Page 18 of Venomous King
“Let her go, Diego! Please, she’s sick; she can’t breathe!” Isabella begs as she makes her way to our child. She falls to her knees, pulls Julia onto her lap, wraps her arms around Julia, and tries to get her to take timed breaths together. “Please, baby,breathe with Mommy. One, two, three, that’s it, in and out, one, two, three. That’s my good girl. Keep going, baby.”
“Diego, we have to go now! Stella will be sending reinforcements, and I can hear sirens blaring,” the loud, accented voice yells from behind me. “Let me put a bullet in thiscabrón’s (bastard’s)head, and we can take Isabella and the child.”
Diego ignores his request, his eyes never leaving where Isabella is on the ground, trying to calm Julia’s breathing. He watches intently, fear and confusion clearly evident on his menacing face. Julia starts to sign words to her mother in rapid succession. As her breathing begins to calm down, and she takes ragged, labored breaths that hurt my heart to hear. My poor, sweet baby. I immediately pick up what she’s trying to tell her mother. “Scared, bad man. Daddy’s hurt. Gammy was scared.”
“What is she doing with her hands?” Diego questions quietly as he approaches the mother-daughter pair, his hand still gripping tightly to his bleeding wound, and Julia signs the word‘monster’at him.My brave little lovebug.
An aggravated, pained sigh leaves my mouth. I don’t want to explain anything about my child to this fucking heathen, and Isabella is utterly focused on Julia. I don’t want to risk Diego attempting to rip Julia from her arms, and causing her to get worse. I’m also cognizant of the asshole still pointing a gun at me, and waiting for the order to murder me in cold blood before my family.
Frustration fills me with the desire to slam my fist into this fucker’s face. “It’s sign language. She reverts to it when she can’t catch her breath or is stressed. She has a hearing aid, she was born with severe hearing loss, and a damaged heart. This shit you’re putting her through could kill her,asshole.”
Diego turns his vicious, frigid gaze toward me, and I feel a cold shiver race down my spine, despite the oppressive heat in thischurch. This man is not only dangerous, but also without mercy. Will he end my life here? Will he leave my daughter to die here because she is sick, and he now perceives her as weak? Isabella told me everything he put her through to try to make her strong, so that she could stand at his side. He wanted her to become his underworld queen, and for that, she could not be weak. What will he do to Isabella now that he has found her? What will happen to Julia?
“Take all three of them, Santiago. They will all be returning with us. Make sure that fucker doesn’t bleed to death,” he grunts his command to his men, clutches his side, and strides out of the church without a backward glance, confident that his orders will be obeyed without question.
“Come on,hombre muerto caminando(dead man walking), it’s time to go. For now, you get to keep breathing, but I don’t think it will be long beforeel jefe(the boss)allows me to kill you,“ the deep, accented voice growls, as I’m dragged to my feet by two brutes and shoved out the door, even though I try to fight against his men’s restraining hold, and keep my eyes on Julia and Isabella.
“I’m right here, Julia. Daddy’s right here, Lovebug. Everything will be alright, baby. Please, just stay calm.” I try to reassure my daughter, even though my heart is ready to leap out of my chest. My head begins to swim again, as lightheadedness and blood loss take over my senses.
Somewhere in my doctor’s brain, I realize that I am bleeding out, and if they don’t stop it soon, I will fucking die.One less obstacle to get to Isabella. I stumble, my feet giving way under me, and the only thing keeping me standing is the tight grip of the men on my arms. The last thing I hear, as my vision darkens, is Isabella screaming that she loves me.
I come to with a searing pain radiating down my arm and chest, and a moaned cry leaves my lips before I’m fully aware of my surroundings. Once I can pry my heavy eyelids open, I take a good look at where I am, and dread fills me. I’m in a darkened space, the walls are all painted a deep shade of burgundy, and thick floral curtains cover what seems like the only window in the small square space, blanking out any look at the sky, and giving me no indication of how long I was out. My eyes dart around, looking for a possible escape, even as I shift back and forth on the soft surface I’m lying on, and pain soars through my heavy limbs.
“I wouldn’t move too much,pedazo de mierda (piece of shit).The doctor was just here patching you up and doesn’t want to return.“ A tall, middle-aged, dark-haired man moves into the only light source in the space, and I’m faced with his angry expression.“Debería haberme dejado matarte. Se está debilitando,(Heshould have let me kill you. He’s getting weak,)”he mumbles.
