Turning my attention back to Gabriel, I finally spoke. "I want video surveillance in the common areas of the home, nothing in the bedrooms or bathrooms," I clarified. Not only did I not want to cross the line into perversion with her, but I wanted nothing to do with the sister, who Santiago had confirmed was a troublemaker. "Audio surveillance in her bedroom, nothing in the bathrooms."
"You've got it, Boss," Gabriel agreed.
"Trackers in her parents' cars and her friend's vehicle. Audio surveillance there as well, to be safe. Hack the security system at the Center where she spends her time and in the school. Anywhere you find she spends a fair amount of time, I want access." He nodded his head in agreement. I turned to Joaquin, staring him down. "When I say no one touches a hair on her head, I mean no one. If you value yours remaining on your shoulders, she will not be harmed in the slightest."
"You've got it. She'll be perfectly safe with all of us watching her," Joaquin agreed.
"What am I doing going to High School?" Hugo asked, earning a sharp reprimand from Joaquin when he smacked him in the back of the head.
"Respect, boy. You know better,"
"Sorry, El Diablo," Hugo murmured, nodding his head.
I smirked, shaking my head as the nickname poured from his mouth without thought. While it was undoubtedly what they called me on the streets, it wasn't often someone dared to say it to my face. Joaquin pinched his brow between his thumb and pointer finger, heaving out a sigh like his brother was an insufferable twat that just wouldn't learn. "You are here to befriend Isa," I said simply.
"Befriend her? Why?" he asked. Even Gabriel shook his head as his brother dared to let his curiosity get the better of him. But I found I couldn't fault him exactly. The only times I ever put surveillance on a person was when I suspected they’d betrayed me. What could a teenage American girl do to betray a man like me?
"Have you ever seen something and known it was yours the moment you laid eyes on it?" I asked him, leaning toward him to stare intently at his dark eyes. His nostrils flared, betraying his nervousness. He shook his head, and I suspected it was true. With his brothers being very trusted members of my family, Hugo would have wanted for nothing. "Isa is mine," I said. "When she's old enough, that will become official. Your job is to befriend her and monitor her in a way that your brothers can't do. I want you to be her confidante. I want to know every thought that runs through her pretty little head. I want to know what boys she has a crush on, so I can crush them."
"What do I do if she wants to go on a date?" Hugo asked, staring at me with wide eyes. My reputation as a man who didn't care about the pussy that walked in and out of my life preceded me.
"Tú lo manejas," I warned. "She will not go on a date, because you will make sure of it. Fail me in this, and I'll cut off your cock and make you eat it, Hugo." He swallowed down the lump in his throat, nodding his head in understanding finally. "She is to remain just as untouched as the day I laid eyes on her. You have the support of the Bellandis after I return to Ibiza. That combined with your brothers should be sufficient to dissuade some high school boys from touching what is mine, should it not?"
"Yes, Rafael," Hugo agreed.
"Good," I said, turning to get back in the SUV and escape the blasted cold weather. One of Matteo's men waited in a second SUV, prepared to give them a ride to the house they would call their own for the sixteen months they called Chicago home.
Life would be better once we were all back where we belonged on my island.
With Isa at my side.
6
Isa
As someone who prided myself on never getting into trouble and always doing what people expected of me, getting called to the Principal's office wasn't something that I ever imagined would happen. It was entirely possible that it somehow had to do with Odina, but they usually called my parents for that. As much as it might feel like it sometimes, I wasn't her mother.
I thanked fate for that every day.
"Hi, Isa," The principal's assistant said when I walked into the front office. "Go ahead. He's waiting for you."
I swallowed, murmuring a soft, "Thank you," as I wrung my hands in front of me anxiously and chewed the corner of my mouth. Moving through the office, I knocked on the wall next to the open door, stepping in when the Principal's eyes met mine and he smiled kindly.
