Until Death Do Us Part by Adelaide Forrest

7

Isa

Awoman strolled into the kitchen as Rafe disappeared, moving to stand behind the kitchen island as she stared at me. “Would you like to go back to bed?” she asked, tugging the tie on her house robe tight. The sympathy in her brown eyes made it painful to meet her gaze, and I sniffled back my tears as I turned to face the island and fought my way through the immediate reaction to that.

“No, thank you. I feel like I’ve slept all day,” I said, touching the cup of coffee Rafe had left on the island. I couldn’t drink it, and wouldn’t have even if I could because of my distaste for it, but something about knowing it was his gave me comfort in his absence.

“You pretty much have,” Hugo said helpfully, giving me a tight smile as he waited for the reaction I would give him. He had to know that drugging me wasn’t something I would forgive easily, that it wouldn’t simply be brushed under the table as if it never happened, and under normal circumstances, I thought that might have been true.

But I was so fucking tired of fighting. So exhausted from feeling like I was in constant conflict with everyone I loved. Hugo had done something terrible, but even I knew it was with the best intentions.

He wanted to protect me and the baby, and in the moments where I’d already lost so much, all I could feel was grateful that what he’d done might have saved the life growing inside me. I’d have never forgiven myself for a stupid choice if I wasn’t the one to pay the consequences of it.

Not again.

“I’ll make you something to eat then,” she said, moving toward the refrigerator and looking inside. “Is there anything you feel like?”

“I’m not hungry,” I said, smiling through the revulsion I felt at the thought of food.

“You haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours,” Joaquin said to me before turning his attention to the woman who turned to look at me sadly. “Something light.”

“Are you deciding my meals for me now?” I asked, glaring at him even knowing he was right. I needed to eat, but I didn’t think I’d be able to tolerate anything.

“I’m making sure that you take care of yourself and the baby while you grieve, mi reina. There is nothing wrong with leaning on the people who love you; you don’t need to worry about irrelevant choices right now,” he returned, stepping forward and touching his thumb to my cheek to wipe away the moisture there. “Sour things help settle her stomach so that she can eat. Lemons, anything pickled. That sort of thing,” he added.

She nodded, grabbing a mason jar filled with Italian pickled vegetables. “Start with giardiniera then,” she said, grabbing a spoon and scooping one of everything out onto a little charcuterie board that she placed in front of me. “I’m Anna,” she said, holding out a fork. I took it, swallowing back the surge of nausea I felt as I stared down at the food.

“Isa,” I mumbled, stabbing a pickled carrot and lifting it to my mouth. She smiled, going back to her activity as if she couldn’t quite stop moving. Her hands flew as she grabbed the rest of her supplies, taking to slicing meats and cheeses and putting things on my plate one at a time. “I want to see him,” I said, swallowing down the food bit by bit. Gradually the nausea faded, the antipasto settling that empty feeling in my stomach that brought morning sickness no matter what time of the day it was.

“That’s not possible,” Hugo said, taking the seat beside me and touching a hand to my back between my shoulder blades. “You have to know it isn’t safe for you to go back there right now.”

“He’s my father. He just lost everything,” I said, whimpering through the rush of pain that filled me with the thought. He’d lost his wife and both his daughters in a matter of moments, all of us ripped away without answers. He deserved to hear the truth from me, even if knowing that I was yet again at fault for all of it would make him hate me.

“You’re still alive,” Anna said, placing some crostini on the board to fill the last empty space. “He hasn’t lost everything until that is no longer the case. As painful as it must be to have his daughters missing from his life, I can promise you he would much rather not see you than have you die simply so that you could be there for him through surgeries and skin grafts.”

