"It's a pleasure to meet you," Sebastian said, stepping in and kissing my cheek. Rafe growled at my side, deterring Thiago from doing the same.
"You too," I said, feeling awkward under the tension of Rafe warning off his own cousins from touching me. But given what he'd done when I defied him with Joaquin, I wasn't willing to push the boundaries and call him out on his bullshit publicly.
"Father is inside," Thiago said, turning on his heel. Sebastian followed as Rafe guided me up the path to the house a little ways up the hill.
"Where are we?" I whispered as we walked.
"Just outside of Barcelona," Rafe returned, patting my arm gently.
"Maybe I should stay on the boat," I said as we approached the grand villa. "I don't want to be in the way." Rafael only chuckled as he led me in the back doors of the house, guiding me to a man who sat in the open living room. He stood from the couch, unfolding himself to stand tall and formidable.
None of Rafe's family looked like him, his appearance clearly taken entirely from his mother’s side. "Rafael," his uncle greeted, moving forward to clap him on the shoulder before his eyes fell to me. They were filled with curious suspicion as he studied me, only turning his attention away when Rafe cleared his throat. “Uncle.”
"Maxim came to tell me that you need to be put down like the rabid dog you are before you ruin the family's reputation. He said a woman has turned you into a lunatic." He raised his brows as his gaze fell to mine. He sat in the chair, motioning for Rafe to follow as he guided me to a loveseat. "So, some of what he said was true. There is a woman."
"That woman is my wife, Uncle," Rafael warned, his voice dropping low and his glare menacing as his hand tightened on my thigh. I swallowed past the lump in my throat, feeling the tension rising in the room as his cousins hovered at the edges with tight faces.
35
Rafael
My uncle's gaze fell to the rings on Isa's finger as I unbuttoned the jacket of my suit and stripped it off. I hung it over the arm of the couch, rolling my sleeves up as his eyes followed the motion. Revealing the ink on my arm and mi reina's brand on my skin, he raised a brow at me before a smile tipped his lips up hesitantly.
"Should I be insulted that we were not invited to the wedding?" he asked, and my cousins heaved a breath of relief before they took their respective seats in the comfortable chairs next to his.
"He never bothered to invite me, so I would think not," Isa said, smiling sardonically in her attempt to ease what remained of the tension. I huffed a quiet laugh at her side as my Uncle's face twisted in confusion. When she met his stare with a blank one of her own, he barked out a loud laugh and shook his head.
"I think I like her," Sebastian said, grinning at me. Given the way he'd kissed her cheek in greeting, it was brave to make such a statement. Cousin or not, I would cut his tongue out before I ever let him near Isa.
"I think perhaps you should refrain from such comments," Thiago warned, grinning at me knowingly as he chuckled. "Else Rafael might feed you to the pigs."
"Tell me," my uncle said, leaning forward onto his knees as his eyes held Isa's. She didn't blink or balk in the face of all that attention, even though she must have suspected that my family would be in a similar career path as I. "If he did not invite you to your own wedding, how did you come to be my new niece?"
"He put a gun to my head," Isa said, shrugging as if it was inconsequential even though we both knew it was not. Of all the things I'd done to her, I suspected my threat to kill her if she refused to be my wife was among the worst for mi princesa. Her inability to kill me to gain her freedom meant she had expected me to love her enough to let her live. To let her be free.
A good man would have, but I wasn't a man at all.
My uncle Andrés laughed, assuming she was kidding. When Isa met him with a deadpan stare, he tilted his head to the side and nodded as his gaze landed on me. "You always were an asshole, but this takes it to new levels, sobrino."
"She could have avoided it if she'd just said 'I do' on her own, but mi reina is as stubborn as a bull," I laughed, flinching back when Isa slapped my bare arm with a gasp.
"You're one to talk, El Diablo," she said, her tone mocking. "You are the most stubborn man I have ever met."
My cousins watched the smile consume my face with shock, their eyes landing on the pinkening skin of my bare arm where Isa slapped me. "Do you see what I have to put up with? She pretends to be so innocent, in the meantime she stabbed me with cutlery."
"How can you expect your woman to love you if you treat her this way? Wives must be treated with gentleness and affection," Sebastian said, staring at Isa as if he could compel her to see the reason in his words.
"Spoken like a man who has never had a passionate woman in his bed," my uncle laughed. "I hardly think Rafael's marriage is any of our business."
"Mi reina loves me just fine," I said, leaning back and grasping her chin to turn her to face me. She met my eyes with an unamused look, leaning back in her own chair and crossing her legs delicately. Her scar gleamed in the light, and while I still hated everything it represented and the fact that someone had dared to hurt her, it was the mark of a survivor. The mark of a woman who had lived and adapted to whatever life threw at her.
If she could survive the devil in her bed, she could survive anything.
"Tell me about Pavel," Andrés said, his face turning serious. "Why is he gunning for you?"
"Aside from the fact that Rafael is planning a coup?" Thiago snorted.
"He disrespected me by inserting himself when he was not wanted. He nearly cost me Isa," I said, glancing over at her as I realized I'd never introduced her to my uncle as anything but my wife.
