It wasn't uncommon for me to shoot people, though I tried to keep that kind of activity out of the house for Regina's sake.
Summoned by the noise, she hurried into the kitchen and ranted at me. "Mi hijo!" she yelled. "Now I have to throw out the ensaimada dough and disinfect the counter. You couldn't have taken your games outside?" She tutted, stepping around the counter to clean as Isa's scream echoed from the bedroom.
I dropped the gun to the counter, racing for the bedroom faster than I thought my bare feet could carry me. Regina followed at my heels, knowing there had been something different in that scream.
That one had been a scream of pain, of pure terror, and not one of frustration.
5
Isa
I dropped the lantern as I screamed, ducking down to cover my head as horror filled me. The potential of being shot, of everything ending so suddenly, seemed like such a ridiculous concept. I wanted nothing more than to be home.
I wanted the comfort of my mundane life as I curled my body in on itself and wished it all away. Rafael had said he'd kill me if I left him.
I hadn't believed him.
Silence followed the sound of the gunshot and the woman’s scolding shout, leaving me with nothing but my imagination to fill in the gaps of what may or may not be coming for me. I couldn't imagine the reality that the shot had been meant for someone else, not when it felt like it had been in the room with me. But a glance around confirmed that there was no shattered glass aside from what lay on the ground from the lantern. There was nothing but my own panic as I sat huddled on the floor in the room alone.
I heaved a sigh, putting a hand to the wall and carefully maneuvering myself to my feet. The sound of footsteps echoed in the hall as they came closer, pounding against the floors, and then the doorknob rattled.
"Isa!" Rafe yelled, the panic in his voice making me feel like, for a moment, maybe he gave a fuck what happened to me. I questioned myself, and the determination to hurt him to escape, but the vivid memory of that gunshot drove me to pick up the shattered lantern. Glass cut through the bandages on my hands, making me wince as the wounds beneath reopened.
The lock turned, and then the door flung open. I jumped to the side to avoid it as it came flying at me, my feet catching all the tiny pieces of glass that stayed on the floor as I moved hastily. When Rafael stepped through the door, I ignored the pain in my feet and pushed forward. Lunging for him, I swung my arm through the air and tried to hit him in the side of the head with the lantern.
He caught it in his grip, his face twisting with fury as he growled down at me. There was no trace of kindness in his face as he snatched it from my hand and flung it to the side of the room. A woman stood behind him as he snapped out a palm, catching me by the throat. His grip slipped, and I glanced down at the other hand fisted at his side to find it stained red.
I swallowed against the hand at my throat as he leaned into my space and used that grip to lift me up off my feet. His hold restricted my breathing, my blood-soaked fingers grasping his hand in protest. Ignoring me, he walked over the shards of glass at our feet, not so much as flinching when the pieces undoubtedly lodged themselves in his flesh. "Shit," the woman at his back said as her eyes met mine.
"Get the fucking first aid kit," Rafe growled at her. She turned, fleeing the room as Rafe brought me back to the bed. He set me on the edge of it, releasing his grip on my throat as I pulled my legs up and tried to crawl for the other side of the mattress. The blood from our hands stained the white bedding, the blood from my feet only adding to it in my struggle as he placed a hand down on top of my thigh and sat next to me.
"The gunshot," I protested, glancing toward the door. I hadn't seen any sign of a gun since he'd stepped in, but Rafe clearly didn't need a weapon to subdue me. He’d managed that all on his own, with nothing but a hand to cease my fighting.
My throat ached, feeling abused from his grip when he'd fucked me and when he’d lifted me over the glass. But the unmistakable reality was that he hadn't hurt me since he'd set me down. He'd used a brutal hold to carry me over the glass, but nothing more.
"You're hurt," he said, his voice a low murmur as he compelled me to sit still. It wasn't quite affection that I saw staring back at me, more the vague sense of ownership. I'd harmed what he thought of as his property, and he'd do what he could to fix it.
