Page 95 of Bastard

There was a time, years ago, when I might have followed. Like in Tijuana, when trucks barricaded us in from both ends of a side street, causing everyone to spill from their vehicles to fight. Ignacio had a gun to Diego’s head. The Lobos were outnumbered. And I was supposed to stay hidden.

I didn’t listen. How could I? I crept up on Ignacio, then shot him in the head.

Hayden lost his mind afterward. Deep down, I’m certain this was the reason he sent me away. He wanted a better life for me. A normal one, isn’t that what he always says?

Except my life has never been normal.

I fell in love with the CEO of killers. Despite everything he’s done and everything he is, I’m still in love with him.

So, this time, I wait.

Truck engines roar. Men shout. Shots ring out. I bite my lip and listen to the war play out. My eyes widen when I hear a loud crash followed by screaming. Gunfire erupts and never seems to end.

Until finally, everything grows quiet.

I count the seconds until the signal and release a long exhalation when I hear it. I roll to my feet and begin walking, the dust settling and the air clearing as the evidence of what transpired comes into focus.

Two overturned Ford 150s lay side by side less than two hundred yards away. Engines facing in the carcass’s direction. A driver hangs out of one window, a gunshot wound to the head. Twenty or so more men surround the vehicles. All dead.

By one man, who’d been en route to battle.

Madre mía. He’s killed every one of them.

It’s a horrible sight. Even though the pendejos deserved to die.

If this scene is any indication, the militants won’t be terrorizing villages anymore.

Hayden appears from the cluster of trees up ahead. All don’t-fuck-with-me rugged inch of him. An immediate sense of relief washes over me.

I don’t know whether to run, cry, laugh, or hug him. My emotions fuse together, leaving me dizzy.

I sink to the ground and wait, watching him stop to search the pockets of several men. So professional. A genuine bastard if you’re on the receiving end of his wrath.

This is what he’s been protecting you from.

This is the life he’s chosen.

This is far from normal.

“I’ll never let you go again,” he promised me. Instead of swooning like a love-struck fool, I should have taken his words as a warning.

35

We return to the village in silence.

The residents emerge from the community hut where they’d sheltered in place after hearing the machine gun fire off in the distance. Hayden immediately disappears with a group of men, leaving me alone with a fussing Mustafa, who folds me into a warm embrace.

“You okay, girl?”

“Yes.”

“I was worried those men might find you.”

“Hayden wouldn’t allow that to happen.” I swallow hard, the memory of him standing among the dead hard to shake. “His men have secured the area. They’ll be no more militant attacks.”

“Your husband is with the military?”

I bite my lip. “In a way, yes.”