More Than a Hotline Fling

-39-

Damian's POV

Once ESU cleared the house, they called me in because June wouldn't move. She curled into a corner and screamed so loud that the coms picked it up. From her scream, she was alive, but I still didn't know if she was okay. That scream through the first contact swelled my heart with hope and fucking killed me.

Going off com activity, Luca was arrested near the entrance with no resistance. Cuffed and read his rights, he was escorted to a waiting cruiser with his head dipped down, but I recognized him from his AMC profile.

Two assholes, Luiz Amaya and Ramon Samantiego, along with an unidentified suspect, were arrested onsite and breathed air they didn't deserve. All three were lucky they'd already been transported off the property when I entered. My feet stepped past the two front door security guards' bodies, peppered with ESU's bullets.

At this moment, I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for them.

My mind had more than enough horrific notions of what had happened to June, ranging from starvation to gang-banging. Hernandez refused to let me see the videos the perps sent to the 34th, addressed to me.

It was for the best because I was hanging on by a thread.

Jason was right. I clung to June's ring, physically and the idea that I slipped it on her finger. I threaded it through one of her mother's necklaces, hung it down over my heart, and never took it off. Clutching it at night was the only relief I got from nightmares.

One look at the bones pronounced in June's frail fingers and my teeth clenched.

Except now it's too fucking big.

I bristled at the details zooming into focus as I rushed to June's bedside, a fucking dirty mattress on the floor. Dirt, cuts, and bruises littered her skin. Her hair was two shades darker, greasy, and matted into knots. A raspy wheeze whistled when she breathed.

With a few slow, deep breaths, I pushed aside my discomfort at June's appearance, coupled with the idea that I broke into the perps' holding cells and cracked their skulls with my knuckles. Heaving slow breaths, I focused on the facts. She was here, alive and in front of me.

She looked like a fucking skeleton.

Her skin draped over her protruding bones and her sunken-in eyes rolled back, dull and lifeless. After so many days apart, I couldn't look away. By the dull, gray haze over her eyes, she was physically right in front of me, but mentally millions of miles away.

Despite June's silence, her muted movements, limp limbs, and dulled haze in her eyes, her fingers trembled as I lifted them to my shoulder. Her stench of body odor and filth burned my nose as I carried her out. With one arm sweep, I was beyond grateful I carried her. Selfishly, I needed her in my arms. She was my world and I wanted to protect her against the rest of the world.

I wasn't sure how the press vultures found us, but I would've broken any camera that blocked our path to the ambulance. Fortunately, one screamed out, "Get back!" and the reporters parted for us.

She fell into a deep sleep on the ride to the hospital. The paramedic set a saline IV, which she drained in twelve minutes. His eyes met mine as he switched bags.

"No obvious damage," he muttered and checked her over.

I used the time to decompress, slumping in the claustrophobic interior. My fingers trembled where my hand palmed my forehead. The back of my head banged against a stainless-steel medical cabinet with each bump the ambulance took.

In no time at all, we lurched to a stop. The doors opened with a click, drawing my eyes to the hospital's entrance. June's eyes flipped open while paramedics rushed her down the hall. Her body was stiffer than the gurney.