Until Tomorrow Comes: A Dark Mafia Romance (Beauty in Lies Book 1)

by Adelaide Forrest

  "Have you seen Odina?" I asked a girl I knew sometimes hung out with her. She shook her head and pursed her lips in disgust, shrugging off my need to find my sister as just typical party-pooper Isa. With a sigh, I made my way to the dining room, where I finally spotted her sitting on the table with another one of her friends standing between her spread legs. They were clothed, thankfully, though it wouldn't have been the first time I walked in on her having sex. Both girls were giving flirty glances to one of the football players who watched Odina grab a handful of Megan's ass and squeeze.

  He reached down, adjusting the erection that pressed against the front of his pants while I fought down the bile creeping up my throat.

  Gross.

  I moved over to them, tapping Megan on the shoulder. She smirked, eyeing me before walking away. "Can't beat twins," she said, shrugging playfully as she waved to Ben, the football player who moved closer.

  "Fuck yeah! I always wanted to fuck both the twins," Ben said, stepping up to my space.

  "Keep dreaming," I said with a saccharine smile. "From what I've heard, you don't have nearly enough dick for one girl, let alone two."

  Odina snorted, spraying beer all over him as she burst into laughter. "Isa brought her claws tonight, I see," she murmured. Reaching up a hand, she stroked the hair back from my face in a rare moment of affection. I might have thought she was putting on a show for Ben, but her brow furrowed when she found the sweat slicking my face. "Are you feeling alright? You're burning up."

  "I'm fine," I said, closing my eyes briefly as dizziness made me stumble slightly. "Let's go. I just want to go home."

  "Aw, we can't leave just yet!" she protested, grabbing my hand and trying to drag me to the dance floor as I tripped over my own two feet. "You just got here. Come dance with me, Isabel."

  "We have to get you home before Mom and Dad notice we've been gone," I argued, pulling back on her hand to tug her to the door. My grip slipped, sending me stumbling back into the table. Liquor bottles rattled around on the surface behind me as I steadied myself, looking up into Odina's face as she came closer. The furrow to her brow was gone, lost to an arrogant grin that widened as I watched, and replicas of my sister appeared in my peripheral vision.

  "You're like a fish at night. I knew you'd drink that water," Odina said with a cruel smirk. "I am so sick of being the bad sister. I think, deep down, you want to be just like me. You're just too afraid to let yourself. I want my twin back from the goodie-goodie who took her away from me." Odina pouted, taking a sip from her red solo cup as I swayed on my feet.

  "What the fuck did you do?" I hissed, reaching to grab the dining room table to support my weight as my legs turned to jelly beneath me.

  "Relax," she groaned, rolling her eyes. "It's just something to take the edge off. Losing your virginity hurts like a bitch. You'll thank me in the morning. I wish someone had roofied me my first time."

  "You fucking—" I paused, swallowing around my tongue as the words didn't want to form, and I clenched my eyes closed to shut out the spinning room. "Roofied me."

  "Technically, I did," a male said, stepping up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. I shoved him off, falling forward, and it was only his grip that stopped me from crashing to the floor. "Easy, baby."

  "Off," I protested, turning to face Wayne when he didn't take his hands off my waist. He used his grip to guide me to the dance floor, his hips swaying side to side as he moved to the beat of the music that made my brain pound against my skull with every pulse.

  A vaguely familiar voice protested, calling my name from the haze that I couldn't quite grasp. "Let's get you home," Hugo said as his face filled my vision out of nowhere, but my weight sagged, my body feeling a hundred pounds heavier as the drugs hit my system and I lost all sense of who I was.

  Of who I'd be when I woke up in the morning.

  "Isa doesn't want to go home. Do you, baby? We're having fun dancing," Wayne said. The side of my face hit his shirt, breathing in the scent of sweat and teenage boy that I never wanted to smell again.

  "Shit, what the fuck did you give her?" Hugo asked as his hands touched my face and he pried my eyes open to look at him. As my eyes drifted closed once again, I heard nothing else as a few moments passed. Only the soft sway of my body as Wayne moved us to the music lulled me to sleep.

