She fled the kitchen, leaving me staring at that fork for what felt like hours. "You'll never be that girl again," Joaquin said, murmuring his agreement with everything I'd already come to realize. He stayed silent at my side after that, watching over me as I worked through the dueling sides to my personality. I would never leave Rafael. He'd made that painfully clear, and the Isa I'd once been had no place in his life. She couldn't survive in his world.
But the little demon who wanted to dance with the devil in the moonlight would thrive there.
Regina had composed herself before Rafael emerged from his office in the middle of the afternoon. His face was drawn and serious as he met my eye and nodded, something hanging over his head. I had to hope it didn't concern my family, because I wanted that phone call. Even if it did terrify me to talk to them. Even if I still had no clue what I would say to explain my absence. I didn't want to lie, but the truth seemed so far-fetched and too painful to admit.
I'd fallen in love with my captor.
Rafael guided me to our bedroom, sitting in the chair beside the bed and leaving me to curl my legs underneath me on the mattress. He dialed my mother's phone number for me, handing me the phone as I swallowed back my nerves. I took it with trembling hands, holding it up to my ear as it rang. There was a brief moment where I wondered if she would answer. If I'd be saved from having to decide what to tell her by her undoubtedly hectic schedule with two of her daughters missing.
"Hello?" My mother's voice sounded weak, as if she hadn't been able to sleep since I'd gone missing. Since I'd stopped returning phone calls and hadn't come home with Chloe as planned.
"Hi, Mom," I whispered, my voice catching as I tried to sniffle back the sadness surging inside me. I knew deep in my heart that the first moments of this phone call would be the last time my mother thought of me as her good girl. They'd be the last seconds of my life where I did what my parents asked of me, and losing that piece of myself felt like tearing part of my soul away.
I'd been the obedient daughter for so many years. I'd done what was expected of me without fail. Shedding those expectations was like a splintering of my soul.
"Isa?" she asked, her voice trembling as a sob caught the breath in her lungs. She'd already had to watch her daughters die once. Reliving that possibility thirteen years later seemed like a cruel twist of fate.
"It's me," I agreed, my voice hesitant as Rafael reached out a hand and wiped the tears off my face. He studied me as if he couldn't relate, and I expected he couldn't. His father had been a cruel man and his mother died when he was young.
When was the last time Rafael cared about someone other than himself, before me? Was that part of why he clung to me so tightly?
"Oh my God, Isa," she sobbed, bringing more tears to my eyes. Ten days. Ten days had passed with me missing in another country, after Chloe returned home with horror stories about the kind of man I'd spent my time sinning with. "Waban!" she called, my father's name echoing so loudly over the phone that I had to draw it away from my ear. "It's Isa!"
"Isa?" My father's voice said as my mom put me on speaker. "Baby girl?"
"Hi," I said with a sniffle.
"Are you okay? Honey, where are you?" my mom asked. "The embassy said that they spoke with you and you chose to stay in Spain. But Chloe said not to believe them."
I cast a look toward Rafael, reprimanding him for making it look like no crime was ever committed. "The embassy was right. I chose to stay," I agreed, hating the lie as it rolled off my tongue.
But I couldn’t ever change the reality that I was never coming home, at least not for anything longer than a visit. My family needed to believe I was happy in my new life.
It was the best gift I'd ever be able to give them. The peace of believing their daughter was safe.
"Why would you do that? And why wouldn't you call?" my mom asked, her voice raising an octave as she tried to come to terms with what I'd done.
"I didn't know what to say," I admitted. That part felt like the truth, because I still didn't know what I could say to them to explain the drastic change in my life. I didn't think anyone could ever understand what pulsed between Rafael and me.
Not when I didn't even understand it myself.
"Just come home, Isa," my dad said, his voice cracking with the words. "We can make sense out of all of this once you're home."
"I'm not coming home, Dad. I need to get settled into my life here. I'll come visit when I can," I said.
