Light streamed in through the trees overhead, giving way to an opening that overlooked the Mediterranean Sea. It sparkled in the sunlight in the distance, but what drew my attention were the fine and glimmering stones a few yards from the overlook.
The first one was older, well-kept and clean despite the way that the name etched upon it wasn’t as clear.
Daniela Vasquez de Ibarra.
Rafael’s mother’s name on the stone took my breath away, and the beautiful place he’d chosen to remember the woman who loved him fiercely enough to die painfully in her efforts to save him.
I owed her everything.
I ran my hand over the stone and stopped in front of the newer one. The name stood out more starkly, freshly carved as I dropped to my knees in the grass in front of it.
My fingers shook as I traced the name and thought about how much she would have loved this to be her final resting place.
Leonora Adamik.
The woman who’d guided me to the memorials disappeared quietly as I stared at the stones, but I felt Joaquin’s presence hovering behind me like a silent sentry. Giving me the time I needed, but keeping me safe while I took it.
Tears fell as I laid the flowers the villagers and children had placed in the basket in front of the stone, moving to Daniela’s and carefully arranging half of them against her stone.
I felt Rafael the moment he emerged into the clearing. He knelt in the grass beside me, touching a strong hand to one of the flowers in front of his mother’s stone that had fallen over and straightening it.
He took my hand in his, holding it tightly as we stared at the stones that somehow united us even in death, and we sat together.
Grieving for what we’d lost, for what we could never have back.
And resolving to destroy the people who had taken it from us.