He looked down at Victor with an expression that was not triumph and was not satisfaction.
It was something quieter than either of those things. It was the expression of a man who had just done what needed doing and felt no particular way about it because it was never about him.
“Stay down.” Luis said very quietly. “I won’t ask twice.” For a long moment nobody moved.
The pop song that had been playing overhead all this time finally, absurdly, ended. The mall went quiet enough that you could hear the distant sound of the food court two corridors away.
Victor looked at Luis’s face. He read what was there, or rather what wasn’t there.
No performance, no ego, no need to be seen doing this. Just a man standing between his wife and something that had tried to hurt her.
Victor stayed down. Luis turned immediately to Elena. She was still against the glass, both hands on her belly, tears running in long silent streams down her face.
Red marks blooming on her throat where Victor’s hand had been. Her legs trembling but holding.
She was still standing. Elena. His voice changed entirely when he said her name. The controlled flatness completely gone, replaced by something raw and real and unguarded.
“Are you hurt? The baby?” “We’re okay.” Barely a whisper. “She’s moving. I can feel her moving.”
Something moved across his face. Relief so enormous it looked like it cost him physically.
He held her gaze for a long moment as if his eyes needed to confirm what her words were telling him.
Behind him Victor shifted on the floor. Luis didn’t look back. He didn’t need to.
“Don’t.” He said without turning around. Victor stopped moving. Mall security arrived 40 seconds later.
A guard named Craig who had been doing this job for 11 years and had seen most things but stopped short when he came through the crowd and took in the full picture.
The pregnant woman against the glass with red marks on her throat. The man on his knees on the floor in a crumpled suit.
The other man standing between them with a posture of someone who had simply handled the situation and was now waiting for someone else to do their job.
“Luis Ortega.” Luis said before Craig could speak. “My wife was assaulted by this man.
His name is Victor Garcia. He also threw a punch. There are witnesses and I counted at least a dozen phones that recorded everything.
