Every day, every second felt like another revelation. Another strike against the walls of my sanity, and there was only so much more I could take before it crumbled.
"I'll be fine," I said shortly, not trusting whatever words I might speak. He leaned down to kiss me, not seeming to mind in the slightest that his step-mother watched the interaction with a happy smile on her face.
"Behave," he murmured against my mouth, reaching up a hand to tangle in the damp hair at the back of my head. The warning was clear as he held my eyes while he kissed me gently, defying the sweetness of the kiss itself by tugging just enough to make me inhale sharply.
As quickly as he'd touched me, he disappeared down a separate hallway from the labyrinth we'd emerged from. This one went off the kitchen, ending in only two doors a short way down.
Regina cleared her throat, moving to the stove to turn back to whatever she'd been cooking. She hummed as she stirred, filling the space with the comforting and smooth sound of her song. I took a seat at the island, fiddling with my hands and glancing around the space. “How long have you known Rafael?”
“Since he was born,” she said, smiling at me over her shoulder. “He was such a happy baby, though you would never guess that now. Very close with his mother, which his father hated of course. Men like Miguel thought the boys belonged with men, not attached to their mother’s hip.” My hand went to my own stomach, to the memory of Rafael’s proclamation that his child would soon occupy the space within me.
I couldn’t let that happen. Not while I had any chance of finding a path to freedom and a life without Rafael Ibarra breathing down my neck.
“He wants me pregnant,” I whispered, leaning across the island counter with a glance toward the hallway where Rafael had retreated. “I don’t want that. Please.” I didn’t know how to voice the request, and the words felt too dangerous to speak even if I had been able to find a way.
She turned off the stove, stepping around the island and standing next to me. “Such things are beyond my control, mi hija. Just as they are now beyond yours.”
“But it’s my body. If I don’t want a child, I should have access to birth control,” I whispered back, furrowing my brow at her in frustration.
“It was your body, but that is not how things work in Rafael’s world. It is his now, and he will do whatever he pleases with it. Far easier to accept it than to fight the inevitable,” she murmured, stroking a hand over the top of my hair and then stepping back. “Come. You look like you could use some fresh air. We'll just go out by the pool. The sun heals all wounds." She winked as she glanced toward the hallway Rafael had disappeared.
I nodded despite the sinking feeling that Rafael wouldn't like it, letting her guide me to the French doors that led to the infinity pool. The pavers of the deck felt hot through the bandages on my feet as we stepped outside, staring out at the Mediterranean as I tipped my face up to the sun. It felt like it had been a lifetime since I'd been outside in the day.
Like the time we'd spent in the sun in Ibiza was nothing but a distant memory.
"Thank you," I murmured, turning my gaze back to her. She smiled kindly, her lips parting as if to speak as I shifted my gaze to the village behind her. To the people who had abandoned me to suffer whatever fate Rafael deemed appropriate. I hoped to leave the island in one piece, but if I couldn't find a way, I didn't know that I'd ever forgive the people for what they'd done.
For leaving me to die here.
As I watched them move about in the distance, my heart stopped. The familiar and imposing figure stepped out of one of the houses, glancing up to meet my gaze as he froze solid. The recognition in the motion confirmed everything I suspected and couldn't know was true, considering the distance.
I sprung into action, sprinting across the pavers and onto the grass at the other side of the pool area. "Isa!" Regina gasped, stretching out a hand as if to catch me. But I shook her off, determined to cross the distance between us.
Joaquin stepped closer to me, heading me off before I could get to the village, with a nervous glance behind him. His hands wrapped around my upper arms as I flung myself into his arms. I grinned up at him when I found him unharmed, only happy that Rafael hadn't hurt him.
"Mi reina," he whispered, his face pinching as he tried to guide me back toward the house. Regina closed the distance between us, her hand covering her mouth as tears stung her eyes. "Let's get you home."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, spinning to stare at him once more. The house he'd stepped out of loomed in the background, Hugo's smiling face appearing as he and Gabriel emerged from it.
The happiness I'd felt at seeing them unharmed fled, replaced by a sudden emptiness as I tried to understand what stared me in the face.
Victims of abduction didn't smile as they stepped into the sun, unless they were free. They didn't look horrified when their eyes locked on mine.
Hugo mouthed my name as I backed away from Joaquin, the stinging bite of betrayal striking me through my confusion. "Let's go home," Regina said at my back, reaching down to take my hand in hers. Her bottom lip trembled when she met my eyes, and it hit me that out of all of us, I was the only one who was lost. I was the only one who didn't know the truth.
So much for the promise of no more secrets.
Hugo closed the distance between us slowly, swallowing and licking his lips as he and his brothers watched me for a reaction. "What's going on?" I whispered, tears burning my eyes.
I tried to connect the dots. I tried to put the pieces together, but where there should have been connections, there was only blinding betrayal and pain.
"What are you doing here?" I asked when he didn't answer. His silent stare met my words as he swallowed, then clenched his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to look at me. "What are you doing here?!" I screamed, backing away a step as my brain tried desperately to find an excuse that didn't mean it had all been a lie. That I'd been set up from the very beginning.
