CHAPTER 24
FAITH IS FRAGILE
ARELLA
Five days.
Five fucking days in which I haven’t done anything but walk around the back yard with a book and three fully armed guards on my tail, watching my every move as if I was going to jump over the fence and run through the woods.
While I knew the wilderness surrounding the house like the back of my hand, I wasn’t going to do it, because I was highly aware of the fact that I wouldn’t have gotten far before being jumped, and probably drugged again, then brought back.
The waterfall in the woods lit up in my brain, and the cave hidden behind it. It wasn’t too far, and I could have hidden there, but Julio knew about it, because when we were teenagers, we would go there to train, and since he was our father’s little minion, he would have told him.
They watched me like vultures, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find surveillance cameras in my own bedroom. I didn’t look for them though, precisely because I was afraid that I would find them, and I didn’t want to imagine that my father’s guards could see me every night, when I would touch myself.
The horror.
I thought about him every second, full of regrets. I thought about his face, how much I missed him, the sweet nothings he caressed my ears with, and the firm touches that made my body fly up to the highest heights of pleasure.
I should have told him everything. I should have admitted who I was and told him about my family, but I didn’t, and the thought of the possibility that I would never see him again ripped away at me like a ravenous wolf, biting out of me without tiring, cutting off my breathing and circulation.
He was looking for me.
I knew he was, and I was certain that he was desperate in his searches. I was sure that every minute was tearing him apart, taking him further and further from the gentle man he was with me. I was sure that he fell into the void and that he was pouring his helplessness on others, maybe even innocent people, but my heart only cared about the agony inside him, not at all about those who might have been at the receiving end of his rage.
I also knew he had no way of finding me, and that was going to eat at him until nothing of the man I love remained.
It hurt me to my core, because I was the cause of his ruin.
The bruises his teeth left on my skin had faded into yellowish stains, which were soon going to dissipate into nothing.
Nothing.
Exactly like my heart, which was empty without the one she beat for.
The last signs of his existence on my skin were about to disappear, but I was going to feel the needles of his touches for the rest of my cursed life.
I sat on the window seat and looked beyond the reinforced concrete fence that surrounded the residence, towards the tall hills behind the house, where the sun fell slowly, ready to hide away in order to allow the moon to reign.
My father didn’t come to talk to me today either.
It seemed like the defying behavior I displayed at his welcome home ball, the one that he threw with so much hope, disarmed him, and now he didn’t even want to see me anymore.
Tears gathered in my eyes and fell down my cheeks, warm and bitter, and I hugged my knees to my chest as the darkness slowly set in.
I craved the shadows, because in black I felt like I was his again, and I waited for nightfall everyday just so I could see his face and feel his ghostly touch again.
I knew he wasn’t there, but as the blood orange shades in the sky turned to deep violet, I could almost feel his long, strong arms embracing me, almost hear his voice, almost sense his scent in every breeze, and the memory made my skin burn as much as it made it ache.
I pulled at the cord of the satin robe I was wearing and opened my legs, letting them hang over the edges of the seat as my head fell back and loudly banged on the window frame.
I closed my eyes to see him again.
It felt the same as it had in the years before we finally came together. His face was as clear as it had been in my memory from the first day, only now it wasn’t a fantasy anymore, now I felt what his hands could do, and that only pushed me further into agony.
I didn’t care if the guards could see me, because in my mind I was back on my balcony in Chicago, where he was still watching me.
I ran my palms over my nipples, which were already hard from the wind that kept whipping against them, almost as if mimicking Grimm’s bites, and I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and sank them in the soft flesh until the taste of blood exploded on my tongue.
It wasn’t the same feeling his hands offered, but when my own fingers snuck under my lingerie, my back involuntarily arched, and I sank two inside me without any restraint.
All I could hear was his breathing in my ear and the dirty words he whispered in that demanding, dominant tone that made me weak in the knees.
I took my breast in my hand and squeezed as hard as I could, moaning when the image of Grimm between my legs materialized in my mind. I felt the contractions as I remembered how I’d had him inside me, so big and ravishing. How his thrusts burned me and turned me to ashes.
I came with him in mind, just as I had in the last years, then I greedily licked my fingers, just as he always did, wishing I could feel his taste on my tongue instead of my own.