"Isa," he said, standing from his seat behind the desk. A boy I'd never seen before stood from the chair facing the desk, spinning to face me. With olive skin and dark hair, he smiled at me. "This is Hugo Cortes. He's our new foreign exchange student. Here all the way from Ibiza."
"Hey," the boy said.
"Hi," I said, giving an awkward wave as I looked back to Principal Davis.
"I'd appreciate it if you could show Hugo around the school. He's a very advanced student, according to his transcripts, and the two of you have the same course schedule. Would you mind?" Principal Davis asked. I heaved a sigh of relief, finally understanding that I'd been called to the office to play student host. Without the threat of detention hanging over my head, I could finally breathe.
"Of course," I said, a tiny laugh escaping as I fought back the hysteria at how ridiculous I'd become. So focused on being the dutiful daughter to prevent my parents from further stress, I'd never stopped to consider just how much the thought of being in trouble bothered me. "Do you have your locker number? We can drop off your stuff and then we'll probably have time to make it to History."
"Locker 193," he said, handing me a slip of paper with his information and schedule on it.
"Right next to mine," I said, smiling up at him despite the weird feeling that settled in my stomach. That locker had already been claimed for the year. Shrugging off the lengths they went to in order to make sure he felt at home in Chicago, I turned for the door and gave Principal Davis one last wave before we stepped through and made our way out of the front office.
Our lockers were on the second level, so I headed for the stairs while I thought of a way to break the silence. "So, Ibiza, huh?" I said lamely, wincing at the terrible attempt to fill the void in conversation. It wasn't that I was typically antisocial, I just didn't bother with people most of the time, since I always had my head buried in a book or was working.
There was a difference; I'd swear it until I died.
"Yeah. It's a crazy place to live, but I love it," he laughed. "You get used to it, you know?"
"I can't imagine that," I said. "But it sounds amazing. I've always wanted to go to Europe."
He nudged my hip with his as we walked. "You'll get there one day."
"Yeah, I don't know about that, but a girl can dream, right?" We made it to our lockers, and I went through the motions of showing him how to get it unlocked since they were finicky on a good day. The school just didn't have the budget for replacing them, even though they were old enough that my Mom had used the same ones when she'd been in school.
"What about you?" he asked as he deposited his backpack in the locker and dug out the history book from the stack within. "Born in Chicago?"
"Yeah. Born and raised. I've never left the city, actually."
"Well, that's just sad," Hugo laughed, wincing when he realized how harsh it sounded. I chuckled in response, knowing the truth in the words. I couldn't even say I'd visited other parts of Illinois. Travel, even of the limited variety, required money and time I just didn't have.
"It is," I agreed, slamming the door closed on the metal locker. It clanged as I pushed harder, finally latching closed. Hugo watched the process, repeating it on his with a disbelieving chuckle.
"Those needed to be replaced like twenty years ago."
"So if you love Ibiza so much, what brings you—" I cut off as a hand came down on my jean-clad ass in a harsh slap. I spun with a scathing retort ready, all too familiar with the offending hand and wondering what I could do to get my point across. Shock consumed me when the sound of the lockers rattling hit my ears before I could even finish turning around. "What the hell,
Wayne?" I asked as my eyes finally caught on to what stared me right in the face. Hugo had Wayne pinned to the lockers with a forearm pressed against the front of his throat.
"That," he paused, his handsome boy face twisting into a snarl, "was fucking rude."
"Relax, Bro," Wayne laughed. "Call off your watchdog, Isa," he said, raising his hands as if he was an innocent and hadn't been smacking my ass every day for nearly a year. "It was an honest mistake. I thought you were the easy sister."
Hugo furrowed his brow at me in question, but something seemed...off about the movement. I tilted my head to the side. "I have a twin," I explained after I got over my shock at the display of violence. "But Wayne didn't mistake me for Odina. Nobody confuses us."
"Might have something to do with the fact that Odina spends more time on her knees than her feet," Wayne said with a cruel smirk.