It was the most important label anyway.
"So you killed his eldest son." Andrés nodded, as if he understood the consequence. He would have done anything for his wife, and the prospect of someone taking her from him would be enough that he would do the same. Spending my summers with my uncle and cousins had shown me what love was supposed to look like. It had made me realize just how twisted my parents’ marriage was. While I'd decided that love wasn't for me, I couldn't help but admire the love they shared.
Even if I'd thought I would never have it for myself.
"Should we be discussing murder so openly in front of the woman?" Thiago asked with a laugh. "Mother doesn't like it."
"I have no secrets from Isa. She knows exactly who and what I am," I answered, dropping my hand onto her thigh. She might not have known exactly what I was doing when I'd left her, but a murderer was a murderer.
I'd spare her the details of what it was to hold a beating heart in my hand, but that was as far as my secrets went for now. We'd find out exactly what she could handle soon enough.
"So as far as you're concerned, has his penance been paid? Will his other sons be left to live their lives in peace until the time comes to remove Pavel from power?" Andrés asked, his voice trailing as he said the words. He already knew the answer to them.
There was nothing I would not do for Isa, even erase an entire lineage from existence.
"They were already set to die. But Maxim coming here solidified that," I returned. Isa stilled at my side, the confirmation that more murder was coming bringing all her more traditional sensibilities to the surface. I'd break her of them once and for all soon enough. She would not live a conventional life, and death would be a part of her future.
"How do you want to proceed?" my uncle asked. "Would you like to leave Isa with us while you and your men handle him?"
"No," I said, turning my eyes to Sebastian. He grinned back at me, always testing me and pushing the limits of what I would tolerate. We'd grown up together, almost exactly the same age, and been competitive on the best of days.
My wife was not a competition he wanted to test me on.
"Isa will come with me," I said. "We'll have dealt with Maxim by the end of the day." I stood, holding out a hand for Isa and helping her to her feet. She loo
ked confused, baffled as to what part she might play in the murder of a man.
She didn't yet know she would be the one holding the knife.
Isa stared out the window of the car as we drove through Barcelona in the night. Her eyes worked to absorb all the details, memorizing everything she saw. I wished desperately that I could give her the kind of honeymoon she deserved, an exploration of all the history Europe had to offer that she would adore.
But until the conflict with Pavel was resolved, I could only afford short excursions off El Infierno. We could only venture so far without risking Pavel's anger. While I was confident in my men, I would not risk her for anything.
"I'll bring you back to see the city as soon as it's safe, mi reina," I assured her, squeezing her thigh until she turned her attention to me.
"Will it ever be safe?" she whispered. "It seems like your life is dangerous by nature. How do I know I won't be trapped on the island for the rest of my life?"
"Your happiness matters to me. I'll give you whatever I can so long as it is safe for me to do so." I parked the car on the side of the street up the road from the restaurant where Maxim wined and dined his conquest for the night. She had no way of knowing that we would save her from what was likely to be a miserable fate, and she'd probably be traumatized by watching him be snatched off the street.
Where Leonid was nothing but a creep and showed his colors at every opportunity, Maxim was far better at hiding the darkness within him. He wore a mask, much like I had done when I seduced Isa.
I just didn't do it regularly or sell the women off when I was finished with them.
I guided Isa out of the car, the sound of her heels clicking against the pavement as we moved to lean against the Mercedes we'd borrowed from my uncle. Watching Maxim through the window, we knew he was entirely unaware of the devil lurking outside the restaurant. Waiting for him to step outside. Joaquin emerged from the backseat, resting his ass against the hood of the car on Isa's other side as he watched and waited.
In the event something went wrong, he was under strict orders to get Isa to safety immediately. But nothing would go wrong.
Not with the van filled with my men waiting directly in front of the restaurant.
"Why am I here?" Isa asked, her voice barely a whisper. "Wouldn't it have been better to leave me at home?"
I ignored the way it felt to have her refer to the island as home, the distinction something I wasn't certain she was ready to face herself. "You're here because this is a part of me, and you cannot love part of me without loving the devil too," I said, turning my attention away from the restaurant. I leaned in and kissed her softly, melding our mouths in the same way our souls felt combined. I only pulled back when Joaquin cleared his throat, forcing me to turn my attention back to where Maxim and his date stood from their table.
He helped her into her coat, playing the role of the gentleman so efficiently that I would have believed it if I hadn't seen the evidence of what would follow.
Of what always followed his dates.
They stepped out of the restaurant, the woman giggling drunkenly at his side, far too lost to the alcohol he'd plied her with to understand what was coming. With Isa's hand held tight in mine, I guided her into the center of the sidewalk until we stood directly in Maxim's path. "Hello, Maxim. Welcome to Spain," I said, tilting my head at him with a dark smirk.
He stopped short, his eyes going wide for a moment before he released his hold on his date and moved to reach for his gun.
The gun that was already gone, clutched in the hand of the shadow who moved without ever being seen. Joaquin tossed me the weapon, melding back into the shadows next to the car as he watched and waited for Maxim's next move.