“I don’t understand Spanish, you psycho. Where is Isabella and my daughter?” I hiss out a breath, as I force myself to sit up and place my feet firmly on the floor, realizing I’m lying on a sofa. My head spins, but I refuse to show weakness before this man; the one who desires nothing more than my death.
An amused smirk traverses across his dark, tanned face as his bottomless dark eyes meet mine, and he crosses his tattooed arms across his barrel chest. “La niña pequeña(little girl) is not yours. She looks just like her father. Her real father, and not somebabeco(white guy) pretending to play house with hermadre(mother).”
“Fuck you! I am her father, I’ve taken care of her and raised her as my own, and I’ve done it all without kidnapping and terrorizing her mother. Your boss is insane, you have to know that. Were you there in that jungle? Did you witness his horrific treatment of Isabella, and do nothing, like a fucking coward?”
He takes a menacing step towards me, his hands fisted at his sides, and reaching for the long blade he has strapped to his upper leg. “Listen here, littlechocha(cunt), Isabella is not innocent. She has demons too, and he wasn’t like this before her. She possessed him and made his mind corrupt. That bitch is dangerous to any man she’s with. If she were smart, she would have made sure he never found her, but now it’s too late. He will never let her go.”
I rise from the sofa, the effort making me clench my teeth, and face off with this asshole who thinks he can intimidate me. “Where is my family?” My eyes level with his, and we are evenly matched in height, but I have more defined muscles, and youth is on my side. Despite his age, I have no doubt that this man is still ruthless and could take me down, but I won’t cower, or go without a fight.
He gives me a dismissive look from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head, and spits at my feet. “Rest up,pendejo(asshole), you won’t survive here long if you bleed to death.“ He turns his back on me as if I pose no threat to him, and strides out of the room, the door slamming in his wake. I take off after him, and as I open the door, I’m immediately confronted by two men holding rifles at the ready, with menacing scowls. One of the fuckers growls at me like a goddamn animal, as I back into the room and slam the door. Fuck, how am I going to get out of here? How am I going to get to Isabella and Julia, and protect them?
I drag my shaking hands down my face, as both rage and desperation fill me. I search the room for anything I can use as a weapon. I won’t sit here and wait to die, while Diego has my girland my daughter in his psychotic clutches. I have to save them. I have to get us out of here, wherever here is.
Chapter thirteen
Issy
“Know thyself, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”
Sun Tzu
Icradle my exhausted daughter in my arms, humming softly as she sleeps, to calm the both of us down, and soothe my panicked heart. All the distressing events today have taken a toll and worn her right out. She finally passed out, after crying herself to sleep, and inconsolably calling out for Kai.
Kai, my love, the part of my soul that Diego has taken away from us, and I don’t know where he is, if he’s even safe or still breathing. He has to be alive, I refuse to believe that even Diego would be that malignant, and choose to hurt me and Julia by ending Kai’s life. He can’t be that much of a monster, can he?
I’ve never felt more helpless than in that moment, and this one. Not even when I was drugged and kidnapped by Diego, placed in the jungle, and then thrown into that hole in the ground, as a result of his wrath. A shiver races down my spine at the memory of that deep, dark, and hot hole, with the sensation of bugs crawling along my skin. The desire to scream and scratch at my flesh tries to overwhelm me, but I force myself to resist the temptation. I’m not still trapped there. I survived, and I will keep surviving.
The sound of the door opening, slowly and quietly, has my body tensing and going on alert. We were placed in this small bedroom after we were abducted from the church, blindfolded, and taken to this location. A safe house, I heard one of Diego’s men utter the word. Other than a terrified doctor who came to check on Julia, no one else has entered in hours. My body’s frightened reaction has Julia releasing a little whimper in my arms, and forcing me to loosen my tight hold on her tiny body.
My eyes meet a pair of green globes that seem to be filled with an emerald fire from within. My heartbeat accelerates rapidly, and I fear that he can hear it from where he’s standing, staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face. I’m not sure what is more frightening, Diego filled with anger and losing hisshit, or this version of him that is silent, and like a coiled cobra waiting to strike.
My mouth goes dry, as beads of sweat slide down the back of my neck, and all the nerves in my arms and legs tense, ready for fight or flight. I must protect Julia from this man at all costs, he could hurt her. Even as the thought crosses my mind, I know it’s immediately false. Diego would hurt me, he would hurt Kai and anyone else that got in his way, but I don’t honestly believe that he would hurt an innocent child, and certainly nothischild. He wouldn’t, would he? Even he has a limit to his cruelty.