"My mother isn't abusive," Isa said, her voice gentler than I was sure she wanted it to be considering the conversation. Even through the sadness in her multicolored eyes, a storm raged behind the compassion for me sharing the story of my life with her.
"Am I?" I asked, nodding my hand down to the brand on her arm, my name on her neck, and the tattoo she hadn't wanted. "I've kidnapped you, touched you, drugged you, whipped you, and branded you. Most would say that I am the definition of abusive."
"Do you have a point?" she asked, narrowing her eyes on my face.
"My point is, that despite all of those things, you still have more freedom in my gilded cage than you ever did in hers. In the life she chose for you, you couldn't even be yourself. How is that not abuse?”
"She didn't put me in that cage, Rafe," Isa sighed, dropping her head to touch her forehead to my chest. "I did. I took everything dark and shoved it down where it couldn't touch me again. I felt what it was to bear the consequences of my actions when it was amistake. Why would I want to know what it was to feel guilt for something I'd done intentionally?"
I glared down at her as she retracted her hand from my chest, distancing herself from me in body as she pulled back the gentleness she'd shown in the face of an uncomfortable conversation she didn't want. As much as Isa might have argued that I was the difficult one who complicated our relationship, the truth was that it was both of us.
She was stubborn. I was demanding. That was life.
"Did she ever stop you from putting yourself in that cage?" I asked, tilting my head at her as my voice dropped low. The devil rose to the surface with Isa's continued denial of the fact that her mother would never have allowed her to be free. Not without judgment, and definitely not without condemning her. "Or did she happily allow her daughter to be miserable?"
"That's not fair. Not pulling me out of the cage isn't the same thing as her being the one to put me in there in the first place," Isa said, spinning to turn her back on me as she took the last few steps toward the house. I followed her, stalking her inside as she tugged open the French doors. She passed some of my men lingering in the main living space, heading up the stairs for our bedroom. I didn't like seeing her in it, not the way I loved her being in our bedroom at home.
Being away fromEl Infiernofelt wrong in all the ways that mattered.
"Maybe not, but they can't expect you to be the same girl who left Chicago. Life changed you," I said.
"You mean you changed me," she snapped, turning to face me with a severe glare on her face. Her cheeks were stained with the tears of her anger, her forehead pinched as if she couldn't quite wrap her head around our conversation. "You made me into a murderer, and you think it's weird that they wouldn't be able to accept that? Of course they can't. People don't love monsters, Rafael. Only other monsters can do that."
"You love me," I said, stepping closer into her space. Staring down into her beautiful face that was so consumed by anger, I waited for her to return the words that would confirm thatmi reinawas still the woman who'd been reborn in Spain. That she wouldn't backtrack because of her family's expectations and interference.
"How fortunate for you that you turned me into a monster then," she hissed, denying me what I needed to hear and turning her back on me and making her way for the phone ringing on the nightstand.
"If they can't love you for who you are, then they don't fucking deserve you," I argued before she could answer the call. The only other people she'd given the number to were her family when she’d called to invite them to dinner, so I could just imagine how well that conversation would go so quickly.
Some people really didn't understand the notion that distance made the heart grow fonder sometimes when it came to family. Maybe that was hypocritical since I would kidnap Isa again before I allowed her to have any form of distance from me.
"Chloe?" Isa asked, squeezing her eyes closed as she pulled the phone away from her ear. The screeching, angry voice of her best friend came through the cell, muffled but obnoxious despite my distance. Placing my hands on my hips, I stared at the floor in front of me and sighed, overcome with the feeling that bringing her to Chicago had been a grave mistake.
It was too much, too soon, to ask Isa to defy the people who had been there her entire life. No matter what she felt for me, competing with them wasn't something I would ever tolerate.
I was her entire world, and that was the way it needed to stay.
"I know. I'm sorry," Isa said, murmuring softly despite her friend's frantic energy. There was something so undeniably soothing about Isa's voice when she tried to comfort someone, and the sound of it reminded me of how gentle she'd been with Luna.
How gentle she'd be with our own child.
Isa was many things, but a monster she was not. Somehow, I would find a way to make her see herself as she truly was, and not overcome with the regret of her actions.
"No! I promise you I'm fine. He didn't hurt me. Look, Chloe, there are things you don't know," Isa said, pleading with her friend.
"Because you didn't tell me!" Chloe shrieked so loudly the sound reached me from feet away. "You didn't even tell me you were home. I had to hear it from your mother when she asked me to talk some sense into you."
"Of course she said that," Isa scoffed, turning to face me with a small smile. "Because thinking for myself automatically means that I've lost my damn mind." The peace offering hit me in the chest, settling there as it was meant to be. She hit the button for the speaker phone so that I could hear Chloe's words more clearly. I repaid the courtesy by shutting my fucking mouth.
I wanted to fault her for doubting my words in the first place, but I knew the denial came from a stage of grief more than anything else.Mi reinawasn't ready to see the truth just yet, but she would soon enough either way.
"You're married to a fucking crime boss! Do you know what they say about him?" Chloe asked as Isa moved to the bed and crawled into the center of it. She curled her legs up underneath her, looking far too small in the grand bed as she stared at her phone and considered her options.
"I know who he is, Chloe. I know that's probably hard for you to imagine." She turned a questioning look my way, heaving a sigh as she continued on. "Why don't you come over to talk tomorrow? I'll text you the address."
"Fine," Chloe barked, disconnecting the call. Isa tossed the phone onto the nightstand as I sat down next to her, drawing her into my side as I lay down on the bed.
"Just say the word and we can go home. You don't have to deal with them in any way you don't want. If that means you just call regularly enough for them to know you're alive, then that is what you'll do."
"They're my family, and we need answers."
I pulled her into my chest as she stained my skin with her tears of frustration.
Dead and scattered into ashes on the wind, my father still managed to fuck up everything good in my life.