Chapter 23

Trouble

A considerable amount of blood stained the back-leather seat of Monica's car; once in a while she would look to the back through the rear mirror to see Brian's face in agony trying to help Dominic Toretto.

He was making pressure with his right hand on Dom's shoulder; his friend was still unconscious, what wasn't a good sign. If the bullet had reached a vulnerable place he could bleed to death.

"Hurry up, Fuentes! If you keep this speed Dom will end up dying in this car!"

"I'm going as fast as I can without calling attention to us."- Monica said.

"Dom..."- Brian touched his friend's face. "Can you hear me?"

He placed two fingers in Dom's neck and feeling the vein pulsing but it was getting weaker.

"Brian, I still think we should take him to the hospital. I don't think Mia is going to be able to save him with bandages and hydrogen peroxide."

"Keep driving!"- He said.

With his free hand, Brian was able to get the cell phone out of his jeans pocket and dial Mia's number. She answered right away.

"Brian?"- Her voice sounded alert on the other side of the line.

"Mia, we have a situation."- Brian said without hiding the tension on his voice. "Dom got shot and it seems very serious. I think he'll need a surgery urgently."

Brian could hear Mia's breath changing over the phone, but she controlled her desperation and said:

"I know a place where we can take him."

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Letty was driving as fast as possible to Los Angeles, but she still had at least forty minutes to go before she could get to Vince's house. That feeling that something had gone wrong during Dom and Brian's mission persisted in her mind causing her a lot of anxiety.

She needed to know that they were ok. She tried calling Dom but his phone was going to his voice messages. The same thing was happening to Brian's phone. Letty decided then to call Mia but before the phone call was complete, she felt her car being hit hard from behind.

It was a hummer GM black truck full of external modifications and definitely internal ones as well.

Her body jumped towards the front on her car seat but her seatbelt stopped her from hitting her head against the wheel. Letty put all her strength in the tires and launched on a speed of two hundred kilometers per hour trying to scape from the monstrous vehicle that was chasing her.

However, the car behind hers increased the speed enough to be side by side with hers. Letty saw two men inside the truck;

The driver turned the wheel to side and came closer, smashing the car's body.

"Son of a bitch!"- She shouted trying to keep the vehicle on the road.

It was at that very moment that the driver pointed a gun straight to Letty's window and shot breaking the glass but not getting Letty. Instinctively, she went down to avoid getting hurt but her eyes still partially watched the pieces of glass floating in the air.

She lost control of the vehicle that drove by itself out of the road until it flipped over twice before stopping in the middle of the grass, out of the road with the wheels up.

Inside the car, Letty was dizzy but awake. The seatbelt was still tied to her waist and stopped her from hitting her head. She breathed erratically and spilled blood. She was able to release herself from the seatbelt and crowl out of the car.

It felt like a déjà vu from then night she was running away from Phoenix a year ago. She escaped the first time but she wasn't sure she would do it a second.

The two men parked the car near where Letty's vehicle crashed. They went down the hill beside the road and saw the car turned. They rushed to the place but when they got there, Letty was not inside of the car anymore.

She had ran limping to the insides of the woods; Letty felt like throwing up besides but she handled herself and stayed in the hid, very quiet.

The men approached the woods looking for her. One of them pointed to footsteps on the ground.

"Look at that..."- One of them whispered to the other. "She cannot be far."

"Hey, baby doll, where are you?"- said one of the men. "I heard that you are tough as hell. I'd love to learn more about it."

"You escaped Braga once, princess, if you had two lives before, now this is your last one!"- said the other man.

"Your little boyfriend ruined our operation on the mountains but he got what he deserved."- The man continued. "He got fucking shot. He must be bleeding like a slaughtered pig right now. Do you care for joining him?"

Letty swallowed hard and tried not to panic; with a lot of effort she dragged herself deeper inside the woods and it was able to go around it and return to the road. A car was coning. Letty was able to stand up and bounce her arms in the ar to call the attention of the upcoming driver.

The driver slowed down his vehicle when he saw a woman bouncing her arms in the air like if she was calling for help. He stopped a few meters before Letty and get out of the car immediately. She felt relieved when she saw the middle age man approaching her.

"Are you alright, miss?"- He asked noticing that Letty's forehead and lips were bleeding.

"Sir, help me please."- Letty asked. "My car flipped out of the road and I need to get to Los Angeles."

"I'll take you to the hospital."- the man said leading Letty to get into his car when Braga's men showed up and one of them shot the good samaritan that was trying to help Letty.

She screamed. The man went down on his back with a shot to his stomach.

"It's over."- said the man that had shot Letty's potential saviour.

The other man came from behind and grabbed her. She fought him, pushing him on the ground but the man with the gun cocked his pistol towards her head and said:

"Calm down, baby."