"Gabriel, go get Rafael. Now," Regina ordered. The middle Cortes brother nodded and gave me one last sad look, sprinting up toward the house above us.
"This is my home," Hugo said, swallowing around the words. He gave me nothing else, didn't take a step toward me or move to comfort me as Regina tried to pull me into her arms. I shrugged her off, filled with the determination to stand on my own two feet as my world crashed down around me. I’d known I would lose Hugo when I came to Ibiza.
I just didn’t know it would be like this.
"Did you—" I paused, wincing when my lip felt wet with tears. "Did you tell Rafael about me? Did you set me up for this?" I asked. He shook his head, his face pinching as if it pained him to stay silent. "I don't understand," I cried, shaking my head.
"I didn't choose this for you. Please know that," he said, his voice catching on the words.
"You didn't choose this?!" I screamed, stepping into his space. My hand collided with his cheek, the stinging of my wounds bursting to life as the slap echoed through the clearing. The pain grounded me against the tumult of emotions swirling inside me.
Rage like I'd never known felt like it would consume me. Like it would pull me to the depths of hatred and never let me go.
My body trembled as I raised my hand again. He stood there, just waiting for the second blow as if he knew he deserved it.
It only made it worse.
"Settle, mi reina," Joaquin said, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me away from his brother. "That's enough," he murmured softly. The soothing sound of his voice felt like a betrayal against everything I'd thought I knew about the brothers. Like the fact that it had all been a lie would split me in two and I'd never be the same.
"Take your hands off her." Rafael's deep voice barked the order. There was no hesitation as Joaquin obeyed, stepping away from me with his hands raised innocently. Regina stared at Rafael in horror, shaking her head in a silent plea. "I gave you one rule," he said to her. "She was not to leave the house for exactly this reason. Are
you happy?!" He spoke in that calm, deadly measured voice of his that was more intimidating than most people yelling, swinging a hand out to me where I stared at Hugo with a tear-stained face.
"Rafael," she pleaded.
"Go," he ordered, turning his back on her as he stepped up to me. He put himself between Hugo and me, demanding my attention in a way that might have felt jealous if it hadn't been illogical.
"I don't understand," I said, staring up at him as he moved closer into my space. His huge hand cupped the side of my neck, his thumb moving gently over the surface as if he could feel me shattering beneath his touch.
"I sent the Cortes brothers to you in Chicago," he said. I froze, blinking up at him blankly and biting my bottom lip as I thought back to how long Hugo had been a staple in my life.
"That's not possible. It's been over a year," I whispered, trying to back away from his touch.
"Sixteen months," Rafael said, watching my face as I tried to do the math. "It's been sixteen months since the first time I saw you, standing on the sidewalk across from Fists of Fury."
All the air expelled from my lungs as my body sagged. The day came crashing back over me, the way I'd stared at the mysterious man across the street and thought about the darkness that surrounded him.
I'd wanted him even then, but known that he would never be anything other than disaster for a girl like me.
"That was you," I whispered, backing away from him and stumbling over my steps. I fell to the ground on my ass, staring up at the devil in front of me in horror. Joaquin looked like he might try to intervene, his body jerking as if he meant to protect me. But even he stilled with a glare from Rafael as he reached down and plucked me off the ground. "Why?" I couldn’t possibly begin to comprehend that choice. To wrap my head around the months of planning and manipulating that must have happened for us to end up right where we were.
He ignored the question, continuing on with his story as he wanted. "A few days later, your sister and her friend drugged you," he said. My body went still, remembering the vague recollections I'd had of the phantom in the night. The fact that Joaquin had never made me feel the way he supposedly did when I'd been drugged. "Two weeks later, I killed him for what he tried to do to you. To what was already mine,” he rumbled.
His grip tightened around my upper arm as I cried, shaking my head from side to side as I tried to deny the truth that stared me in the face. I tried to find another explanation, but instead of reassurance there was just nothing.
"I watched you. I studied you. And when the time came for you to finally come to Ibiza, I used what I knew to make you fall in love with me," he said.
I opened my mouth to speak, but found myself suddenly stripped of my voice. Something inside me cracked, breaking open while they watched and it felt like I bled all over the ground.
Everything I'd thought I'd known had been a lie.
Nothing but a game to a man who'd violated me before I'd even known he existed.
11
Rafael
She nodded her head, the only sign she'd even heard me as she snapped right before my eyes.
I'd wanted her broken.
But not like this.
She turned on her heel as I released my grip on her arm, moving toward the house while I followed. The others trailed at my heels, the concern etched into the lines of their faces echoing the splintering I felt in my soul. Objectively, I knew this moment had always been inevitable. I'd known it the moment I sent Hugo to insert himself into her life, and it had only been confirmed with every day that I spent watching her.
Watching her grow closer to Hugo. Watching her trust the three of them, but particularly Hugo, in a way she never should have trusted anyone but her husband.
Anyone but me, even if trusting me was foolish in reality.
I'd thought there would be a fleeting moment of happiness when I ripped away the last of her bonds with a male rival, but instead there was only a deep, cavernous self-loathing.
