It'd been meant to be a worst-case scenario, a contingency, but I hadn't known just how much the failure would hurt.
"Mi hijo," Regina said, stepping forward as if to hug me. I ignored her, opening the passenger side and watching as her eyes dropped to Isa's unconscious form. The smile dropped off her face as I pulled Isa from the vehicle, cradling her limp body in my arms and striding past Regina and Alejandro's gaping faces to carry her to our bedroom.
To put her exactly where she belonged.
"Joder," Alejandro cursed at my back.
"Mi hijo, is she alright?" Regina asked, the concern in her voice making me falter in my steps. "She's bleeding." I glanced down at Isa's torn knees, a moment of something akin to regret filling me before I spun to level Regina with a glare.
"She made her choice. And I made mine."
Regina touched a hand to her mouth as her bottom lip trembled, but I couldn't be bothered to spare a moment for her delicate sensibilities. They'd both always known what would come to Isa if she didn't choose me.
They'd just hoped it wouldn't become necessary.
Turning, I made my way down the hall to the bedroom where Dr. Garcia waited. He took one look at Isa and heaved a disappointed sigh. He'd made himself very clear in our conversations that what I asked of him went against his purpose, that it was unethical in a way he wasn't comfortable with. He'd do it anyway, if he valued having a head on his shoulders.
I found most men did.
Moving inside the open door, I gently laid Isa on the bed. Her chocolate hair spread over the white bedding as her head tilted to the side on the pillow.
"Señor Ibarra, perhaps there's another way," Dr. Garcia said.
"There's not," I snapped, taking my eyes off Isa's peaceful face to carefully turn her to lie on her stomach. Grabbing the knife from my nightstand, I slit the fabric of the back of her dress to her waist, revealing her smooth skin to the eyes of another man even though I hated every moment of it. I suppressed the urge to murder him for laying eyes on skin that should have been for me, even knowing it was no more than a man would see when mi princesa went for a swim in the pool. The fact that she was unconscious and finally in my bed worsened the natural instinct I felt to lock her away from everyone else.
But his involvement was a necessary evil that I wouldn't regret should Isa decide to do something stupid when she woke up naked in my bed and remembered who I was.
When she remembered what I'd done.
He sighed, nodding his head as he fiddled with the syringe to prepare Isa's first tracker. I unclasped her bra, baring the space between her shoulder blades for him to find the perfect position.
Somewhere she couldn't cut it out without help.
She didn't move as he inserted the first tracker. Didn't so much as twitch as he inserted another one into her arm, just above her right elbow.
"I can convince myself that the trackers might save her life," he said, grabbing the other syringe from his bag. I turned Isa from her stomach to her back, deliberately attempting to ignore the advice that was coming. "But not this, Señor Ibarra. I beg you to reconsider making this choice for her. Señora Adamik is young. She may come around to the idea of children in her own time."
"I don't know what I ever said to make you think I gave a single fuck about your opinion, Doctor," I said mockingly.
He bit his lower lip, watching as I carefully cut the fabric away from Isa's stomach. Her dress was nothing but a pile of scraps covering the most intimate parts of her body, but I couldn't force myself to reveal her to another man more than absolutely necessary. If I'd felt comfortable handling the trackers and her fertility shot on my own, I would have.
He delivered the injection with cool professionalism, then stepped back and gathered his things. A glance to his face showed all the confliction there, the evidence of his horror at being involved in my plans for Isa. Leaving without another word, he closed the door behind him and left me to my privacy with mi princesa.
I sighed, standing from the bed and making my way into the master bathroom to run a warm bath. I stripped off my clothes while I waited, glancing back at the bed where Isa hadn't moved since I'd left her. Turning off the water, I went back to the bedroom and stripped off her dress with gentler motions than felt natural. In spite of the rage simmering in my blood as though I stood in the pits of Hell itself, my touch on Isa remained gentle. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her while she slept.
All I wanted was to mark her. To claim her as mine. But she'd be awake when that time came. She'd be aware of everything I did to her and know where she'd gone so terribly wrong.
Once she was naked, I drew her into my arms again and carefully maneuvered the two of us into the tub. Her back pressed against my chest, her head resting on my shoulder as she slept. I let the water do most of the work for me, cleaning her body of the dirt that she'd collected in her scuffles along the streets of Ibiza as she fled. The water turned a light pink as it washed away the dried blood from her skin, making it so the very essence of her surrounded me in a halo of pain.
I lost track of how long I sat there with her
