"Rafael," I whispered, the name Rafe felt wrong with the darkness swimming in his eyes. Rafe was the man I loved. Rafael was the phantom who lurked inside him.
Rafael was the monster I would walk out on while he slept.
He held my eyes as he took me, glaring down at me as if he could will me to tell him all my secrets. But the sins of the flesh were different from the sins of the mind, and as much as I hated his secrets, I would never tell him my own.
25
Rafael
She stared up at me with secrets in her eyes, an entire world away from where I wanted her to be. In the moment with me, enjoying my touch on her body. The distance and tension between us only served to enrage me further.
With every day that passed, it became more and more obvious that Isa would never voluntarily give herself to me.
I'd have to take her. I'd have to break her.
And then I'd rebuild her into the Queen she was meant to be.
I released her hands to reposition our bodies and shove her thighs apart, pounding deep inside her once more as she wound her legs around me. Clinging to me as I rode her like it would be the last time.
Something was wrong. I knew it in my bones, but as she screamed out her orgasm and shattered around me, nothing else mattered when she sent me spiraling with her.
I grunted, grinding my pelvis into her as she rode out the waves of her orgasm and I filled the condom with what should have been inside my princesa. When her breathing steadied, I pulled out of her and moved to the bathroom to grab a washcloth to clean her up. She didn't move in the time I was gone, her eyes drifting shut as if she needed to close out the world.
She blushed as I cleaned her but didn't speak, the sudden influx of silence between us feeling unnatural. My world wasn't complete without her smile and her voice in it, now that I finally had her with me.
I wanted to hate her for it, for making me so dependent on her happiness. Instead, we'd both hate me for stripping that away from her.
At least for a time.
I tucked her beneath the blankets, watching her as she fell asleep in the bed we'd shared nightly. Something had happened in the time since I’d packed her into the back of the car and sent her back here. Something had shifted between us, and I didn't think I could get us back to where we needed to be in time to salvage what remained of our relationship. My Isa would have questioned why I'd shipped her off.
She'd have rallied and fought against the potential of me doing something she wouldn't want to be a part of. The only explanation I could think of was her researching me in my absence. But with her phone shattered on the ground below the balcony, I couldn't find the information I needed.
Grabbing my phone out of my pants, I pulled up the messages that had come in the time since I'd been occupied with Isa. The glaring alert from Hugo in all capital letters drew my attention immediately.
ISA KNOWS.
The void inside of me widened as I turned my eyes back to her sleeping body and the innocence on her face. Pursing my lips, I moved to the balcony and pulled the glass closed behind me as I pressed the button to call Hugo back. "Tell me, Hugo. What exactly does Isa know?" I asked the moment he answered the phone.
There was a pause of silence, and then his response of what Chloe had told Isa in their brief conversation before he got through the door to stop it. "That's unfortunate," I said, spinning back to stare at Isa as she slept. It could have been worse, and perhaps she would brush off the rumor as simply that.
I wasn't optimistic enough to think that was the case.
"What do you want to do?" Hugo asked.
"Clear the streets," I said. "If she decides to try something stupid, I don't want any witnesses to what will come next."
He paused. "Why not just take her now?" he asked, and the question held merit. With everything crumbling around me, I could just slip a needle into her neck and she'd be on El Infierno before she woke up.
She'd never know a moment of fear, until it was too late to change.
"I need to know," I said, ending the call as I stepped back inside and crawled into bed with Isa. If she left me, she deserved to have to deal with the monster vibrating under my skin.
I'd warned her what would happen, and Isa would very quickly learn that when I made a promise?
I fucking kept it.
26
Isa
I sat up in bed slowly, in spite of the urgency in my veins to try to keep from waking Rafael. As the moonlight shone through the windows, I turned to look at his sleeping face over my shoulder. With his face relaxed and peaceful, I could almost forget the cold cruelty he'd shown me the night before. I could almost forget the empty look in his eyes as he came into the room, and the suspicion in his gaze when he’d suspected me of leaving.
But the ache between my legs from his rough possession served as the reminder I needed, compelling me to stand and move into the closet as quickly and quietly as I could. I pulled a casual dress out of my suitcase, tugging underwear up my legs and slipping sandals on my feet as I quietly shoved everything else back in.
Maybe it was better this way. With our romance cut short by me slipping away in the night, there would be no heartfelt goodbye. He wouldn’t be subjected to