"And?" I asked. "If she's a whore, so are you." I shrugged, far too used to the judgmental comments Odina got for her actions. She was no angel, and she made stupid choices frequently, but I also wouldn't see her condemned for things the guys got away with.
"I'll be a whore for you, baby," Wayne returned. I rolled my eyes to the ceiling.
"Let him go. He's not worth getting suspended over," I said to Hugo, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the pathetic jerk who would hump anything that moved.
"Some advice, kid? You're wasting your breath with this one. She's the ice princess out of the two, and she will never let you stick it in. If you want a good lay? Give Odina a call. They look exactly the same, so you don't even have to close your eyes to pretend you're fucking this one."
"If it's so easy to pretend the sister is her, then why don't you go bother Odina?" Hugo asked, tossing him a wink as I tugged him down towards AP History. Guiding him to the classroom, I again wondered about our shared schedule. I'd never seen a foreign exchange student in my Advanced Placement classes. Talk about throwing him into the deep end on his first day.
"Don't worry about Wayne," I said, instead of fretting about it. "He's just ridiculous."
"He doesn't get to touch you without permission. That's not cool," Hugo scoffed. He looked down at me, twisting his lips thoughtfully. "No boyfriend?"
"No," I said, hoping to all that was holy that we weren't going there. I didn't have an interest in dating after the last douche canoe of an ex.
"Good. Keep it that way, because guys just aren't worth the time, honestly," he said, slinging an arm over my shoulder in a very friendly gesture. "And now you've got someone to look out for you and keep the assholes away."
We walked into the history room just before the bell rang, and I couldn't shake the feeling that he meant that literally.
Wayne came to school with a broken wrist and black eye the next day.
I didn't ask, and he didn't smack my ass.
7
Rafael
One day later
A handful of pages scattered the desk in front of me in the office of the Chicago home we'd rented to accommodate us during our stay. A life reduced to a dozen pages, my notes were strewn all over the information in front of me.
Isa deserved a life of luxury, not tutoring students who most often were forced into studying with her. Not babysitting the brats of wealthy families in the area who didn't pay her anywhere near enough money to walk home with baby food in her hair. She most certainly shouldn't have had to give most of the money she earned to her grandmother's medical expenses.
All of that would change very soon.
My hands gripped the edge of the desk as I stared at the miscellaneous pages in front of me as I thought over my plan. Something was missing. The key to Isa's personality hovered at the edge like something I couldn't grasp. The workaholic tendencies seemed illogical, given her age and station in life. Where many of the teens in her neighborhood were much like Odina, finding thrills wherever they could, Isa had never so much as taken a step off the path her parents had laid out for her.
The question was why?
Nothing on paper gave any reason for it, and her behavior when she was alone didn't appear to change, either. I'd listened to her in her room at night, the silence deafening.
She rarely listened to music. She didn't touch herself at night when nobody was watching.
Nothing.
It was as if she was already dead. Like the moment eyes stopped watching her, she ceased to exist.
It made her dangerous. It made her unpredictable, and things I couldn't predict, I couldn't control. If I didn't understand her, I wouldn't know how much of a fight to expect when I took her after her graduation.
Would she scream and rage? Would she bleed me to save herself? Or would she take it all with the quiet acceptance that she seemed to move through the motions of her life with?
My cell phone vibrated on the desk, rattling over the papers as it moved closer to me. "Yeah?" I asked, hitting the button to answer the call. It stayed on the table while I turned on the speakerphone, and Alejandro's voice filled the space.
"Are you still staring at them?" he asked, referring to the collection of pictures that accompanied the materials Joaquin had gathered for me. An empty smile, hollow, as if she didn't even realize that her life was nothing more than a series of duties and responsibilities that should never have been hers. Next to the blinding beam of her sister's overly bright, intoxicated smile, it only seemed even more fragile.