The woman stepped back into the room, her warm brown eyes meeting mine as she stepped around the glass carefully to hand him the first aid kit. "Clean up the glass while I deal with her," he ordered. She nodded, retreating from the room once again.
"Wait, please!" I called, my shoulders dropping in dejection when she ignored my plea and went about her business. Rafael opened the first aid kit and lifted my legs into his lap. With an odd gentleness that betrayed the fierce expression on his face, he carefully tugged each piece of glass from my feet and focused intently as he dropped them on the nightstand.
The fury on his face kept me quiet as I studied him, not daring to tempt him to violence as he worked. I winced as he pulled a particularly large shard free, making him turn that stunning multicolored stare up to me as his fury melted away in concern. He ran his free hand over the top of my foot, a gesture that would have been sweet had it not been for the mix of blood on his skin. Mine and whoever he'd hurt.
"Whose blood is that?" I asked, studying the motion. He glanced down, shrugging as if the answer was inconsequential. As if he hurt people every day and there was nothing that could be done for it.
"One of my men disappointed me, so penance was due. I told you, being a murderer barely scratches the surface of what I am, mi princesa," he murmured softly, setting the foot to the side as he started on the other one.
"And the gunshot?" I asked, studying him carefully.
"I shot him in the leg," he answered. The breath caught in my lungs. The reality of his violence and the fact that he could speak about it so calmly was an entire world away from the life I lived.
"You shot him in the leg," I repeated as the woman returned to the bedroom with a broom and started to furiously sweep up the glass the best she could. Another man wheeled in a mop bucket after her, working to clean up the blood behind her. Still, Rafael worked to get the glass out of my feet without ever motioning for his own. "And you're okay with that?" I asked him.
He turned his stare back up to me again. "I know who I am, Isa. I kept it from you to give you a chance to fall in love with me without the violence hanging over your conscience. That phase in our relationship is over now, and I won't keep secrets from you any longer."
"What if I want you to keep secrets?" I asked. I didn't want to know the details of Rafael's life of crime. Not when I wanted to go back home to my daily life and forget any of this had ever happened.
He finished pulling glass from my feet, setting aside the tweezers and grabbing a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a cloth. He wiped them down while I winced. "If you do not want to be injured, then don't try foolish escapes like that again," he said, his voice going cold once again.
When he was satisfied that my wounds were clean, he wrapped my feet in the same bandages that covered my hands and knees. If I'd had any doubt who had cared for my injuries while I'd been unconscious, that was all the proof I needed.
"What am I supposed to do?" I asked, letting him turn my body to take my hands in his. My body vibrated where he touched me, that electrical current of attraction that always ran between us pulsing under my skin. As if I really couldn't deny him anything, despite my best intentions.
"You're supposed to accept that this is your new life," he said, unwinding the ruined bandages and setting them in the dust pan the woman held up for him. He inspected my hands carefully, checking for glass that might have gotten under the bandage. When he found none, he rewrapped them gently.
"I want my old life," I whispered.
His nostrils flared in his anger. "Get out," he snapped to the woman and the man who were finishing up cleaning. I whimpered, follo
wing them with my eyes as the woman shook her head sadly. "Do you think it pleases me to know that you miss your mundane life? Look around you and see all that I have to offer you, Princesa."
"I want my family," I said. "All the money in the world can't replace them, and you forced this on me, Rafe. I want to choose where my life takes me, not have a man I hardly know decide for me." His hand caught my chin, the blood covering him feeling warm on my skin as he turned my face to his and crashed his lips onto mine. He devoured my mouth, building that desire inside me with just the furious strokes of his tongue against mine even though I wanted to bite his off. So I bit down in warning, hating the chuckle he released as he pulled back and tugged his tongue from my mouth.
"I am your family now. If you behave, perhaps there is a way that you can have a relationship with the family you left behind. But that cannot happen if I can't trust you."
