16
Rafael
Isa spent most of the next day locked in the bedroom, trying to ready herself for what she knew was coming. Normally, I might have hated the separation from her. I would have detested the distance she tried to put between us. But knowing what I needed to do, I didn't want to look her in the eye and feed her lies.
It would be agonizing for her. The first time always was.
I wanted to be able to hold her through the pain, to comfort her as she suffered her penance. But the public spectacle of it prevented that. I couldn't be seen as weak in front of my men, and I'd need to be theEl Diablothey all expected me to be, to prove that my relationship with Isa wouldn't make me more lenient for their transgressions.
My phone vibrated in my pocket as I watched the sun set over the horizon, the fires of the pyre already blazing as my people prepared for Isa's penance. "Yeah?" I barked, lifting the phone to my ear.
"I found your cop," Ryker snapped on the other end of the line. "You aren't going to be happy about it."
I spun away from the window, moving to my desk so that I could write down his name. "What did he have to say?" I asked.
"Not a damn thing, because he's fucking dead. He mysteriously committed suicide a week after the accident. Nobody ever followed up on his report, since it was just a drowning accident and nobody died…." His voice faded as I thought over the implications. Shaking my head, I focused on the rest of what he had to say even though I wanted to strangle Isa.
A murder disguised as a suicide would mean someone else had been involved. Someone that very much wanted to keep the truth a secret.
"His wife says he was never depressed until the week before his suicide. She thinks he got himself wrapped up in something he shouldn't have been involved with, and that his guilt consumed him to the point that he had to end it."
"Did you look into the suicide?" I asked, lifting a paperweight off my desk. The last thing I needed in the moments before Isa's brand was to be this furious with her for her secrets all over again.
"Yeah, single gunshot to the temple. But not a speck of residue on his hands. There's no way he did it, Rafe," Ryker said. "He was shot in the right temple, but this guy was left-handed."
"Fucking Christ," I muttered. "They didn't even try to make it look legit."
"Not one bit. I found the cops who signed off on the suicide. They both retired a couple years ago and left Chicago, but I'll hunt them down and get our contacts on it. She's still not talking about it?"
"Not a word," I grunted. "Not even under duress."
Ryker paused, his sigh vibrating the phone with static. "Go gentle. This is fucked, Rafe. I thought she fell in that river, but this?"
"Someone threw her in," I said, voicing the words he didn't dare to say. "Somebody tried to fucking kill her, and she won't even tell me it happened. Let alone who." I growled, "Get. Me. That. Name."
I jabbed my finger into the red button on my cell, tossing it down on the desk. I roared my frustration as I threw the paperweight at the wall, my immediate temper only somewhat abated when the glass shattered and the sound echoed through the house. Regina hurried into the room, flinging the door open in her worry and staring at the mess.
Her face twisted with sympathy as she wrongly assumed that she knew the cause. "You don't have to do this. Nobody will blame you for letting her off this once when she didn't know the rules until last night."
I stared at her, wishing it could be true. If I hadn't given her the chance for an alternative the night before, it might have been. But Isa had made her choice.
And mine along with it.
"It has to be done," I grunted, wiping my hand over my mouth and trying to embrace the familiar cold of being uncaring. Of not giving a shit about who I hurt.
Isa's pained eyes haunted me as if she already knelt in front of me. The betrayal I knew too well because I'd seen it in my mother's eyes the day my father killed her. "Men who love their wives do not do such things," Regina said, pleading with me to see the reason in her words.
I didn't dare to deny my feelings for Isa again, not after I'd already started to come to terms with the way she'd consumed my every waking thought since I'd seen her.
Obsession wasn't a strong enough word for what I felt formi reina.Love didn't seem like enough either.
She was just mine.
"You have to accept your feelings for her if you ever expect her to do the same," Regina said, reaching up to touch my cheek gently.
"Is she ready?" I asked, stepping away from her hand. She closed her eyes, heaving out a sigh as she nodded.
When she opened her eyes, I found disappointment staring back at me for the first time. I swallowed down the confliction I felt in seeing it, stepping around her and moving out of the office.
The time had come for Isa to understand exactly who would be her husband.
She couldn't have me withoutEl Diablo.She couldn't be mine without embracing the devil.
I just hoped she would be strong enough to withstand the flames.