"Isabel! You will get your ass on a plane right now and come home!" he snapped. "Your life is here. Your family is here."
Rafael's face darkened with anger as my father raised his voice to me, and I knew I had to do what I could to diffuse the situation before he got involved. Still, the words caught in my throat. "Rafael is my family now," I said, swallowing back bile at the harshness of my words. "I've never felt this way about anyone.” Whether I loved Rafael or not, he brought out all the parts of me I'd thought long dead.
"I don't understand," she said. "You've been gone for less than three weeks, Isa. It isn’t like you to act so rashly.”
"Please try to give me the benefit of the doubt. I don't make impulsive decisions, so trust that I made this one in the same way. I made the choice very carefully," I whispered, watching Rafael's posture relax slightly. “Is Grandmother there?” I asked.
“She’s at the center. She can’t bear to be here knowing you’re gone,” my mother said, trailing off as she struggled to find what else she could say.
"Mom!" a voice so similar to mine said in the background as I heard the front door close.
"We're in here, honey!" my mom called back to my sister.
"Odina's home?" I asked, my face dropping in my dejection.
"She came home shortly after you left for Ibiza. She seems...better," my mom said hesitantly. "Isa, please just come home. We can figure this out."
"Maybe this is for the best. Maybe without me there to get in the way, you can mend your relationship with her," I said, trying to fight back the hurt. But I'd always been in Odina's way. I'd always been a reminder to her of the day she died. "Everything happens for a reason, right?" I asked, trying to keep back the bitterness I felt at knowing that Odina had swept in the moment I was gone. That she'd moved to claim our family as hers alone with me gone.
I glared at Rafael, wondering if she'd somehow known I wouldn't be coming home. His face was a careful mask, designed to keep his secrets away from me.
"Isa, that's not fair," my mom said.
"Life's not fair," I said back, smiling despite the harsh words. "I'll call you soon. I love you," I said, ending the call with a stab to the phone screen. In my frustration, I hadn't even waited for them to say goodbye.
Maybe Rafael was my penance for what I'd done. The price I'd have to pay to make amends with Odina.
I'd gladly pay it.
But first, I needed to know why she'd thought it safe to come home.
27
Rafael
Isa's suspicious eyes landed on mine the moment she ended the call. The knowing glare in them only served to make my cock hard, to drive me further toward the edge of my own restlessness. In just a few moments, I'd have to leave her.
In just a few moments, I'd have no choice but to get in my helicopter and head for the plane I kept on the mainland. Pavel's eldest son had shown his face in Rome, and my allies there had been all too willing to share that information with my contacts. He could disappear at the drop of a hat, and I wouldn't even have time to fuck my wife one last time before I left if I wanted the best chance possible of catching him.
"You made the right choice, telling them what you did," I said, attempting to soothe the wars waging in her eyes.
She tossed my phone to the surface of the bed, cocking her head to the side as she stared at me. She stood slowly, unfolding her limbs carefully until her feet touched the floor between us. She gathered the hem of her dress in her hands, carefully tugging it further up her legs while I wa
tched her pink panties peek out between her thighs.
Placing one knee in the chair beside me, she maneuvered herself up until she straddled my lap and stared down at me with her hair falling in a curtain around her. Other men might have described mi reina as an angel in that moment, with the sun shining on the right side of her face.
Those men didn't know shit about Isa.
Darkness swirled in her green eyes, vengeance dancing in a tempting play of edge against the sweet lines of her face. No one would ever suspect the demon that hid inside her when they looked at her. No one would think her capable of the things I knew I would push her to do at my side.
She touched a finger to my jawline, dragging her nail over the stubble on my face and moving it down to my throat. My hands grasped her around the waist as I pulled her down into my lap more firmly, desperate to feel the heat of her pussy against my cock.