I gasped, staring up at him with ever growing hatred. To use my family to control me was cruel, even for him.
He swung his feet up onto my lap, the shards of glass protruding from his flesh as he handed me the tweezers. "You've already bled me once today, little demon."
I glared at him, torn between wanting to shove the shards of glass further into his foot and wanting to help him in the same way he had me. He could have left me to deal with it on my own and let me bleed. Instead he'd shown me a moment of kindness that I might not have deserved considering I'd tried to bash his skull in.
I pulled the first shard free, dropping it into his open palm so he could place it with the others on the nightstand. "My mother was fond of those lanterns," he said, drawing my attention up to his face. "I don't remember much of her, but I remember that."
Hearing him say that made me instantly feel guilty. "I'm sorry," I said, the apology feeling genuine despite the circumstances. I knew what it was to miss a loved one, to treasure the things they left behind for fear of losing the last connection we had with them. I still had both my parents, but my grandfather's loss was something I felt every time I looked at the fossil he'd given me as a girl.
The one that I’d likely never see again.
"It's just a lantern," he said, leaning forward to touch his lips to my forehead. "You're far more important to me. I won't have you hurting yourself."
"Then let me go," I argued, holding his gaze as he chuckled and shook his head.
"No."
"Rafael!" I snapped, dropping his leg to the floor as I moved onto the next one. "You cannot be so hard up for sex that you have to abduct an unwilling girl. Please. Just let me go home."
His eyes darkened as the traces of amusement fled from his face. "Do not reduce what we have to sex," he warned as he pulled his foot from my hand and stood from the bed. There was still glass in one of them, but he didn't so much as flinch as he put his weight on it. "We both know that there is far more emotion between us than that."
I swallowed, wanting to deny the words. I would if he made me, but instead I just said nothing. I watched him in silence as he leaned into my space and touched his lips to mine gently. "I wouldn't abduct just anyone. I wouldn't put in the slightest bit of effort for anyone but you. Just as we both know you would jump off a cliff before you ever let yourself be taken by a man you didn't want. But you know as well as I do, you belong to me." He trailed his lips over my cheek, dragging the wetness of the tears I didn't want to cry as he moved to my ear. "You're mine to hurt. Mine to break. Mine to fuck, and mine to keep, Princesa."
He pulled away, holding my eyes as he made for the door. "Please, don't lock me in here again," I begged, shaking my head.
"I can't trust you in the main house just yet," he said, pulling the door open as I jolted to my feet.
"Please," I repeated. "I can't not do anything, Rafael." Boredom was my worst enemy. In my boredom, I thought of all the things I shouldn't. I remembered all the details of the moments in my life that I regretted.
He closed the door behind him as he left. My hands touched the surface as I dropped to my knees and willed him to change his mind. "Get some rest," he said on the other side as he turned the lock.
I turned to sit, looking at the bloodstained bedding with disgust. I moved to the bathroom to clean the blood from my skin, and then I curled up in the chair he'd sat in as I slept. The cruelty I’d seen etched into the lines of his face since waking up in his bedroom stared back at me every time I tried to close my eyes.
Prying them open, I forced myself to focus on my breathing, and not the panic seeping into my veins with every moment that passed.
He had to let me out eventually. I just needed to wait for the right moment.
6
Rafael
I tossed back another whiskey, lifting my leg into my lap so that I could continue pulling the glass from my foot. If Isa hadn't pissed me off so much with her refusal to admit she knew our relationship was more than just a physical connection, I would have gladly let her finish.
Her delicate fingers touching my ankle to hold me still as she worked diligently had been greatly preferable to doing it myself. I wanted her to take care of me in the way I cared for her, but that seemed to be too much to ask of mi princesa.
I knew it was unfair of me to even expect it. The logical part of my brain knew I was being too demanding of her, that I pushed her too far and would risk breaking everything we had building between us. The knowledge of that did nothing to stop me from the reality of wanting to push her farther. Of wanting to get to the bottom of her resistance and understand the fundamentals of it.
