Until Death Do Us Part by Adelaide Forrest

4

Rafael

Isa stirred slightly as I pulled her to a sitting position and slipped a new dress over her head. Tugging underwear up her thighs with gentle hands, I took a moment to stare down at her sleeping face. At the peace written into her expression as her head settled back onto the pillow.

When we were in a better situation, Isa and I would need to have a conversation about the things I wanted to do to her while she slept. About the urge that had stemmed from the day I'd licked her pussy until she came in her sleep. I wanted to fuck her while she was unconscious and ask her what she dreamed when she woke up. I wanted to make her uncomfortable as she told me about all her darkest fantasies. It wasn’t the right time, not with the grief that would come soon enough and the risk to her and the baby, but one day, we would play.

Joaquin seemed convinced that Isa had protected her stomach, that the effects of the blast hadn't been nearly as severe as the one that knocked her back several feet in that empty parking lot weeks earlier.

The doctor had assured me that the sleeping pill wouldn't harm the baby, at least not taken in moderation for the special circumstances. The stress that would follow her learning the truth would be far more harmful to her pregnancy, and I would never regret taking one last night with my wife before the uncertainty of her new reality overwhelmed her.

Death didn't come easy to mi reina, and the loss she’d suffered with those charred remains in the car may be the most difficult of her life.

I lifted Isa into my arms, smiling slightly when she groaned at me and half-heartedly swatted at my hands as if I would let her go and leave her to sleep in peace. "Go back to sleep," I murmured, kissing the top of her head as I stood from the bed and navigated through the doorway and the plane aisle, taking special care not to bump her head or legs.

Joaquin stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting for Isa and me while the others loaded into the vehicles around the plane. Joaquin made for the last remaining armored car, hauling himself into the passenger seat as I nodded my head at Nino. The executioner for Mariano Rossi was a brutal man with unusually shaggy hair. His tattoos extended up to cover his neck and the side of his face, looking like someone I'd expect to encounter in the cartels or the bratva. The Italians tended to favor their suits and clean cut appearances, making Nino stand out as something else entirely.

He opened the back door for me, watching with intense fixation as I gently placed Isa on the seat and then lifted her head so that it would rest on my lap for the drive to the Rossi Estate in Scarsdale. Though Mariano's son Luca had taken to staying in a Penthouse in the city while he lived the life of a bachelor, his father preferred the privacy afforded to him by his private estate outside the city limits. I greatly agreed with him.

Glaring at Nino as he closed the door softly so as not to disturb the woman sleeping on my lap, I watched as he made his way to the front seat. "She's a deep sleeper," he observed, and only the realization that he thought perhaps Isa was a drugged victim managed to calm the rough edges of my rage at seeing him look at my wife while she was vulnerable.

"Sleeping pills. It's been a rough night," I said, and he nodded as he started the car.

Mariano’s fortress was the most secure place I could leave Isa while I went to Brighton Beach, aside from Calix’s property in Philadelphia. Under any other circumstances, I would have chosen to spend time with the friend I hadn’t seen in months, but he was only just finding quiet after the war that rocked his city.

The last thing he needed was me bringing trouble to his doorstep so soon.

The drive to the estate was mercifully short, with Mariano's father having built the private airport close to his home in case of an emergency. As soon as Nino pulled up in front of the house, I shoved open the door and carefully pulled Isa into my arms and out of the car.

She stirred, her eyes fluttering open as they met mine and she gave a sleepy grumble. "Where are we?"

"With friends," I murmured, tucking her face into my neck and encouraging her to go back to sleep. Joaquin stood inside the front doors, talking to the aging man I knew to be Mariano Rossi and his wife Anna. As soon as she saw me, Anna gave a sympathetic smile and moved to the stairs. Motioning for me to follow, she kept silent as she led me up and to the wing of the house that would be our refuge for a few days while Isa recovered from the initial shock of what was to come.

I stepped into the bedroom, lowering Isa to the bed and tucking her hair behind her ear. She closed her eyes sleepily when I kissed her forehead, leaving me free to go downstairs and find the doctor. Closing the door behind me, I greeted Anna with a brief kiss on the cheek. "Where is he?"

"Waiting in the kitchen," she said, leading me back down the steps and to the room where Joaquin and Mariano had gravitated. The doctor sat at the kitchen island, tapping his pen on his paper while Joaquin explained what had happened.

"The explosion knocked her off the couch," he said.

"Did she land on anything? Something bump into her stomach by chance?" the doctor asked, jotting down a note as I stepped into the room and listened to Joaquin's repeated summary of what Isa had been through.

The fact that it had happened in my own home and I hadn't been there to protect her was like lava in my blood, boiling and unstoppable until I showed the people who were responsible for her suffering what the meaning of true pain was. "No," Joaquin answered. "She's a quick thinker. She rolled and did what she could to protect her stomach."

"Did the force hit her in the back or front?"

"Back."

The doctor's eyes came to mine. "Has she had any bleeding?" he asked.

"None," I said.

"That's a good sign. I'd like to draw some blood and collect a urine sample, feel her stomach a bit and see if anything feels out of the ordinary. Is she awake?" he asked, standing from his seat and moving toward the door.

"She's sleeping, but you can examine her anyway," I said, leading the way. His face twisted as if he wanted to tell me that he'd greatly prefer to conduct the exam when she was awake, but after meeting my gaze he sighed as if he knew just how pointless arguing with me would be. We climbed the stairs quickly, and I pushed open the door to reveal Isa sleeping in the center of the bed.

With her dark hair fanning over the white sheets, she looked like some kind of princess in the fairytales mothers read to their daughters. I wondered if Isa would read those to our own daughter one day. The doctor perched on the edge of the bed, raising Isa's dress to reveal her stomach while I clenched my teeth in frustration. His hands touched her smooth skin, making me hate every moment of the necessity.

I quickly decided the doctor who tended to Isa's pregnancies would be a woman, even if I had to kidnap her too.

He massaged her skin, pressing firmly and making her face twist as awareness threatened at the edges of her vision. Her eyes fluttered open and then closed. "Nothing feels out of the ordinary. There are no outward signs of a placental abruption."

"That's good, right?" I asked, clenching my hands into fists to prevent myself from interfering in his examination. He smoothed her dress back down her legs, moving to the bag he'd placed at the foot of the bed and pulling out supplies for a blood sample. He moved to her arm, going through the motions as I sat on the other side of the bed and pulled her free hand into mine.

If the needle poking through her skin woke her up, I wanted to be right by her side to reassure her. "That's very good. Make sure she holds still," he said, positioning the needle as I covered Isa's body with one of my arms. She twitched as he slid it into her vein, then he took several vials of blood before he was satisfied and pulled it free. Taking the gauze from him, I held it to the spot where Isa's blood pooled in the little wound.

I'd seen her bleed—I'd even been the cause of her bleeding—but the tiny needle prick of blood affected me on a whole new level knowing she was pregnant. There was no other explanation for the growing concern tightening my chest, only that my entire world was contained within Isa's body.

I'd never survive it if something happened to either of them.