She accommodated me with a mischievous smirk as she wrapped her hand around the front of my throat. She leaned her weight into it, pressing against my Adam's apple as she glared down at me. The feeling of her delicate hand against one of the most vulnerable parts of my body should have brought out all my defense mechanisms.
Instead, my cock twitched between us, seeking the warmth of her tight sheathe as she leaned forward and touched her forehead to mine while she squeezed my throat.
"Did Odina know I wouldn't be coming home?" she asked, her voice steady and strong despite the conversation that might have broken her only a few days prior.
But Isa had already been broken, and she wasn't one to stay down. "I'm not certain," I admitted. "You'd have to ask Hugo. He's the one who dealt with her after they drugged you."
"And what exactly did he do to my sister?" Isa asked, leaning forward to brush her lips against mine gently.
"He told her to shut her fucking mouth as far as I know," I said with a deep chuckle when she squeezed her hand tighter. "She agreed, so long as you were hurt in the end. I think she'll be disappointed, don't you?" I murmured the words against her mouth, darting out my tongue to lick the seam of her lips playfully. "You might have been hurt, but here you are with your hand on the devil's throat."
"And you had nothing else to do with her?" Isa asked, staring at me intently. I suddenly understood the darkness swirling her vision.
Jealousy. Possession.
Mi reina wondered if her sister might have played with her favorite toy before she'd had the chance.
I chuckled, the vibrations of my laughter shaking her palm at my throat. "Is that what you're worried about, Princesa? That I touched your sister?"
"It wouldn't be the first time Odina fucked my boyfriend," she snarled. I slid my hand up her body, wrapping my own hand around her throat to match her grip on me. She gasped against the touch, her hips grinding down on me involuntarily as she accepted the violence of my hold. I unfolded myself from the chair slowly, setting her on her feet with my grip on her neck until she backed up the few steps to the bed.
I laid her out across it on her back, straddling her hips as I came down on top of her and reversed the positions. She squirmed, releasing my throat to pretend to be as gentle as a kitten beneath me.
We both knew she was more of a lioness, ready and waiting to claw my eyes out if I admitted to having been with her twin before her. "I've never touched Odina, much to her dismay," I said, watching as Isa's nostrils flared.
"Why not? She looks just like me, so why wouldn't you want to take her if she was willing?" she asked as I tipped her head back with my grip at the base of her jaw.
Leaning in to run my lips over the delicate skin of the side of her neck, I murmured the truth Isa hadn't ever come to accept. "I don't fuck underage girls, but even if she'd been eighteen, I wouldn't have touched her. Because she's not you."
She pushed up against my hand despite the way it must have further restricted her breathing. With her lungs emptying of air with every second that she challenged me, she growled her frustration in my ear when I bit down on the sensitive skin of her neck.
Even with all the physical evidence of my possession on her body, I still felt the desperate need to have her marked. The bite mark on her shoulder could be hidden, but the bruise I left on her neck as I sucked her flesh between my teeth would be a far greater task to conceal from the world.
With my absence looming, it was all that offered me any comfort.
"Would you like to know that your brother tried to seduce me?" Isa asked, her voice dropping lower as she relaxed back into the bed and stopped challenging my grip on her.
"Fortunately for me, I do not have a brother. Because if I found out he’d laid a single hand on you, I would kill him. Is that what you want to hear, mi reina? That I understand just how bloodthirsty you feel right now?"
"You're always bloodthirsty, you psychotic ass," she said, drawing a smile to my lips. I leaned back to stare at her, watching as she touched her hands to my forearm and dug her nails into the skin where my shirt sleeve was rolled up. The feeling of her nails sinking into my flesh, and marking me in the way I had her, appealed to me on the most instinctual level. "I don't really think I should be judging my bad behavior using you as a guideline."
