26
Rafael
Tearing off my suit jacket, I tossed it over the stair railing and hurried down the steps. I rounded the corner at the bottom as I worked my tie loose and dropped it to the floor.
Joaquin and Hugo stepped into my path, and I watched as both men furrowed their brows in concern momentarily. Joaquin was the first to step out of my way, more familiar with the side of me that had come out to play than his younger brother, who hadn’t yet seen the horrors men like us committed. “Your brother is waiting for you,” I said, not bothering to glance Hugo’s way as he moved to the side. His nervous swallow was the only response he gave, then he moved up the stairs quickly.
The shadow of Ibiza followed behind me, trailing at my heels like he knew his life depended on it. Given what he’d allowed to happen to my wife, theonlyreason he still breathed was the fact that some things would be unforgivable to Isa.
She’d moved past the tattoo. Past the branding and carving my name into her skin because in some deep, perverse way, she loved seeing the same marks on my body as I did hers. She understood my need to mark her.
Because the same pulse of darkness thrummed through her veins.
But murdering a man she’d come to think of as a brother, as much as it enraged me, would be the final straw that cost me my wife.
We emerged into the dining room where the women still celebrated and talked as if nothing had changed. I wasted no time closing the distance between us while Joaquin blocked the door. Lost to the red haze of fury, my fingers wrapped around Sigrid’s throat and hauled her off her delicate perch on her chair before I even had time to form a conscious thought.
All around me, the hushed gasps and whimpers of the other wives filled the air with tension. But I ignored them as I walked Sigrid backward, waiting until her back touched the wall at the edge of the room. The women in my way clambered to escape my path, leaving their so-called friend to my mercy in their rush to save themselves.
“Rafael,” Sigrid wheezed.
“Where. Is. My. Wife?” I asked, leaning my furious face into her space as my fingers tightened when a protest threatened to escape her lips. Her hands raised to my forearms, her manicured nails digging into the fabric of my shirt as she fought for freedom.
“She was with you,” she rasped, glancing out the side of her eye to see if anyone would help her.
No one fucking dared.
“Where did Faye and Pavel take Isa, Sigrid?” I asked, tilting my head to the side and studying the way her lungs expanded with her desperate attempt to inhale more air.
When her breath settled down, something hollow settled in her eyes. Recognition that her games had ended as soon as they began and a cool resolve that told me she knewexactlywhat would happen now.
She’d taken a gamble, a very fucking stupid gamble, with her life and lost.
“I’m as good as dead anyway,” she said, shaking her head from side to side as much as my grip would allow.
“You can die very quickly with a bullet in your brain, or I can make sure you suffer for every second of pain Isa will feel until I get to her,” I growled, intending every word. If I had more time, I’d make sure she suffered for it regardless. The red haze of irrational fury already threatened to consume me, to pull me into that blind rage where nothing existed except for my need for justice.
Only the knowledge that I had to act quickly kept it at bay.
“What is going on here?” Jakob yelled, his fury evident at finding me with my hand wrapped around his wife’s throat and only moments away from strangling her until he was a widower. I looked over my shoulder at him, leveling him with a glare and gauging his reaction.
I released Sigrid, taking a few steps toward him. His confusion at seeing my hand on his wife was genuine, concern for her filling his eyes as he glared at me. “Were you aware of her plans?” I asked, my voice dropping low as I reached into the holster strapped across my chest and pulled my gun free.
“What plans?” he asked as Joaquin stepped to the side and let him stride into the room. He moved toward his wife, offering her comfort that she slapped away in spite. “Sigrid, what have you done?”
I spun, raising my gun to point at her and gesturing it down. She dropped to her knees wisely, obeying the silent command like she knew it would come. She’d wanted to live on her feet, with no one to command her.
Instead she would die on her knees.
“Rafael, surely whatever—”
“She gave my wife to Pavel Kuznetsov. She allowed people to infiltrate your home, and somehow took my wife out from under all our noses. Would you care to explain how your security sawnoneof that?” I asked Jakob.
He swallowed, clenching his eyes closed and then casting a nervous glance to his wife. “The hallways….”
“Yes,husband. I know all about your halls behind the walls that you use to disrespect me in my own home,” she said with a menacing sneer. “Did you truly think I would not be aware after decades together?”
“Halls behind the walls?” Joaquin asked, his chest slumping as he finally understood how Isa had been swept out from under him. “When she was in the bathroom,” he continued, scoffing. As much as I ached to punish him for the slip up, and I would when the time was right, even I had to concede that a secret entry to the bathroom insinuated something far more deceptive than we’d been expecting.