Page 42 of Protecting Charity

I got into my car, cranked up “Cry” by Ashnikko on repeat, and sped off towards my home.

The tears wouldn’t stop flowing, and I hated it. I don’t do sensitive; I don’t do vulnerable. I don’t allow people to come into my life and disrupt it without repercussions. The music faded then repeated as I turned to get on the freeway. I picked up speed, hitting the highway at the limit, when a dark-colored car sideswiped into me with a jolt, running me off the road and into the grassy embankment. My tires slid against the slick turf, causing me to careen out of control. I watched in slow motion as I headed straight for the metal light pole. I crossed my hands in front of my face and braced for the impact. I hurled forward but fell short as my seat belt caught, and my face slammed into the airbag with a sickening thunk.

Silence.

A high-pitched ring in my ears numbed out everything around me. My head pulsated at a painful rate as I tried to get hold of my bearings. The same car that ran me off the road, or appeared to be, pulled up beside me and rolled down the passenger window. I blinked, trying to focus, when I noticed the hollow end of a barrel pointed at my face.

I sucked in a sharp breath and quickly leaned over the console to hide when shattered glass rained down on me at the sound of gun blasts. Return gunfire overtook the sounds of glass shattering and clinking against every surface it touched. My heart hammered violently against my chest as the shootout ceased, and the car beside me took off.

“Charity. Oh, God. Charity,” Nico’s alarmed cries pulled me from the tsunami my brain was currently swimming in.

“Nico?”

Nico stood beside my smashed door, gun in hand, his face suspended in terror. My heart staggered, witnessing him so transfixed as he stared at the carnage that was my car. I unbuckled my seatbelt, shoved my shoulder against the door, dislodging it from its twisted position. It jerked open, and I collapsed to the ground at Nico’s feet.

“Are you hurt? Are you shot? Let me look at you.”

I didn’t move, just stared at the ground and dug my fingers into the torn earth. “I’m fine,” I whispered. “I’m fine.” I stood with a fire in my belly, ready to lash out at the one thing that stood before me. My fists shook with adrenaline and fury as they hammered against the back window of my car, screaming out my problems for the world to hear. Red coated my vision when I kicked in the already distorted hunk of metal that was on the side of my car. My screams and groan of metal kept me going as I rammed my fists against the window repeatedly, battering it until my hands came away with dripping blood.

“Charity, stop,” Nico pleaded with me.

I couldn’t. How could I? This was the third time this month someone had tried to kill me, and I was nowhere near close enough to figuring out who did it. Who had it out for me, and why? These questions were becoming tiresome, and I just couldn’t handle it anymore.

Giving my window another big whack, I left another streak of blood across the surface, then exhaled with some sort of relief. I turned towards Nico to find him trying to hide his anguish. It couldn’t be easy to watch me lose my fucking mind. I was a goddamn wreck, and I knew it. I sat huffing, out of breath, and close to tears as Nico pulled me into his arms and held me tight.

“We need to go. He could come back at any moment.”

Pulling away from him, I reached inside and grabbed the bags I’d need for tomorrow night and followed him towards his car, where it sat, not without its own damage. Three bullet holes chipped the paint where the engine would lie had this been a regular vehicle and not a Porsche. His windshield spider-webbed with a singular bullet hole that lodged itself just to the right of the driver’s seat. A little further to the left and Nico would have been dead, all because he was defending me.

The contents in my stomach soured, and I lurched, expelling everything I had next to his front passenger tire.

Chapter 17

Max

“Tell me you aren’t worried?” I asked while pacing.

“I’m not worried,” Nico said as the tow truck pulled up.

“She’s been in the shower for an hour. What if she’s fallen?”

“Luca’s upstairs with her. He’d hear if she fell. Besides, she said she wanted to be alone to think.”

The tow truck beeped as it reversed into position, dropping off her car. “Jesus, Nico. This looks much worse from the way you described it.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. He grimaced as he recalled the events. Nico was the calm level headed one in the family. To see him so riled and upset was disturbing. He may be full-blood Moreno, but he was a lawyer for a reason. He didn’t have the constitution to do what we did, and that was okay. Arturo had him protecting the family and, to me, that was a greater calling.

“How else do you describe this? It was like you see in the movies with a shootout, only this time, I wasn’t sitting safely behind a TV screen. I didn’t even get to see who the coward was. He stayed in his vehicle, so I had to shoot at him through the glass and prayed I didn’t shoot wide and hit her.” He ran his hands down his face, then ruffled his already messed-up hair. He was shaking. “She was so enraged, I’m surprised she didn’t go after him on foot.” He rubbed his jaw and kicked at the ground. “She didn’t even have time to pull her gun, Max.”

It was a sobering reminder that she wasn’t as invulnerable as she painted herself to be. I thought I understood that when she lay bleeding in her car at the carnival, but she’s quick to convince me all was well and to move the fuck on.

And in true Charity fashion, she wouldn’t allow us to hold her back when Nico brought her here. We wanted answers, but she walked upstairs, ranting about her car, about how she wasn’t staying here, and swearing up and down about this Agent Harding, while stripping off her clothes as she went—which was torturous to watch and not be able to run my hands down her flawless skin—then slammed Luca’s door behind her. She’d been in the shower ever since.

Luca had to pick the lock on his bedroom door once she started screaming at the top of her lungs. That was when he decided she couldn’t be alone. I can’t tell if she has trauma or if she has anger issues. While Luca sat with her doing God knows what, Nico and I sat waiting for the tow truck, trying to distract ourselves.

The car tires touched the pavement, and I finally got to have a good look at all the damage. Bullet holes littered the driver’s side door frame, tiny shards of tempered glass were strewn about inside where she had sat, along with bullet holes that hit the other side of the car. Her deflated airbags draped down the dash and steering wheel with a white powder lightly dusting the inside as if a fucking coke fairy blew the shit all over the place. Blood streaked across the back window, dripping down into the crease of the window seal. “What the fuck happened here?” I pointed to the smears.

“She lost her temper.”

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