"Why not?" I murmured, leaning in to touch my lips to hers. With her eyes holding mine steadily, she nipped my bottom lip playfully, before her little pink tongue soothed the wound she'd left. "Why is being bloodthirsty a bad thing when your sister helped drug you so you could be raped? She wanted me to hurt you. To kill you or break you so severely that you were out of her way and her life. She deserves your ire."
"I don't think you're in any place to judge Odina for her sins against me when you don't know what I did to her first," she said, her voice dropping low as the seriousness of the conversation chased away the playful bits of her that had come out to play in the moments after her phone call with her parents.
Her exhaustion had made her moods tumultuous, unpredictable even. I never knew when she would cry or when she'd stab me with a fucking fork. As much as I hated to be away from her, the sleep she would get without me to wake her up in all hours of the night would be a benefit for Isa. "So tell me, then I can understand," I said, leaning my weight back onto her hips as I sat up straight. I released my grip on her throat, staring down and waiting for the confession that would finally make me understand all the pieces of what made her, her.
She smirked, shaking her head at me. There were only two things she denied me, and both were just words. The confession of her love and the reality of her secret.
I didn't know which one grated on my nerves more.
She propped one of her elbows up beneath her, leaning closer to my space as she touched the opposite hand to my cheek delicately. Teasing me with what she knew I wanted to know, I understood with a sudden clarity that she would never willingly give me the answers I sought.
I'd have to force them from her another way, and my mind spun with the possibilities of how I could do just that.
"I don't want to be weak," she said instead of responding to my inquiry, touching her nose to the side of mine and teasing my face with a gentle caress as she mimicked what I did to her so often when I wanted something from her.
"And you think you will be if you tell me the truth?" I asked, narrowing my eyes into a glare.
"No," she scoffed. "I think I am weak because I have no defense against you or anyone else. Regina told me I should embrace who I'm becoming. You said something similar. I want to learn how to defend myself."
"So you can stab me more?" I asked with a chuckle. "I don't think so."
"So I can stab people who might want to harm me. You sent me away when that man showed his face in Ibiza, so I'm inclined to believe there are people who would hurt me. I don't want to be helpless," she pleaded.
I stared down at her, rage rattling the cages of my soul as I contemplated what she was saying without actually voicing the words.
Isa didn't trust me to keep her safe.
"I won't ever let anyone
touch you, Princesa," I murmured. As much as I loved that the Queen was coming to the surface more and more, I couldn't deny the fact that she would be more difficult to contain. That she'd be more of a struggle for me and I would need to fight her to remind her of her place.
The place where she was mine.
"You put a gun to my head," she snapped, raising her eyebrow at me as if she dared me to contradict her. "You can't protect me when you're part of what I need to protect myself from."
"Ah, but you're my wife now," I said, anger leaking into my voice as I dropped it low and reached out a hand to cup her around the back of the neck. "I have everything I want in my arms. I have no desire to die, and if I killed you, I would have to follow you into the pits of Hell."
"So romantic," she hissed sarcastically. "You're fucked in the head, El Diablo. Regardless of whether you want to kill me or not, I want to know how to get away from a man if he wants to hurt me. I should think you would want that too, since I'm not sure you'd appreciate someone else touching your favorite toy."
"I forbid it," I growled, watching as her eyes went wide with the extreme reaction. Every word she spoke was a nail in the coffin, another insult to my ability to protect my fucking wife. "Joaquin is there to keep you safe when I am not, and there are emergency procedures in place to make sure you're protected at all costs." I released her, lowering myself off the bed and standing next to it. Even as I despised the distance between us in the moments before I left her, the inevitable reality of the conversation was undeniable.
Isa would always push back against being dependent on me, and her desire to protect herself was only a consequence of that shift in her life. Her independence no longer mattered, because as the wife of El Diablo, her only responsibility was to keep me happy.
To take what I gave her when I needed to fuck my frustrations out on her body so that I wouldn't murder those who disappointed me. To calm the nightmare inside me so I could function without burning the world to the ground in a rage.
Until Forever Ends: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 17