The bag came down over the top of his head as two of the men jumped out of the van, grasping him around the shoulders and prying him away from the woman who stumbled away in terror. Isa was quick to move to her, touching her arms gently and rubbing them with a soothing touch. "Let's get you a cab," she murmured softly, guiding the woman to the side of the street. Entirely uncaring about the people who watched her from inside the restaurant, she accepted the Euros I held out to her and helped the drunken woman into the back of a cab while the driver stared at her baffled.
Isa trusted me to protect her from any repercussions that might come from her being recognized, of being left to deal with the innocent in the situation while my men secured Maxim into the back of the van.
Once the woman was on her way home, Isa returned to the car and lowered herself into the passenger seat as Joaquin held the door open for her.
I smiled, knowing I'd made the right choice.
Mi reina was ready.
36
Isa
The drive back to his uncle's house felt like a dream, like a nightmare made real. The reality of what I'd done settled over me with the heaviness of everything I knew I should have been.
I'd watched him abduct a man off the street, and instead of being outraged or trying to stop it, I'd put the witness in a cab and sent her home. I'd been far more concerned for her than for the man that Rafael was sure to kill shortly.
I should have felt appalled by my actions. There should have been that moment of realization when I came to understand just how far I'd fallen from the girl who did as she was told and who did what she had to do to keep her parents content.
What would they think of me now?
"You're quiet," Rafe observed as he turned up the driveway. We followed behind the van with Maxim in it, watching the back doors to be certain that nothing had gone wrong.
"What would you like me to say?" I asked, fiddling with my hands as I tried to find the words to explain the mess of emotions swirling inside me. "I just don't understand how this is my life right now. I should be getting ready to go to college and study my ass off, not sitting in a car with you while we drive to a murder site."
"This is your life, because you fell in love with the devil," he said with a casual tone as he passed the house and continued further up the hill. The van pulled over to a stop beside a shed as we followed, watching as his men wrestled Maxim out of the back of the van. With the sack still placed over his head, they guided him into the shed. Rafael climbed out of the car, moving around to open my door and pull me out. He kept my hand in his, and I glanced back to the safety of the house.
His cousin said their mother didn't like to know the details, but it seemed Rafe had a different opinion of how our marriage would proceed.
I didn't know how I felt about that.
"You know, the books always say that kidnappers only cover your head if they intend to let you go. That it's when they don’t blindfold you or wear a mask that you have to worry they'll kill you. We both know you plan to kill him, so why the sack over his head?" I asked, tilting my head to the side. I was struck with the sudden and harsh reality of the question. With the kind of detached carelessness that came from discussing the methods behind a man's death rather than the fact that it shouldn't happen at all.
"It's disorienting, but it will also make him think I plan to release him alive. If he thinks there's a chance, he'll be much more likely to offer me valuable information in exchange for his life," Rafe murmured, pulling a hair tie from his pocket and securing my hair into a low ponytail at the back of my head. "But I don't expect him to have much of value to give me that I do not already know from my Russian contact."
He took my hand, guiding me into the shed as I swallowed back my fear of what I might see. Could I really watch him kill a man and accept that? My stomach churned with nausea, my breathing coming in ragged breaths that felt like they pulled from my soul rather than my lungs.
The shed door was open as we approached, Maxim hung from a hook in the ceiling in the center of the shed. With his arms extended up over his head, he was shirtless with only his pants hanging around his hips. I immediately had the distinct impression that he might have been nude if not for my presence, but Rafael wouldn't want me to look at another ma
n's cock.
That was just fine for me. It would have been like seeing a four-year-old's stick figures after a Van Gogh. I'd already seen the pinnacle of beauty.
Nothing else could ever compare.
Racks hung from the walls, all sorts of tools I didn't recognize covering them and hanging along the edges. The hood had been pulled off Maxim's face before they strung him up, and his pale blue gaze landed on me as he struggled against the rope wrapped around his wrists. With a groan for the tension in his shoulders, he snarled at me and turned his attention to Rafael just as he released my hand and moved to the wall. He studied the various tools in thought as I watched.
"How nice of you to bring me a snack, Devil," Maxim said, his voice strained despite the bravado. His stare fell back on me, and I suddenly wished I had more clothes on. The yellow wrap dress felt too feminine to be in a shed filled with torture devices. It felt too revealing to have a murder victim leering at me.
Rafe chose a bat off the wall, turning suddenly and swinging it with all his might until it connected with Maxim's stomach with a loud crack of bone. Maxim groaned as he swung back and forth in the room, the chains clanking above his head. Rafe swung the bat again, striking the back of Maxim's shoulder. I watched as it dislocated, the arm slipping out of the shoulder joint as he screamed.
"That's my fucking snack," Rafael warned, his voice deeper and more menacing. The devil played at the surface of his face, his multicolored eyes gleaming joyfully as he tortured his enemy. I swallowed back the bile in my throat, trying to remind myself that I didn't know what the other man was capable of. He could have been a murderer for all I knew.
Until Forever Ends: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 23