  "I didn't give her anything she didn't take all on her own. She's a big girl. Isa can make her own choices."

  Hugo laughed, the sound far more menacing than anything I'd ever heard as his voice filled my ears. "Man, you have no fucking clue the shitstorm you just unleashed on yourself. Bad fucking move."

  Vaguely aware of moving, of being spun around and my legs being shuffled forward by force, I flinched back when my sneakers touched the base of the bottom stair and hands wrapped around my thigh to guide me up the step. "Not such a prude now, is she?" someone asked with a dark chuckle that made the hair raise up on my arms.

  Someone murmured something in warning, but everything went silent as my vision went dark around the edges.

  Until my body wasn't mine anymore.

  9

  Rafael

  The phone vibrating on the coffee table shouldn't have startled me. Given it was midnight on a Friday, Bellandi business was at its peak hour. But even so, I answered the phone with the instincts of a panther, jumping to my feet with my keys in my hand the second I saw Joaquin's name fill my screen.

  "What?" I barked.

  "We have a problem," Joaquin said. "She went after her sister to a party. From what I've seen, that's not abnormal for her."

  "Get to the fucking point," I ordered, pulling open my front door and making my way out to the Ferrari waiting for me.

  "Hugo said she's on something. Some punk is trying to take her upstairs, and he's having trouble intervening in a way that doesn't raise suspicions, since Isa isn't asking for help. Does he risk his cover?" Joaquin asked, as I started the Ferrari and peeled out of the driveway.

  "Give me the fucking address. Now," I growled, throwing the car into gear as I punched the address into the GPS and swerved through traffic.

  God fucking help any cop who tried to pull me over.

  High school parties were nothing like in the movies. There was no massive house owned by some rich kid whose parents were gone for the weekend. Nothing valuable to be destroyed that would end up in the kid getting caught.

  Just a shitty house in a shitty neighborhood with no parental supervision on the entire block. I stalked past the teens lingering in the yard, storming through the open front door. The smell of booze and weed was too familiar to me as it invaded my senses, my eyes scanning the room to catch a glimpse of Hugo. Isa was far too short for me to find quickly, and I didn't have the time or the patience to struggle to find her, knowing she was at risk. He stood on the stairs, blocking the coño who tried to guide Isa up them. The boy had his arms wrapped around Isa's waist, with her slumped in his grip and looking barely conscious.

  So unlike the girl who didn't take any risks, and my blood instantly boiled with the possibilities. From what Joaquin had said, she hadn't been inside long enough to get drunk off her ass, even if she had been so inclined. "You're not taking her upstairs. She's going home," Hugo said, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes connected with mine over the boy's shoulder, and he puff up his chest, knowing that he had all the support he'd need in whatever happened.

  "Yeah, and who's going to stop me? You aren't her fucking boyfriend, so why do you care?" the kid asked Hugo, posturing like he wasn't a pathetic excuse for a wanna-be man.

  I stepped up behind him slowly, keeping my steps as quiet as I could. Hugo didn't move a muscle, didn't speak to give me away. I waited, willing back the need to kill. Certain that taking the life of a minor would be a new low for me.

  Even if he was a dirtbag, until I knew the truth of whether he'd drugged Isa, he'd live to see another day.

  Time slowed as he took another step forward, fully prepared to confront
Hugo on the stairs with a nearly unconscious girl in his arms.

  I leaned in, my breath hovering above his head as I said the words meant to startle him. "Me."

  He spun, stumbling over the step when he faltered back at the rage he saw in my eyes. Isa wasn't so fortunate, tripping over the legs that couldn't support her weight when he dropped her to catch his own balance with his unbroken wrist instead of hers. I caught her with my left hand, curling her into my chest to keep her from hitting the floor.

  "Who the fuck are you?" the kid asked, reaching out a hand to wrap his grip around Isa's forearm. Glancing down at his sausage fingers touching her delicate fawn skin, I tried to push down the rage I felt when the tips of his fingers indented her flesh.

  "How old are you?" I asked him, tilting my head to the side. I took his hand in my grip, twisting it backward as I pried it from Isa's arm. Keeping her clutched against my chest, I watched his face twist in pain and felt nothing but satisfaction.

