"I want you to watch yourself come with me in your ass," I ordered, sinking my teeth into her shoulder savagely enough to break the skin. She came, her ass clenching down on me as she screamed out her release and sent me over the edge with her.
I roared as I shoved deep and filled her with it. It wasn't until I came down that I tasted her blood in my mouth, running my tongue over the bite marks I'd left on her as I helped her lower her cramped up leg down from the counter. Pulling free, I moved to the deep soak tub in the corner of the bathroom and turned the water to hot.
She stared at me blankly, wincing as she moved to step over to the tub. I took sympathy on her, knowing I'd been too rough in my need to consume her and remind her of who she belonged to. Lifting her in my arms, I lowered us both into the tub. She flinched as the hot water touched her abused flesh, jerking in my grip as I forced her to settle.
We sat in silence as I mulled over my options, trying to find a way to work myself inside her head until she gave me the truth.
Until she gave me everything.
16
Rafael
Isa spent most of the next day locked in the bedroom, trying to ready herself for what she knew was coming. Normally, I might have hated the separation from her. I would have detested the distance she tried to put between us. But knowing what I needed to do, I didn't want to look her in the eye and feed her lies.
It would be agonizing for her. The first time always was.
I wanted to be able to hold her through the pain, to comfort her as she suffered her penance. But the public spectacle of it prevented that. I couldn't be seen as weak in front of my men, and I'd need to be the El Diablo they all expected me to be, to prove that my relationship with Isa wouldn't make me more lenient for their transgressions.
My phone vibrated in my pocket as I watched the sun set over the horizon, the fires of the pyre already blazing as my people prepared for Isa's penance. "Yeah?" I barked, lifting the phone to my ear.
"I found your cop," Ryker snapped on the other end of the line. "You aren't going to be happy about it."
I spun away from the window, moving to my desk so that I could write down his name. "What did he have to say?" I asked.
"Not a damn thing, because he's fucking dead. He mysteriously committed suicide a week after the accident. Nobody ever followed up on his report, since it was just a drowning accident and nobody died…." His voice faded as I thought over the implications. Shaking my head, I focused on the rest of what he had to say even though I wanted to strangle Isa.
A murder disguised as a suicide would mean someone else had been involved. Someone that very much wanted to keep the truth a secret.
"His wife says he was never depressed until the week before his suicide. She thinks he got himself wrapped up in something he shouldn't have been involved with, and that his guilt consumed him to the point that he had to end it."
"Did you look into the suicide?" I asked, lifting a paperweight off my desk. The last thing I needed in the moments before Isa's brand was to be this furious with her for her secrets all over again.
"Yeah, single gunshot to the temple. But not a speck of residue on his hands. There's no way he did it, Rafe," Ryker said. "He was shot in the right temple, but this guy was left-handed."
"Fucking Christ," I muttered. "They didn't even try to make it look legit."
"Not one bit. I found the cops who signed off on the suicide. They both retired a couple years ago and left Chicago, but I'll hunt them down and get our contacts on it. She's still not talking about it?"
"Not a word," I grunted. "Not even under duress."
Ryker paused, his sigh vibrating the phone with static. "Go gentle. This is fucked, Rafe. I thought she fell in that river, but this?"
"Someone threw her in," I said, voicing the words he didn't dare to say. "Somebody tried to fucking kill her, and she won't even tell me it happened. Let alone who." I growled, "Get. Me. That. Name."
I jabbed my finger into the red button on my cell, tossing it down on the desk. I roared my frustration as I threw the paperweight at the wall, my immediate temper only somewhat abated when the glass shattered and the sound echoed through the house. Regina hurried into the room, flinging the door open in her worry and staring at the mess.
Her face twisted with sympathy as she wrongly assumed that she knew the cause. "You don't have to do this. Nobody will blame you for letting her off this once when she didn't know the rules until last night."
I stared at her, wishing it could be true. If I hadn't given her the chance for an alternative the night before, it might have been. But Isa had made her choice.
And mine along with it.
"It has to be done," I grunted, wiping my hand over my mouth and trying to embrace the familiar cold of being uncaring. Of not giving a shit about who I hurt.
Isa's pained eyes haunted me as if she already knelt in front of me. The betrayal I knew too well because I'd seen it in my mother's eyes the day my father killed her. "Men who love their wives do not do such things," Regina said, pleading with me to see the reason in her words.
I didn't dare to deny my feelings for Isa again, not after I'd already started to come to terms with the way she'd consumed my every waking thought since I'd seen her.
Obsession wasn't a strong enough word for what I felt for mi reina. Love didn't seem like enough either.
She was just mine.
"You have to accept your feelings for her if you ever expect her to do the same," Regina said, reaching up to touch my cheek gently.
"Is she ready?" I asked, stepping away from her hand. She closed her eyes, heaving out a sigh as she nodded.
When she opened her eyes, I found disappointment staring back at me for the first time. I swallowed down the confliction I felt in seeing it, stepping around her and moving out of the office.
The time had come for Isa to understand exactly who would be her husband.
She couldn't have me without El Diablo. She couldn't be mine without embracing the devil.