I was in love with a monster, a lethal weapon born for destruction, with a kind soul he revealed only to me, and I slayed it with my secrets. I knew I’d ruined him beyond repair, and that he was going to suffer and cause suffering in turn, all because I didn’t trust him, because I was stupid.
He had stripped off his armor for me, giving up on the hardness he had built, and showed me the abundance of gentleness a criminal could harbor, and I, like an assassin of hope, stepped all over it.
He wasn’t the demon of destruction.
I was.
The monster offered me his heart, and I ripped it out of his chest and went away with it.
Night soon turned to morning, and on the sixth day of not having him near me, I went out of my bedroom to look for my brother.
I found him in the kitchen, having coffee with one of his friends, turned associate. Their eyes settled on me, especially Raul’s, who had been one of the few people whom I used to be close to.
He looked different now, bigger, harsher, as though this life slowly took away his youth. His dark brown hair was slicked back, shaved on the sides and longer on top, some strands falling over his face, and he now had a thick scar that started on his cheek and disappeared into his hairline.
“My, my, as I live and breathe, Reina
Snchez, in the flesh,
” he quipped as he rounded the kitchen island and stopped in front of me. “The princess is home.”
Raul opened his arms and waited for me to hug him, which I did rather reluctantly, and when he hugged me back, I cringed. Having another man’s hands on me, even through something as simple as a friendly embrace, made my skin crawl.
“Yeah,” I whispered, quickly stepping away from him. “Not because she wanted to,” I murmured, glancing at Julio over my shoulder, who just shrugged.
“You know, I didn’t believe this guy when he said you were back,” he laughed, then took a sip out of his coffee as my brother stood up and poured me a cup.
“Well, I’m here, and I’m bored,” I accentuated the last word as Julio handed me the mug, which I took without hesitation. “Can I go out today?”
He raised an eyebrow, then took a sip as he narrowed his eyes.
“What’s the catch,
crazy
?” Julio asked with a grin on his face.
“No catch, I want to visit our mother’s grave, then maybe go to church,” I said as I took a seat at the island, feeling both their eyes on me.
“You won’t try to run?”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you telling me you’re afraid I can escape you?” I turned my head towards him, a playful smile on my lips, as Raul started laughing.
“There she is,” he propped his elbows on the table. “I would bet on you, princess.” Raul grinned in a sadistic way.
“I’m not playing your sick games today, gambler,” I shook my head.
“Why? You used to love my games,” he smiled innocently, batting his eyelashes at me in a way that made me snort. “Remember that time he bet against me and said you would never go cage diving?”
I laughed.
I’d been thirteen at the time, and we were on vacation with our families on Guadalupe Island in Mexico, when Raul suggested we should see the water creatures in their natural habitat. He and Julio, unbeknownst to me, placed a bet against each other that I would be too afraid to enter that cage. My brother lost, but only because Raul knew how to manipulate me. He said we were going to watch sting rays and sword fish, not fucking sharks, and I, being rather nave at that age, I believed him. Only when I found myself in an underwater cage, surrounded by dozens of Great Whites, did I realize I had been played.
Funny thing was, I wanted to do it again the next day, and that’s when Julio started calling me crazy.
“I remember you cheating,” Julio flipped him off.
“You’ve always been a sore loser,” Raul said, rolling his eyes. “A win is a win, no matter what methods you use.”
I laughed, remembering how easy it was to be around them, and for a brief moment, I felt like that happy teenager who got along with her older brother’s friends.
“I won’t try to run.” I looked up from my cup to look at Julio. “I’m sick of these stupid walls. I haven’t been at her grave in nine years, so unless I’m a prisoner here, let me go out.”
Julio’s jaw clenched, and I sighed audibly, shaking my head as I reached for the pack of cigarettes on the island. I lit one and stood up, then walked to the window.
“Fine,” he said through his teeth. “But I’m coming with you.”
I turned around so quickly that I grew dizzy, and I jumped into his arms without thinking much about it.
His arms tightened around me as they used to before, and I melted a little into my Julio’s embrace, because at that moment, he wasn’t the man who kidnapped me anymore, he was my brother. The same guy who used to put band aids on my knees. The same guy who taught me how to swim, ride a bike and who stayed up with me to help me finish my math homework.
The brother I used to love so much, and whom I had missed for far too long.
*
The air around me seemed to turn toxic as I walked among the tombstones towards my family’s crypt. Julio was a few steps behind me, silent as I gripped the bouquet of white lilies tighter in my hand.