  "Eighteen, man. Fuck, let go," he begged. Hugo whistled behind him, echoing the sentiments that rang in my head. Eighteen was not a minor.

  Eighteen was a man. In my country, legal to drink and gamble. Legal to fuck. Legal.

  Releasing his hand, the same fingers that had twisted his shot forward. His pulse beat against my palm as I wrapped it around his scrawny neck. The room went silent as everybody froze and moved out of the way. I lifted Isa off her feet with my arm wrapped around her, guiding her barely aware body toward the wall as I pushed him back.

  His head connected with a resounding thud.

  It still wasn't enough.

  "What—" I paused. "Did. You. Give. Her?" He fumbled for purchase, grabbing my hands and dragging short nails down my skin while he gasped for breath.

  "Can't breathe," he wheezed.

  "Answer the fucking question," I ordered, adjusting Isa at my side.

  "Roofies, man." I released his throat slightly to let him continue talking, clenching my teeth while I waited for my answers. "Odina gave them to me, I swear. She opened her Mom's car so I could slip them in the water bottle when I picked her up earlier."

  I turned my head to Hugo, giving him a look. He nodded before I spoke, but I still confirmed exactly what I wanted in the meantime. "Find the fucking cunt." He darted into the crowd, undoubtedly ready to do exactly what I demanded.

  "I don't think Isa believes in violence," I mused thoughtfully, turning my attention to stare down at her. She tilted her head up at me as I spoke, the shock of her eyes meeting mine for the first time reverberating through me like a claim that I would never escape.

  I'd thought myself the captor in our relationship, but I suspected she'd own me just as thoroughly as I possessed her.

  When her eyes rolled back and she faded back out a bit more, I turned my attention to the boy who swallowed against my palm. "Fuck, Isa" he laughed. "I thought you were a prude! You just like older men, huh, baby?"

  I narrowed my eyes on him, clenching my fingers tighter so he gasped. "Are you always so estúpido?"

  "Man, you ain't gonna do shit to me! There's an entire room of witnesses," he laughed on a wheeze. I nodded, releasing him as I leaned into his space.

  "That may be so, but they have to go home at some point. Don't they? And who will protect you when I return?" I asked, watching as his face paled and he realized the severity of the situation. Normally, I wouldn't be bothered with killing a man if I couldn't do it in the moment.

  For the first time, it was personal. I wouldn't tolerate another man being the one to watch the life bleed from his eyes as he fought for his last breaths. I'd be the only one to have that right.

  Hugo stepped up to my right with Odina at his side, cursing and spitting at him as he dragged her to my view. The moment I turned my gaze to her, she silenced, staring up into my face in shock. She recovered quickly, smiling in a way she must have thought was seductive. Her eyes met mine, and it sent a shock of revulsion through me. They weren't Isa's, but they were close enough to be a mockery of everything I saw in her.

  "Well, you could have just told me a handsome man demanded my time," she purred. In a move I'd practiced far too many times to count, I ran my eyes up over her body and to her face, and gave her an uninterested look that conveyed just how unimpressed I was. She glanced to her sister, rolling her eyes the moment she realized she was tucked safely in my arms. "Why do the fun ones always like the innocent virgins?" she asked, stepping closer to me. Her hand touched my thigh, moving toward my fly as she spoke. "Let me show you who the fun sister is."

  I caught her hand, flinging it away from me before she could touch what wasn't hers. "How fun could a pale imitation be?" I asked, my voice cruel. She flinched, and I knew the words struck home. Whatever issues she had, they stemmed from some seriously misguided jealousy over the sister who only wanted to do right by her.

  "Then what the fuck did you summon me for?"

  "I know about the roofies in the water," I said simply. "I will make one thing very clear. If your shit ever touches Isa again, I will be the one to make sure you get your shit together. I promise you will not like my methods."

  "Yeah. Okay, hotshot," she laughed. "That's an awful lot of trouble to go to for a bitch who won't even fuck you," she said, nodding to her sister.

