showing in her eyes.
“Dead,” I said quietly. “Joseph took care of him. He was going to kill you.”
“Oh my God. I remember…” she breathed in deeply and looked like she was about to faint again.
I hugged her to me, holding her tight. I said to Luis. “You’re on the force. What are our next steps?”
“I’m not in the business of making those types of decisions. And Nico got what he deserved as far as I’m concerned.”
“Luis?”
She had just realized he was there.
“Hey, Mya…”
She reached out to hug him. She started to sob and it took all my strength not to pull her back into my arms. Luis held her tight.