“How could you know that? What happened was my fault. I owe it to him—”

“You owe it to him to live and to allow what remains of your family to find a way through this on their own. I know how much it hurts to walk away from them, but that is exactly what you must do if you want them to be safe. Even if Pavel and Dima hadn’t already struck against them to get to you, you will always be a danger to them. Being the wife of El Diablo does not come without hazards, and your husband can only offer so much protection to them while he lives on the other side of the world. The best protection you can give them is staying away,” she murmured, her voice soft as her face twisted with the pain of what I could only assume was a choice she’d had to make.

I didn’t know her story, knew nothing more than her name, but the kinship that came from being with another woman who lived the kind of life that demanded we make these choices couldn’t be denied. The expression on her face was too somber for her statement to come from anything except personal experience. She’d lost her family. I didn’t know whether she’d walked away from them in time or lost them in some other way, but they were gone from her life regardless.

“Can I at least call and tell them we’re alive?” I asked, reaching up a hand to wipe away the stragglers of tears that never seemed to stop. I would have thought I’d run out, that I’d reach a point where crying was no longer physically possible.

That didn’t seem to be coming anytime soon, and I sucked back the water Anna placed in front of me. The fluid went down easier than it would have had I tried to drink it before eating something, and it brought a strange sense of comfort to know that the symptoms I had during pregnancy were normal.

It seemed impossible that I should have any at all, and sometimes the pregnancy itself felt like a figment of my imagination. Life had been such a whirlwind of emotion and violence and everything, I wondered if I’d ever stop drowning.

“That wouldn’t be a good choice right now. Your grandmother is with him, but he hasn’t woken up, so I highly suggest waiting until we receive word that he’s pulled through the worst of it. You can’t call frequently in case someone is watching,” Joaquin said, looking toward Hugo as if they might do whatever it took to keep me from disobeying that advice.

I understood it, logically and beyond the fog of sadness. To show I cared enough to call regularly would only put them more at risk, and I knew the complete severing of me from my family hovered just beyond the horizon.

I never should have come home in the first place. I should have stayed on El Infierno and let them think I’d died. At least then my mother would still be alive, even if it meant I had to live the rest of my life without answers about Rafael’s father. That was a price I would have gladly paid.

“Eat,” Anna reminded me, snapping me out of the emotional trance I’d sunk into. I nodded, happy for the distraction and knowing that retreating into that dark place inside me would be anything but comforting in those moments when my grief and loss threatened to pull me under the surface.

I shoved another bite into my mouth, chewing slowly and trying to focus on the flavor to distract myself. But everything tasted like ash in my mouth, and nothing existing beyond the realization that my mother had died in a fire. That the same flames that had terrified me after the car bombing that nearly took my life had been what tore her out of my life.

“My mother is dead because of me,” I mumbled, needing to voice it to someone who wasn’t Rafael. Someone who understood guilt and grief in a way he would never be able to relate to.

She nodded, and somehow the confirmation that someone understood was a greater comfort than all the denials in the world. Rafe could make excuses. He could take the blame or put the blame on Dima and his men since they’d been the ones to plant the bomb that had killed her. But it didn’t change the fact that it wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for me and my choices.

“But your father and grandmother are alive. That could easily change if Rafael were to give Pavel any indication that he cares for either of them,” she said, confirming the words Rafe had said about Odina.

He could only protect me, in the end.

“He really isn’t going to do anything to get my sister back, is he?” I asked, and the silence of Joaquin and Hugo as they surrounded me served as confirmation enough.

Still, Anna answered with the brutal honesty I had already begun to realize was just a part of her. “Sweetheart, my impression of your sister through your husband’s eyes? Pavel did him a favor. Rafael Ibarra is not the kind of man to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

I nodded, swallowing past the tightness in my throat.

Another life, another stain on my soul. At some point, I would have to confront the fact that I wasn’t the innocent girl who had bad things happen to her.

There was something inside of me that attracted those bad things, that drew men like Rafael into my life.

There was something evil inside me, something I’d worked to suppress my entire life, but good things didn’t come to those who resisted temptation.

Instead, it came to those who took what they wanted in fire and blood.