  "If you ever endanger her intentionally again, I will make you disappear," I threatened, meaning every word. "You will not be in Isa's life to put her at risk." Hugo touched my shoulder, nodding down to Isa where she stared up at me with wide eyes. I sighed, wishing I could dedicate more time to making sure Odina truly understood the consequences of her actions in the future. "Deal with her," I said instead, sweeping an arm beneath Isa's legs to lift her up and cradle her against my chest. "She's not to breathe a word of this. I don't give a shit what you have to do." Tucking Isa's head into my shoulder, I strode out of the house as the crowd of teens parted to let me pass.

  I'd known the moment I saw her that she'd be trouble for me. I just didn't realize I'd be threatening to kill two self-centered twats so soon.

  Joaquin emerged from the shadows, hauling open the passenger door of my Ferrari and then disappearing once again after he gave me a nod. He knew that both his brothers would suffer for what they'd nearly allowed to happen to Isa, but he wisely refrained from commenting.

  As I set her body in the seat and buckled her up, she lifted a tired arm to cradle my face in her palm. "Phantom," she whispered softly, the breathy note to her voice making the void in my chest clench.

  If I'd had a heart, it would have beat for her.

  I drew her hands off my face with a clearing of my throat, forcing distance between us to prevent her from crossing any lines in her intoxicated state. Dropping into the driver's seat, I started the ignition and drove more carefully than I might have without her in the car with me. She watched me cautiously, and not for the first time I wondered what she saw when she looked at me. Even in her only half-awareness, I couldn't help but be conflicted about what I wanted her to see.

  Did she see El Diablo? Or did she somehow see a man that I wasn't even sure still lived inside me?

  She blinked those uniquely stunning eyes, reminding me of just how wrong it had felt to have her sister's locked on me. "You were m-mean," she whispered, fighting for each word.

  "I was mean?" I glanced back to the road in shock, having been so distracted by her that I'd forgotten I was driving. Never in my life had I been so unaware of my surroundings.

  "To my sister," she slurred. "Shouldn't have said she was imitation."

  "I hardly think me being mean matters when the bitch drugged you," I said, watching as her head settled further into the seat. She didn't answer, sleeping the rest of the way as I drove to the home Joaquin had rented for him and his brothers.

  When we finally made it, I lifted her into my arms and brought her into the house after Gabriel opened the door. "She needs a bed," I said, even if I detested the idea of her sleeping in any bed but mine. At least Hugo knew I would slaughte
r him if he so much as looked at her wrong.

  I'd only just settled her in the bed and pulled the covers over her when Hugo and Joaquin got home with her mother's car and theirs. Hugo came into the room as I sat on the edge of the bed and ran my knuckles over her cheek. After slipping her shoes off her feet, I reached beneath her and pulled the phone free from her back pocket, touching the button to bring up the lock screen. “Passcode?” I asked.

  “6948,” Hugo said immediately. Punching in the numbers, I rattled off a text to her mother saying that she’d crashed at Chloe’s house after she had boyfriend problems, and that she didn’t want her mother to worry.

  "The sister?" I asked, setting the phone on the nightstand once that was done.

  "Dealt with. She promised she wouldn't say anything about your threats, too," Hugo said.

  "And what did you offer her for that bit of damage control?" I asked, glancing up at him. He hesitated, glancing to the window as he scrubbed the back of his head and then looked down at Isa. "What?"

  "Nothing," he said. "She said she'd keep the secret, as long as I promised whatever we were planning would hurt Isa in the end."

  "La hostia," Joaquin cursed. Holy shit.

  "Something made Odina hate Isa so much that she would drug her and want her hurt," I said, standing from the bed with one last rueful glance at Isa. "I want to know what," I growled as I strode from the house.

  I knew, without a doubt, that I couldn't see her again until she was mine. Until her vague memory of me faded and she wouldn't recognize me when we met.

  10

  Isa

  My head throbbed as I forced my eyes open, squeezing them shut the moment the light trickling in through the window assaulted my vision. "Ugh," I groaned, touching a hand to my forehead. I finally sat myself up, wincing from the pounding in my skull and glancing around the room.