1
Isa
Consciousness came slowly, nudging at the back of my awareness as my lashes fluttered against my cheeks lightly. Waking from the deepest well of sleep, the kind of sleep that came without dreams and where nothing existed but the void of everything that consumed my waking thoughts, didn’t come easy.
Like swimming for a surface I could never seem to reach, my fingertips always lingered inches away from breaking through and feeling the rush of air in my lungs.
“She’s waking up,” a familiar voice said, tugging at the haze surrounding me. It filtered through the fog and reached into the waters, grasping those fingers so close to freedom and pulling me out with a sudden heave.
I gasped, sucking air into my lungs as my chest heaved with the force of it. Hugo’s hand touched the top of mine where my fingers clutched the arm of my seat, his face reassuring as he filled my vision. With him leaning into my space, I met his deep chocolate gaze until I found a way to breathe through the panic in my chest.
When those breaths calmed, I looked around me and wondered where Rafe could be. My mind raced to consider all the possibilities of what had happened and what would occupy him so thoroughly that he wouldn’t be the one to tend to me when I woke up from what they’d done.
The thought had initially been a vague reaction—a phantom of the betrayal I should have felt—as if the muscles of my mind remembered exactly what had transpired before the memory could click into place. I narrowed my glare onto Hugo as the reality of his crime against me came rushing back in an overwhelming flood.
The pained sympathy in Rafe’s face as he watched Hugo do something they’d clearly discussed ahead of time gave me the slightest indication that he felt perhaps a modicum of guilt for drugging me yet again. “I did what I had to do to keep you from doing something stupid,” Hugo murmured, sitting back in his seat. The white seat that surrounded him was so bright next to the shock of his wrinkled black shirt and weathered olive skin. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for three days.
“How long have I been out?” I asked, staring around Rafe’s plane. They’d somehow had enough time and the ability to get me out of the bunker and to the airstrip without disturbing me.
“About six hours,” Hugo answered. “We thought it was best to let you sleep through as much as possible.”
“Where’s Rafe?” I asked, gathering the energy to raise my hand to brush a piece of hair away from my face. It didn’t lift, refusing to leave the arm of the seat. Glancing down in shock, I glared at the bright white straps crossing over my arms and pulled tight. Jerking against the tight hold, I turned a shocked glare to Hugo. “What the fuck?”
“Just relax, Isa,” Gabriel said, stepping out of the front cabin and making his way toward us. He took a seat across the aisle, leaning back comfortably and crossing his ankles smoothly. “We’ll be on our way in just a bit.”
“Why am I tied down?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“For your own protection. We can’t have you running off to do something foolish this close to escaping unnoticed,” he said, steepling his hands over his stomach.
“I’m going to ask you one more time, where the fuck is my husband?” I demanded, my voice dropping to a low grate as I glared at him. There was something ominous in his feigned casualness, a lie in the behavior. Of all the brothers, Gabriel was the one I’d thought I could trust to give it to me straight.
I didn’t want to think about what must have happened for him to try to deceive me into thinking everything was fine and dandy.
“He’ll be here soon,” Hugo said, reassuring me and drawing my attention away from his brother. “He and Joaquin are wrapping up some last details and then we’ll be on our way.”
“But they’re both alive?” I asked, hating the weak tremor to my voice. All my bravado faded away in the face of the confirmation that my husband was still alive. That he and Joaquin hadn’t died after leaving me in the bunker with Hugo.
“As if Rafael would have allowed anyone but him to carry you out of that bunker,” Hugo scoffed. “If there hadn’t been more pressing matters, he would’ve loaded you onto the plane, too.”
“What pressing matters?” I asked, casting a glance out the window. Men paced up and down the airstrip next to the plane, but none of them were familiar. They had a wider variety of complexions and skin colors, with all manner of hair color to top it off, in a way that Rafael’s very Spanish men didn’t have much of.
“Bellandi men,” Gabriel said, seeming to echo my thoughts. “They came just in time for the end of the party, so Rafael sent them with us while he wrapped up at the house.”
Assault rifles were clutched tightly in the Bellandi men’s grip, their eyes alert while they scanned the trees to either side of the landing strip as if they were waiting for an attack at any moment.
From the sheer number of men, it didn’t seem likely that Rafe and his men had been successful in killing every last one of the people who’d attacked us, or maybe it was just a matter of being cautious.
They’d certainly given us good reason to be.
“Untie me,” I pleaded, turning back to Hugo. I cleared my throat, hoping to loosen the tightness I felt there. The unknown of what might have happened to all the men I’d grown to know even vaguely felt like a crushing pressure on my chest. “What happened to Odina?” I asked, remembering her in a sudden realization that made guilt squeeze my heart. She hadn’t been the first thought, or the second, or even the third.
My own flesh and blood had been at that house when all hell broke loose, and I couldn’t even be bothered to remember. Even the bond of blood could only go so far, and Rafe’s men and the brothers had proven themselves to be far more loyal to me and my well-being than Odina ever had.
Silence rang through the plane as Hugo refused to answer, glancing at his brother out of the side of his eye.
“I didn’t bother to ask,” Gabriel said finally, raising a brow at Hugo in warning. “I didn’t particularly care what happened to thatpendeja.”
I could see it being true, given Gabriel’s intense hatred for Odina. He wouldn’t bother wasting a second of his day with her, but the lurking sympathy in Hugo’s eyes as he studied me set me on edge, making me grit my teeth and clutch the arm of the seat to hold back the surge of emotion.