Just like the day I'd pushed her in the waterfall, I knew the truth would come out when Isa met her limit. She was only ever truly honest when I didn't give her a choice. In the same way she wasn't ready to know the truth about my occupation, I had to wonder if I was ready to know how she felt about me.
"Oh, would you stop it?" Regina said as she wrapped up Alejandro's leg. She'd gotten quite skilled at bullet removal over her years of being married to my father. Fixing the consequences of his raging anger in the men who'd done no wrong to him and suffered for their loyalty.
Some might compare us, but I used my anger and my penance to rule over my men with order, while his had been nothing but chaos.
She moved from her place next to Alejandro on one of the chairs in the back patio. There were no cushions, making it far too simple to hose the blood away and into the earth, never to be seen again. Kneeling on the stone, she took the tweezers from my hand and worked to remove the smaller shards that were impossible for me to see. "You should have let Isa finish," she scolded me. "If she's to be your wife, you must be able to let her do these things for you."
"She was doing it just fine. That wasn't the problem," I grunted, pouring myself another drink and downing it. The pain in my foot was barely an irritation compared to some of the injuries I'd suffered, but knowing that it came from Isa and that it should have been her soothing the pain she'd caused somehow made it worse.
"Then what was the problem, exactly?" Regina asked.
"She was dismissive about our bond," I said, shrugging my shoulders. I knew she would disapprove of the words, and so did Alejandro as he chuckled in the chair across from me.
"Excuse me? Did that poor girl not wake up in a strange bed just a few hours ago, after being brought here while she was unconscious?" she asked, pinching me with the sharp ends of the tweezers.
I narrowed my eyes at her. "I don't recall asking for your opinion."
"Well, you're getting it anyway. You must find a way to forget your anger. She left you. She doesn't understand what's at stake. She is young, and she's scared. You set her up to think that your relationship would never be anything more than a fling on her vacation, and then you ripped the rug out from under her and changed the rules. Give her time."
"I don't have time. I already know what it was to have her as mine. I can't just forget that," I grunted, watching as she set the tweezers on the table beside me.
"Of course you can't. You love her,
mi hijo. This too shall pass, but not if you abuse her in your anger," Regina said, standing and moving to drop into one of the empty chairs across from me.
"I don't love her," I grunted. Men like me weren't capable of love. Obsession wasn't love, and as mad as it drove me, I would never be able to return the emotion I demanded from her.
She was my everything, but to love was to lose. I couldn't risk that, and I wouldn't even if I could. I still remembered the sensation of my heart being torn from my body, of watching the only person who had ever truly loved me burn on the pyre for her husband’s insanity. The boy my mother loved had died with her.
Any traces of goodness she’d managed to instill in me as a child had been lost as I listened to her screams and my father forced me to watch her body turn to ash in the wind. He’d succeeded in making me a monster. La criatura, a man with no heart beating in my chest.
There was nothing that could love Isa as she loved me.
“I can’t,” I said, staring at Regina’s mischievous smile and reiterating the point as if she had any say in what my body and soul determined was impossible. Of all the people on El Infierno, she would be the one who interacted with Isa more than all the rest.
She needed to understand her place in my life just as much as Isa did.
"You keep telling yourself that, mi hijo," Regina laughed, raising an eyebrow at me mockingly as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and strode back toward the house.
I might not be ready to know if my obsession loved me in the way I needed her to, but that didn't mean I wasn't ready for other answers.
"Rafael!" Regina called. I turned back to her, watching as she considered her next words. "You are not your father. Show her how you feel about her. You're the only one besides her who doesn't know that you are absolutely head over heels in love with that girl."
I ignored her, storming my way through the house to get to my office. I was grateful for the fact that it was on the other side of the house, as far away from Isa as I could get. I needed the clarity that distance brought, and yet as I sat at my desk, I brought up the camera feed from our bedroom.
Until Forever Ends: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 4