When she reached the pool area, she crawled up onto the daybed where I'd fucked her the night before. Sitting in the middle, she hugged her knees to her chest and stared out at the water.
Her body went still, as if she'd shrunk back inside that place she went when nobody watched her in her bedroom at night.
The place where she ceased to exist.
I stepped toward her, determined to draw her out of the shell she'd crawled inside of. While I'd known she'd hurt when the truth of my deception was revealed, I never could have expected her to fade away before my eyes.
"Leave her be, mi hijo," Regina said as she stepped out of the kitchen. Her face was set with determination, despite the fact that she'd fled my wrath only moments before. "She needs some time."
"You don't know her," I said, shaking my head as I watched her. I'd never seen her in her bedroom when she went silent because of my refusal to put cameras in her room when she was underage, but when I thought of what a person must do to be so quiet? This was the exact image that came to mind. Her sitting on her bed, trapped in her head and overthinking everything.
It should have been simple to understand. I saw her. I wanted her. I took her. I wanted to be the one to bring her back to life. To remind her what it was to be mine and to welcome my possession.
"I know what it is to be a woman grieving the loss of a friend," Regina said. "She'll come around, mi hijo. But the greatest kindness you can give her now is the freedom to process in her own way."
I nodded my head as I watched Isa. Joaquin stepped up at my side. "I'll watch over her," he said.
"She doesn't leave your sight. I have a feeling she'll come out swinging when she gets out of her head." I sighed, turning to the house and forcing myself to try to get some work done.
I'd have a long wait while Isa worked through her grief.
Joaquin stood guard over her like a sentry, determined to keep her safe from anything that might harm her while she cried silently. Night came before she ever moved, her eyes glued to the horizon as the sun set and she didn't stop to appreciate the vivid colors. I sipped my scotch as I stepped outside, staring at her back and the unnatural stillness in her body.
"She's still grieving," Regina said sadly. "She wouldn't eat."
"She's grieved enough," I said, handing her the empty tumbler as I turned a glare to her.
"Be gentle with her, Rafael. With her like this, you'll never know the damage you cause until it's too late."
"Is that how it was when my father murdered your brother on your wedding day?" I asked, turning a cold stare her way. "Were you grieving the first time he raped you?" Even I recognized that I was overly harsh, but I blamed her for the way Isa had retreated.
She shouldn’t have learned the truth yet.
"You are not your father," she said, but she turned her eyes away and swallowed. "He was a brutal man, and I knew what was coming the day he killed your mother. He'd never been secretive about his intentions for me to replace her. I only wish that my brother hadn't tried to intervene and been hurt in the process. What you did with Hugo was cruel, but the intention was to protect her and not to hurt her. Eventually, she will come to see that." She patted my back reassuringly and disappeared around the corner of the house. Making her way to her own home to hide out for the rest of the night.
Watching Isa process what I'd done before we met made me feel closer to my father than ever despite her words. I felt like more of a monster in those moments than I had with any of the people I'd killed in cold blood.
Regret wasn't something I knew how to feel, but if anyone came close to bringing those emotions to the surface in me, it was Isa.
She was my only weakness and the only person I cared for. The one thing that my enemies could use to hurt me. She was my vulnerability and my distraction.
My greatest sin.
I stepped up to the side of the daybed, staring at her profile as she gazed at the water. Her eyes were half-closed, as if the exhaustion of holding one position for so long
threatened to put her to sleep then and there. "Come to bed, mi princesa," I murmured.
Her gaze never left the water, but the miniscule twitch of her body confirmed she'd heard the words. That even when she'd withdrawn, I could reach her. "Isa," I said, waiting to see if she would look at me. When she didn't, I stepped around the daybed and directly into her vision. "Come." I held out a hand for her, and she shifted her gaze down to it.
There was a moment of recognition in her eyes as she remembered all the other times I'd asked for her consent in the same way. As she realized they'd all been a ploy, because she'd never had a choice.
Her life had become mine the moment I laid eyes on her.
Her lips were dry as she turned her stare up to mine, a glare in it as they met mine in fierce challenge. I watched the moment mi princesa died on the pyre, her innocence lost as the last pieces of my deception snapped into place.
Mi reina was born from the ashes, her face twisted in fury as she uncurled her legs from her body and slid along the mattress. The night before, Isa would have fled off the other side of the bed. She'd have craved the distance between us.
Instead, she welcomed my darkness, meeting it with her own as storms swirled inside her green gaze.
"I hate you," she whispered, sliding off the edge of the daybed to stand before me. With the defiance in her face, I almost didn't doubt the words.
But that pulsing attraction between us couldn't be denied, no matter what words her mouth formed. I knew the truth that tormented her twisted little soul.
"Such a pretty lie," I murmured, stepping closer. Her breasts grazed against my chest as she drew in a deep, steadying breath. "You love me, and you fucking hate yourself for it," I said, lifting a hand to touch her face. I wanted to bottle her anger, to remember the fierce look in her eyes as she proved that everything I saw in her hovered just beneath the surface.
She'd always been one break away from unleashing her darkness on the world.
Until Forever Ends: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 8