I just hoped she would be strong enough to withstand the flames.
17
Isa
I stared out the window, watching as the fire burned, with my heart in my throat and tears in my eyes. Regina had promised she'd try to talk some sense into him, racing in when she’d heard the shattering of glass in his office.
I didn't bother to go to him, knowing reasoning with him would be futile.
Any man who could look me in the eye and talk about scarring me for life knew nothing of remorse. He knew nothing of love. Whatever it was he felt for me, I wanted no part in it. I turned my gaze down to the photo in my hands. Rafael’s mother’s face stared up at me, far too young to have died, especially in such a brutal way. Her eyes were similar to Rafe’s, one blue and the other light grey compared to his green.
He looked like his mother. She possessed the same ethereal kind of beauty that hid his darkness when he wanted.
Rafael stepped up behind me. He brushed the hair off my neck, touching his lips to the bite mark on my shoulder briefly. “She was beautiful,” I murmured, feeling him still as his stare settled on the picture of his mother.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, taking it from my hands gently and setting it on the bed.
“Regina gave it to me,” I replied, watching as he turned his back on the photo like he couldn’t bear to look at her.
"Are you ready?" he asked, shifting his focus back to me.
"Would it matter if I begged you not to do this?" I asked, turning my head to look at him over my shoulder. His bright gaze met mine, something missing in the way he stared at me.
All hints of warmth were gone, replaced by a numbing cold that chilled me to the bone.
"Do you have something you want to tell me?" he asked, stepping forward to put his hand on the doors that led to the pool and fire.
I clenched my eyes closed as my bottom lip trembled briefly. When I opened my eyes to find him waiting, he already knew my
answer. Nodding, he pulled the door open and grabbed my hand in his as I tried to back away.
"Come, Isa," he commanded, dragging me through the door. I stumbled over my feet as he set a brisk pace, his footsteps too large for me to keep up with. The flames danced in the night as my heart pounded in my chest.
"Rafe," I said, trying to appeal to the man who’d held me as I cried. The man who’d shown me tenderness as he took my virginity and showed me Ibiza. But all traces of him were gone, and he ignored my pleas.
Joaquin stepped into our path, blocking the fire as the two men waged a silent war. I watched helplessly as Hugo hovered in the distance, his chest bare for the ceremony, the angry red of his brand echoing the flames. I swallowed down my nausea, knowing that my skin would look like that in just a few moments.
Joaquin heaved a conflicted sigh as his lips twisted and his eyes came to mine, but he stepped aside to allow Rafael to guide me past him.
The heat of the fire kissed my skin as he guided us right in front of it. I watched as the smoke billowed into the night sky, mingling with the stars as it carried messages to the ancestors. Rafael turned me to face him, pausing to give me one last chance to give him what he wanted.
But his determination to know the truth only made me more resolved to keep my secret. If this was the man he was, if this was the kind of monster he would be, then I'd do everything I could to keep some part of me for myself.
He was no less a monster than a man who would throw a child into a river.
Tearing the strap on my dress to bare my shoulder, he pushed me to my knees as tears fell down my cheeks, my breathing ragged with my fear. His nostrils flared as he stared down at me, his teeth clenching as he prepared to mark me permanently. "Please don't," I begged one last time, finding nothing but brute determination in his gaze as he lifted the brand from the flames.
I closed my eyes slowly, hearing my grandmother's voice in my ears. The soothing sound of her telling me our lore beside the fire in our yard, carrying the passage of our heritage up to the ancestors so they could know that their stories lived on in us.
Fire cleansed. Fire healed all wounds.
I opened my eyes, and I stared the devil in the face while I waited for the pain. Despite my fear, all I could focus on was the determination to look him in the eye as he hurt me. To make him see what he did to me. His eyes flashed with regret as he watched me cry, finally showing a moment of something.
His mouth twisted into a scowl as he yelled his fury into the night sky. He moved his arm so quickly I flinched back, expecting the blinding pain of my skin burning.
But it never came.
The logs in the fire shifted and sent embers into the air as he threw the brand into the flames. Rafael spun, disappearing into the night as he stalked off and left me hyperventilating by the fire. Regina raced out of the house on the other side of me as I watched Rafe fade into the dark, wrapping me in her arms as she touched my chest frantically.
"He didn't do it," I whispered, staring up at her in bewilderment.
"No, mi hija. He didn't do it," she whispered, tucking me into her chest as sobs wracked my body. She knelt at my side, drawing me away from the fire's edge and folding me more firmly into her embrace as the others dispersed amongst shocked whispers. The brothers closed the distance between us, hovering around me and refusing to leave even though I didn’t want to speak to them.
"Why didn't he do it?" I asked Regina, my voice sounding too loud as the fire crackling was the only other noise around us. Joaquin’s hand came down on the top of my head, relief in his eyes as he studied the unscarred skin on my chest in something akin to wonder.
"Because he loves you," she said with a smile that faded as she looked up. "And now everyone knows it."
18
Rafael
I stood at the top of the island, looking down on the people who relied on me. On the people who counted on me to keep order in a world full of chaos. I'd never failed them before tonight.
