"Fuck you," Maxim groaned, jerking against the restraints with his good arm when Rafael dropped the bat onto the table. He pulled a long hunting knife off the table slowly, gripping it so the blade itself faced out. He walked around Maxim's body, dragging the edge of the knife through his flesh and leaving a bloody trail in a line around his stomach. As he stepped around to the front of Maxim, he glared up at the man who slumped forward.
"Should I tell my wife how you like to sell children into sexual slavery?" Rafael asked, tearing down the doubt I had regarding my involvement in his crime. "How you like to have your men impregnate women so you can tear the babies from their arms while they scream?" I reached down to touch my stomach, my fingers curling into the soft flesh. To the child that would be inevitable given Rafe's determination to get me pregnant. To think of someone taking that away from me was unimaginable, even if I hadn't thought I wanted children.
I'd kill anyone who tried.
Rafael turned back to me, something dancing behind his eyes that I was certain I wouldn't come to enjoy. "Show me your darkness, mi reina," he murmured, echoing the words he'd given me when he gave me the chance to take my freedom back. The chance to stab him in the heart and walk away from the life of death and destruction he offered me. He came to stand behind me. His blood-soaked hands stretched around me, wrapping me in his embrace as he lifted my hand to wrap around the hilt of the knife.
With my breath caught in my lungs, Rafael's blood from the barbed wire covered my skin. He lifted my other hand, wrapping it around the hilt and covering me with his massive grip. The man hanging in front of me eyed the knife, dragging his eyes up to look at me as he barked out a sharp laugh. "You let your cunt of a wife do your wet work now, El Diablo?" he asked, wheezing as he tried to breathe through the pain of near dismemberment. His stomach sagged as if the skin was only one cut away from splitting in two.
I shook my head as Rafe took the first step forward, bringing me closer and closer to the man he wanted me to kill. "I'm not you," I whispered.
"You're right," Rafael murmured in my ear as we came to a stop. One of his men who had been lurking at the door to the shed positioned a metal chair beneath Maxim's body as Rafe nodded, another working to lower the restraints until he dropped into the chair with a thud. With him sitting in the chair in front of me, Rafael shuffled me forward a few more steps as Joaquin stepped up behind Maxim's chair and drew his arms up over his head. Restraining him while Rafe guided my hands to line the blade up to the left of Maxim's chest and parallel to the ground. "You're my Queen."
He helped me slide the knife forward slowly, the tip popping through the resistance of his skin as Maxim groaned. A vision of Rafael's eyes stared back at me, framed in a little girl's round face as I thought about all the children he'd torn from their mothers. My hands slid forward slowly, sinking through flesh as Maxim gaped up at me in shock and held my gaze. I hit bone, his rib blocking the way as Rafael shifted me lower and helped me glide between his ribs.
Maxim's eyes went slack as I drove forward, slowly puncturing his heart with the knife. I watched as the life bled from his eyes, his head dropping forward as his final breath wheezed out of his lungs.
I dropped my grip on the handle, stumbling back into Rafe's body as he drew me into his arms and held my head against his chest. "There's mi reina," he murmured softly, swaying back and forth with me in his grip as I gripped his shirt in my blood-soaked hands and wept.
For the girl I'd been. For the girl who would never exist again.
El Diablo had been reborn in flames. Mi Reina had been reborn in water.
But our love was born in blood.
37
Rafael
Isa was silent as I guided her into the Mercedes, taking the driveway down to the docks. I gave her the little bit of time I knew she needed to process, knowing full well that I would push her and pull her out of the shell of her mind the moment we were on board. I guided her out of the Mercedes, taking her into the yacht wordlessly. The bedroom cabin called my name, and I hurried her inside it.
She didn't so much as glance around the sleek white lines of the master cabin as I guided her through it and into the luxury bathroom. The black and white marble of the bathroom was stunning as I turned on the shower, helping a quiet Isa out of her blood-stained dress. "I killed him," she whispered as I untied the knot on the wrap. It fell away from her torso, revealing the smooth contours of her body in the white lace I'd set out for her before leaving El Infierno. I pushed the straps off her shoulders, letting the fabric pool at her feet. With the most intimate parts of her concealed in the innocence of white and the black heeled sandals on her feet, she'd have been stunning with those things alone.
But the blood drying on her hands called to the devil inside me, wanting to see her bathed in it. I touched a hand to the white of her bra, leaving
