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“Relationships are hard. A strong woman who knows her own mind is tough. Maybe you’re better suited to one-night stands with women who think that every word that comes out of your mouth is genius. You know, the ones who live to suck your cock, even when you’re an asshole. Although, I found the thought of that kind of devotion was much more interesting than the reality.” He shrugs. “But everyone’s different. It might be your jam.”
“My jam?” I scoff. “Next thing you’re going to tell me, you’re a Taylor Swift fan.”
He sits forward, drumming his fingers on the blotter. “What are you afraid of, Rafael? That one day you’ll wake up and she’ll have disappeared?”
31
RAFAEL
The words are a sharp blade plunged into my heart by a hand skilled at eliciting the truth—a man who takes no prisoners.
“Don’t be an asshole,” I snap in a voice that’s too loud and brimming with emotion.
He raises his brow in warning, which I heed out of respect.
“It’s not much of a stretch.” My voice is hollow, belying the sorrow that’s crept in. “She’s a risk-taker like my mother—and yours.”
His expression tightens, and his eyes reflect the anger and grief—and the regret—that are my constant companions.
“My mother died when some son of a bitch who had it in for Will blew up a plane over the Atlantic. And your mother didn’t disappear because she was a risk-taker. She disappeared because she married a monster. That’s why she’s dead.”
It’s true. Every word. But that doesn’t make it less painful.
“We don’t know how or why my mother died.” Or even when. We don’t even know with absolute certainty that she is dead. We don’t know a fucking thing—not really.
“We don’t know the details. But we do know your father was responsible.”
No question. We know that whatever happened to her was on his order. The bastard ordered the demise, if not the death, of a woman he once vowed to love and protect. My mother told me, herself, that he loved her before they married. She was sure of it. But things changed. He changed.
Although I find it impossible to believe that he loved anyone, or that he was capable of that emotion. I never saw any evidence of it. None. He was an ogre. As was my brother, and my Uncle Hugo, Antonio’s father. They were evil personified—I’ve thought about it a lot over the years. Tried to find something—just one thing to hold on to—something to give myself a shred of hope that I didn’t inherit the gene. That I might be different. But I could never find a damn thing.
“What if my father didn’t start out as the devil? But he hated her causes and crusades, and that hate tarnished everything. I heard the fighting.” His fury. Her screams. “Eventually things went from bad to worse—until she disappeared.”
“What he hated,” Antonio replies, “was that he couldn’t control her. That she had a brain and a goodness about her. The rest were the excuses of a coward. If it hadn’t been her crusades, he would have found another reason to hate her. He was a devil who tortured his wife, and an innocent child. Your mother’s disappearance is your father’s sin. Not hers.”
Fury engulfs me, and I slam my fist on the desk. “Of course what happened wasn’t her fault.”
“You’re not him.”
His voice is as gentle as it’s ever been, but his anger is easier to take than his empathy. When I can’t stand it anymore, I go to the windows and brace my arm along the frame.
It’s a clear day, and the view over the old city is unparalleled from this spot, but I see nothing. Antonio’s not like his father, but he has it in him to be. He’s just made different choices. What if I can’t? What if I succumb to my demons?
“What if I’m just like him?” I ask, my back still toward him so he can’t see the nakedness I feel. “What if I’ve inherited his psychopathic tendencies and they get worse with age? It’s not a huge stretch. I crave vengeance like an addict craves their next fix. I’ve reveled in ending a life more than once.” Dozens of times. “How is that any different from him?”
“You don’t kill innocents. Not only do you not kill them, you go to great lengths to protect the weak and vulnerable. You. Are. Not. Like. Him.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I sneer, turning to face him before unearthing my greatest shame. “When I confronted Lexie about telling Valentina that I’d questioned Marco, I grabbed her roughly and held her by the arm in a way that I’m sure left a bruise. I scared her to death, and she doesn’t scare easily.” I’ll never forget the fear in her eyes. Not if I live to be a hundred.
Shame rages inside me. But Antonio doesn’t blink at my confession.
“When I learned she was hunting traffickers, I wanted to shake her until the fury eating at me subsided. All I could think about was pacifying my wrath. I didn’t give her well-being a single thought. If I’d put my hands on her that day, I would have done serious damage.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Not that time. But what about next week, or ten years from now when I’m tired of having the fight—or just tired in general? What’s going to happen then?”
“Your father’s blood runs through your veins, but so does mine. Neither of us wants to be a man who beats innocent women and children. But I know the fear. I know it well. I know how it eats away at your soul in the dark.”