Letty spilled more blood and sighed.

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Monica parked the car, taking two vacancies at the same time in front of the dark doors of the Santa Lucia Hospital in one of the most hard-core neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Mia and Vince were at the hospital door with a bed on heels. They ran to the car and with Brian's help they were able to raise Dom, moving him from the car to the bed.

Vince pushed the bed followed by Mia and Brian. Monica stayed in the car and called Penning.

"Boss, it's me."- She said when he answered.

"Where the fuck is you, Fuentes?"- He shouted. "We lost total communication with you an hour ago. What happened?"

"Something bad happened, sir."- Monica told him. "Toretto got shot on the other side of the border but I was able to bring him and Brian back in LA."

"Is Toretto still with you? I want you to bring him here immediately."- Penning demanded.

"I am sorry, sir but I won't do that."- She told him.

"I beg your pardon?"

"There's a lot going on, boss. Toretto is not well and O'Conner is trying to save him. I trust Brian, he knows what he's doing. Besides, we didn't get out of the border with empty hands. We have something that will drive Braga crazy to negotiate with us."- She added opening the trunk of the car and looking at the two suitcases full of heroin that Brian had managed to steal a little bit after they put a wounded Dom inside.

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Phoenix was furious when he entered Braga's headquarters, slamming the door. Gisele was sitting on the corner of the room while Campos was enjoying a dose of pure whisky.

"Having a bad night?"- Gisele asked him.

"Everything is fucked!"- Phoenix exclaimed. "I'm damn sure that the bastard of Toretto knew about the scam from the beginning and that other cabrón, the newbie, I knew he was a cop. He smelled like one from the very beginning but Gisele was all wet for him"

Gisele ignored his comment about her.

"We left at least ten kilos of the product behind and your trap for Toretto didn't fuck work. I ain't even had the chance to torture the son of a bitch to find out where is his whore."

"Quedade tranquilo, hombre." (Calm down, man.)- Campos said. "Everything is going well. Toretto is injured and I just got the amazing news that Letty has been captured. It couldn't be better, papí."

"So, what's next?"- Phoenix asked him.

"Wait for their call."- Campos calmly said. "They'll have a big surprise when they try to negotiate the product with us."

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"Are you sure we can trust him?"- Brian whispered inside the poorly equipped surgery room while he was watching the surgeon getting ready to operate on Dom's shoulder.

"Doctor Jackson is an excellent surgeon."- Mia whispered back. "I enjoyed working with him when I started my medical residence."

"But you told me that this guy had his license terminated after the hospital find out he was stealing narcotics to fulfill his addiction.

"Brian, we have no choice. I won't let my brother bleed to death. Now go out to wait with Vince."

Brian left the surgery room. Mia sterilized her hands, put her long black hair inside a blue surgical cap, then placed the mask on her face and put it on the gloves.

"Anesthesia is ready."- Doctor Jack announced. He placed a tube on Dom's face and with Mia's help he began the countdown while he released the anesthesia inside the tube.

"3…2…1!"

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Roman was upset because Letty was gone. He had tried to call Brian to let him know what happened but couldn't reach him. He also tried Monica's cell phone and nothing. Finally, he called Letty to see if she was alright but like the others, she didn't pick up the phone.

"Nobody answered again?"- Pitty asked when she saw him so worried. She was working on her laptop, designing a new car engine.

He nodded.

"Roman, they'll call!"

"Damn, Pitty, you shouldn't have given the car to Letty. She should have stayed here safe. Now, only God Knows what could have happened to her, to them!"

"Roman..."

"No, baby, I'm sorry but I'm mad at you."- He pointed his finger to her.

She didn't say anything.

" I'm going to check on the baby."

He went to the bedroom where Nina was laying in her basinet, very quiet but with her eyes wide open.

"Hello, baby girl."- Roman said with a smile to her. "Are you wake already?"

Nina smiled back to him.

"Haha! Look at that! You're smiling to Uncle Roman, cutie!"

He used blanket to hid his face.

"Where's Uncle Roman?"- He asked showing his face back to her right away.

Nina giggled.

"You like that, don't you?"

He hid his face again for a few seconds before he showed himself one more time. Nina giggled even more.

"Uncle Roman is so funny, isn't he?"

In the next moment, Nina no longer laughed, she was crying due to the scare of seeing Roman suddenly being hit in the head by a frying pan and falling on the floor.

"I'm sorry, Roman."- Pitty said putting the pan aside. She got Nina's basinet and her baby bag.

She left the house and got in a black Honda Civic that was parked in front of the so loved Roman's mom garden. As soon as Pitty placed the basinet on the back seat, the car left in high speed. The baby was still crying.

To be continued…