The two girls standing side by side were almost exact replicas of one another if you took away the different tastes in clothing, but something lurked in Isa's eyes that wasn't there in Odina's gaze. I couldn't explain it, and the knowledge that, even after my infiltrating every part of her life, she still maintained her secrets drove me to the point of desperation.
"No," I grunted instead of answering with the truth of the maelstrom inside of me. I needed to keep my distance from Isa until she was mine, lest I drive myself mad with the need to understand her secrets.
"Liar," Alejandro chuckled. "She's pretty, in a sad sort of way," he said, echoing my own thoughts.
"But why is she so sad?" I asked him, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip. Music pounded in the living room as my men enjoyed the slew of women and booze that welcomed them to Chicago, but I had no interest in any of it. Much like my Isa, I rarely indulged in alcohol.
And the women weren't her, with her haunted eyes and the sectoral heterochromia that called to me on a level I couldn't understand. Never in my life had I met someone with multi-colored eyes besides myself and my mother, and finding it in the woman who captivated me from a distance?
The odds must have been impossible.
"There's nothing in the files?" he asked, his voice contemplative.
"Nada," I agreed. "When she was young, she fell into the river and nearly drowned. It explains her fear of water, yes, but not this."
He chuckled. "Maybe she just needs you to bring her to life."
I scoffed in return to his sappy sentiment that neither of us believed. The reality of my life and the way Isa would have little choice in our relationship meant that I'd be far more likely to drive her further into herself. I needed to know what lines she wouldn't tolerate me crossing. "Que te folle un pez," I spat with a chuckle. I hope you get fucked by a fish.
His laughter faded as he quieted. "If she really is as fragile as she sounds, have you considered going about it in a way that's not so traumatic?" he asked.
"Like what?"
"If she loved you, finding out you're El Diablo may not seem so world ending. Women will forgive a man many things for the sake of love."
"I think that's mostly regarding looking at another woman too long. Not murdering chupamedias who get in my way, and stalking her." I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, flopping back in my desk chair in exasperation.
"I still think it would be less traumatic than kidnapping her off the streets and taking her to a place she doesn't know," Alejandro mused.
"You're drunk," I said, ending the phone call with the
stab of my finger against the button.
But his words struck home; the reality of what I would undertake to make Isa's insertion into my life as seamless as possible settling over me.
But I didn't have the first clue how to get her to fall in love with me. I spent more time pushing women out of my bed than I did trying to pull them closer.
I had sixteen months to figure it out, and somehow I knew that when I finally peeled back all the layers to understand what lurked beneath the surface in Isa, it would all be worth it.
I'd set her free.
8
Isa
Three days later
I tossed back the rest of the bottle of water left in Mom's car, shoving open the door and making my way across the street. Cars covered it, and I'd been lucky to find a spot where I didn't have to walk a mile just to get to the house and drag Odina's drunk ass back when she stumbled in the heels I knew she'd probably stashed in the backyard before sneaking out.
It was beyond my comprehension why I continued to cover for her when she didn't care about getting caught. I could only argue that she was my sister, and sisters were meant to look after one another. Even when one insisted on being a complete pain in the ass.
Kids from school stood around the yard mingling, with some making out on the grass. Wayne's party was supposed to be the "party of the year" according to the people I knew who had been invited. It was safe to say Wayne hadn't invited me. He hadn't so much as spoken to me since his fight with Hugo on Monday.
That was just fine with me.
I made my way inside as nausea churned in my gut. I did not have time to be sick, and if I threw up on Wayne's carpet, I'd make Odina clean it up.
Ugh.
The front door was wide open as I stepped through it, the pounding of music blasting over cheap speakers assaulting me as soon as I walked in. Glancing around the room for a glimpse of Odina, I cursed the fact that we'd been born on the shorter side. At 5'4", finding her in a sea of people taller than us proved impossible. Shoving my way through the party, I searched every person I passed.
Until Tomorrow Comes: A Dark Mafia Romance (Beauty in Lies Book 1) Page 4