Alejandro followed, stepping up behind me in near silence. He didn't speak, but I could feel the intensity in his gaze. The judgment that I'd never hesitated with marking a woman for her betrayal before.
"Isa never betrayed El Diablo," he said. "She never endangered the operation. Marking her was never something that should have been done in the same way," he added, making me spin to look at him with incredulous eyes. "Penance is for people who fail El Diablo. It's for people who put our safety at risk through their actions. We were never in danger because Isa tried to leave you, Rafael."
I nodded, staring past him to watch as Regina knelt beside Isa below us. Illuminated in the lights of the flames, shadows danced over mi reina's fawn skin.
"She left you," Alejandro added. "Whatever you need to do to make amends with her for that choice, it should be between the two of you. It shouldn't be a spectacle."
"That would have been nice to hear a few hours ago." I barked out a disbelieving laugh. "Now everyone knows my weakness."
"Would you have listened? This is something you needed to discover for yourself. It isn't a weakness to spare someone from harm when you love them, Rafael. It takes strength to recognize love for what it is, because it's far easier to deny it and reject those feelings. Especially when all you've ever known is pain and regret." Alejandro had grown as the son of one of my father's advisors. He'd been on the receiving end of their cruelty as often as I had. He understood what it was to be raised by a monster. "I like to think if I ever find my Isa, I'll have the courage to tell her how I feel."
"She knows," I said, voicing the fact that it would take a fool not to see how obsessed I was with her.
"She knows of your infatuation with her, but that doesn't mean she knows that you love her. I don't think you've even admitted it to yourself. You might start there." As he retreated back down the hill to the village, I turned to watch Regina guide Isa into the main house.
She wobbled on her legs, the fall from such an adrenaline spike taking its toll on her body without the outlet the brand would have supplied. Even despite the tremors in her body that were so apparent I could see them even from my distance, she held her head high. Joaquin glanced back my way, and though I knew he couldn't see me because of the light from the fire, he nodded once.
Isa turned to look for me once she reached the house, her striking gaze searching for the phantom she couldn't seem to find. The strength in the lines of her face brought a smile to mine. She might have knelt at my feet with tears in her eyes, but the unmistakable crown of a Queen rested on top of her head. She accepted her fate. She didn't act like a simpering fool.
She hadn’t closed her eyes, afraid to look the devil in the eye as he delivered her punishment. She’d met my gaze with strength and quiet determination. She defied me.
Without ever saying a word.
It was in those short, breathtaking moments that I came to terms with my truth. The one that pulsed inside me, demanding I give it a voice despite all my denials.
Love wasn't a strong enough word for how I felt for Isa, but it was the only one that existed. She was my weakness. My everything. She was the heroin I would willingly inject into my veins, even knowing it would be the end of me one day. She owned me, body and whatever remained of a soul inside me. That feeling only grew with every day she spent on the island, growing into the woman I'd known she could be.
I couldn't have her without the darkness lurking in her soul. She couldn't have only the pieces of me that she could handle, not without embracing El Diablo as well. The only path forward was for our demons to dance together, to entwine until we were one nightmare moving through the darkness.
We'd come together under the moonlight. We'd love under the stars if we survived the night.
19
Isa
I sat on the edge of the bed, staring out the window and waiting for Rafael to show his face. Joaquin and Regina had helped me to the room on wobbly legs, depositing me there to wait alone. There was nothing to be said
in the moments where we all tried to wrap our heads around what had happened. They seemed both relieved and shocked at Rafael’s decision not to brand me.
I was still hung up on how close he’d come to following through. On the fact that he’d been so close to scarring my flesh permanently, simply because I didn’t choose a man I hardly knew over the family who had raised me.
It had been hours since he'd stormed off from the pyre and left me in the dirt. Hours since he'd left me to cry in Regina's arms as I came down from the overwhelming adrenaline rush of what I'd prepared myself for. After an entire day anticipating the brand, my body still trembled with the energy of it not happening.
In the absence of the brand, without Rafael present for me to either rail against for scaring the shit out of me or hug for not following through, I didn't know what to do with myself.
So I sat, trying to retreat into my head so I could process what had happened, but the normal emptiness that welcomed me was gone. Vanished as if it had gone up in flames instead of my skin.
My gaze darted around the room as I thought over Regina's words. The fact that she seemed to think it would be a negative for people to know Rafe cared about me didn't bode well for my safety. I clenched my teeth, trying to wrap my head around the implications of having a mob boss love me.
I still didn't believe it, but there was something there. Something had prevented Rafael from branding me when he'd shown no remorse for what he’d done to Hugo.
The bedroom door suddenly opened as he stepped in, barely glancing my way as he went straight for the bathroom.
I stood from the bed, staring after him in enraged disbelief. After everything he'd put me through, he thought he could just ignore me? He emerged a moment later, staring at me across the space. He closed the distance between us slowly, reaching up a hand to cup my cheek gently. I swatted it away, glaring at him as he dared to look at me with all the affection I'd needed hours ago.
Until Forever Ends: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 12