57

Callahan
I stand with my arms folded watching from across the room as the doctor finishes examining Portia. She’s sleeping. Didn’t even fight me when I told the doctor to give her something to relax her. Something strong enough to knock her out.
“What is it about her?” Antonio asks, his eyes, too, on Portia.
I turn to him. He shifts his gaze to mine and takes a swallow of whiskey.
“Why would you give everything up for her?” he continues.
I take a deep breath and swallow my own drink. It’s not enough. “She’s innocent, Antonio. And she can’t help her name.”
He snorts.
“Why did you go in after her then?” I ask him.
“I was going after you.”
“No, you weren’t.”
He turns his attention to pouring himself another glass, taking his time to look at me. I’m glad she wasn’t more badly hurt. Glad she didn’t die. But we can’t lose focus.
“That bastard – ”
” – will be punished. I swear it on my life, dear Brother.”
“Don’t swear on your life. Don’t tempt fate.” He drinks.
“Fate’s fucked me over too many times. It’s not up to fate anymore.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.” Guilt gnaws at me. I look at him, my younger brother who has grown as tall as me, as big, as dark. He doesn’t deserve this life.
“Thank you for wanting to save her.”
He can’t hold my gaze but nods in acknowledgement.
I smile. Because I know he’d gone in after her, not me.
“I’m going to bed,” Antonio says and walks out of my room.
“She wasn’t violated,” the doctor says a few minutes after Antonio’s gone. He adjusts the blanket over her shoulders and turns to me.
I exhale. Nod.
He goes into the bathroom to wash his hands then returns to the bedroom to lay out some ointments, bandages and plastic bottles of pills.
“These pain killers,” I say, reading the label of one of the containers. “These are strong enough?”
“It looks worse than it is, Callahan. She will be sore, but he only broke skin in a few places. She’ll be fine in a few days.” He plucks the bottle from my hand and sets it back on the nightstand. “Besides, any more would knock her out.”
“I’d rather she sleeps if it’s painful.”
“I don’t think that’s up to you to decide.”
I give him a look.
He ignores it and closes his medical bag, “I can stay on property if you want.”
I brush a strand of hair back from her forehead. She doesn’t stir. She looks younger, somehow.
Softer. Her face relaxed in a way I don’t often see it. I didn’t want her awake, not for the examination that would tell me if Fernando or anyone else touched her.
With a deep exhale, I turn to the doctor. “I appreciate that, but we’ll be all right.” We walk out of the bedroom, where her cousin and Cerberus sit anxiously outside.
Nathan stands as soon as he sees us and Cerberus does the same, poking his nose at the crack in the door. He’d try to slip in if I let him. I guide him back to the hallway.
“Besides,” I tell the doctor. “I’d prefer not to see you again for a good long time. No offense.”
“None taken. I feel the same,” he says with a wink. I like the man. Always have. “I’ll see myself out. One of your men will take me back?”
“Dante will see to it.” The doctor nods as he descends the stairs and I turn to Nathan.
“How is she?” he asks, eyes wide, face that of a boy. A scared boy. She’s the last of his family.
“She’ll be fine. He gave her a heavy dose of a sedative, so she’ll be out for a bit. Why don’t you go get something to eat?” He’s a bottomless pit when it comes to food.
He shakes his head, runs a hand through his hair.
“Or get some sleep. Have you
slept at all?”
“I’m fine. It was Fernando, wasn’t it?”
I nod. “And the cartel.”
“Are you sure about that? Why would the cartel hurt her?”
“We’ll talk to her when she wakes up and see what we can figure out.”
“Can I go in there?”
“As long as you let her sleep.”
“Thanks.”
He moves into the bedroom and I walk to the top of the stairs. I hear the front door close and footsteps into the living room. My uncle. I walk down the stairs, Cerberus on my heels.
Sending him to the kitchen, I head into the living room to find my uncle standing in front of my mother’s portrait. He took a shower too, even though he didn’t take a dunk, and he looks as crisp as usual. He keeps several suits on the island.
“She was a beauty,” he says when I walk into the room.
“She was. I wonder if Elizabeth would have looked like her.” The thought comes out of nowhere and my uncle turns to me.
“Don’t go down that road. You’ve already lost focus.”
I know why he says it. I don’t like it, but I understand why. He’s right. I have already lost focus.
Because tonight, I had Fernando in my sights. Tonight, I could have taken him. I could have gotten what I needed to understand and avenge my family.
Tonight, I could have been done with it.
But I chose Portia instead.
And I’m not sure if it’s even puzzling that I did.
I walk away, noticing the whiskey Lenore left on the coffee table and pour some into each of the tumblers. My uncle’s eyes burn into my back. He’s pissed.
Picking up both glasses, I turn and walk to him. I hand him one.
“You got to the old man who rented the boat?”
He nods. “He’s taken care of. Not that he’s any of our concern.”
“He’s a human being.” I didn’t want the cartel returning to punish the old man for the tracking device he’d had on the boat every time they’d taken it.
“Sometimes I don’t recognize you, Callahan You even put your own brother’s life at risk and for what?”
I turn to walk to the window. I feel his eyes on me as he drinks his whiskey. The sea is calmer today, the sky clearer, as the sun sets.
Apart from a moonless night when stars blanket the sky, it’s the most beautiful time on the island.
“What did you expect me to do? Let her die?”
He faces me, eyes hard, jaw set.
“She is a means to an end. That is all. Not worth Antonio’s life. Or yours,”
A means to an end. If I want to work with the cartel, I need her. It’s why I married her. But there’s something fundamentally wrong with this. Something my uncle isn’t privy to. At least I don’t think he is.
I don’t understand myself why I did it – why I married her – because I’ve known all along this isn’t my reason. I never had any intention of working with the cartel. I never planned for any future after killing Fernando.
Not that I ever contemplated suicide. Not consciously. It’s more that after Fernando, after avenging my family’s murders, the picture ends.
There is only a void.
Or there was. Until Portia.
And whether he realizes it or not, it’s what has kept me focused on the task. The thing that’s kept my determination sharp.
But when the possibility of a future with Portia comes up, it muddies the waters. When it comes to Antonio, I feel guilt at my choice. At what I’ve known for a long time. But with Portia, it’s different. My guilt for Antonio is to live to spare him pain.
With Portia, it’s to live. To really live.