When I stopped and ran my finger over the same engraved into the thick wooden door, sighing as I felt my eyes prick with tears.
“Could I be alone with her for a few minutes?” I asked, glancing at my brother over my shoulder, and he just nodded, kicking a stone on the pathway.
I slowly turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open, feeling the cool air inside brush over my bare legs as I entered. My hand flew up to my neck to clutch the cross pendant, and tears fell out when I realized that I had taken it off after Alana’s death and hadn’t put it back on since.
Stepping in front of her resting place, I took out the dried flowers from the vase and replaced them with the lilies, then pressed my palm against the stone wall and pushed my forehead against her golden name plate.
Reina Aurora
Snchez.
“
Hola,
Mam
[20]
,” I whispered as I pushed off the wall and sat down on the stone floor, leaning my back against the candle table in the middle of the crying, looking up at her name. “I know it’s been a while since I came here.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, bringing my knees up to my chest. “You’re probably so disappointed in me right now, in how I left and tried to forget about you,” I continued, feeling the warmth of tears running down my cheeks. “No, you wouldn’t be, you were always too kind, too forgiving to hold my departure against me. God, how I wanted to be like you.”
I smiled bitterly, remembering what I wished for on the day that I had received my new paperwork. Warmth.
For a while, I had been exactly that.
Arella Santino had become the best lie ever told, but she was still a lie. A mask, hiding the truth within. She was so genuine, so caring and, oh, so forgiving. Arella saw the good in everyone, even through layers and layers of bad. She believed in second chances, in people being able to change, in healing and in God. Why did fate have to bring me back here? Why couldn’t I live my life without having to walk these grounds again? Why did I have to step back into Reina’s shoes? What was the point?
“I miss you so much,
M
am
,” I whispered into the air. “I met someone, you know?” I toyed with my fingers, imagining Grimm was there with me. “I can’t know for sure if you would approve of him, but I think you would. He’s similar to Pap in so many ways, even if your husband refuses to see it.”
“
He loves me how I always wanted to be loved, and I don’t know how long I can go on without him. It’s like I’m missing a piece of myself since I’ve been taken away from him, like my body is slowly dying without that piece.” I wiped the tears that fell, but they were quickly replaced by more.
My chin trembled, and I squeezed my eyes shut, bumping my head against the stone table.
God, why did it have to be so hard?
I raised my hand up to my throat, pushing my fingers over the spots he used to kiss, but I didn’t feel the pain of the marks anymore. They faded. Healed. His memory was gone from my skin as if it was never there, and I sobbed loudly as I grazed my fingers over my neck.
“I’m suffocating,
Mam
. I don’t know what to do, and I wish you were here to help me. I wish you were here to help Pap see that Grimm is it for me, that there could never be someone else.”
My words came out slurred, distorted by the continuous sobbing and whimpering.
“Why did you have to go?” I asked the grave, opening my eyes to read over her name again.
“What am I going to do?” I continued with the questions, countless of them, bumping my head against the stone with each one as though the pain I was inflicting on myself would somehow bring me the answer to my unending sorrow.
I couldn’t tell how long I sat there, watching an unmoving stone, reading her name over and over again, but when I got up, I had an idea about what I had to do to go back to Grimm. I just hoped it would work.
Julio was waiting outside the door, sitting on the grass and picking at his cuticles, his eyes bloodshot, although he had wiped the tears away.
He glanced at me when he heard the lock, then stood up and dusted off his jeans before hanging his arm around my shoulders and walking me out of the cemetery.
We didn’t speak until we were back in the car, where he lit a cigarette and offered it to me, then lit another one for himself.
“You were always a handful, you know?” He smiled rather bitterly as he held the cigarette between his thumb and index finger, taking a long drag out of it before starting the engine. “Ever since you were little, you were trouble incarnate, and you turned into a menace after her death, but you’ve changed so much since you went away,” he whispered in the last sentence.
“How do you know I’ve changed?” I blew the smoke out the window, looking at the streets I used to walk, the community I used to belong to, yet never felt like I fit in.
“Come on, Reina, you really think dad didn’t keep tabs on you these past nine years? He always had someone following you around, making sure you were safe,” his tone carried anger as his words made me shiver.
“I’m sorry, I must have not heard you right? He had me followed?” I raised my voice, then took a long drag, the filter damp with my saliva as I released it from my lips.
“Yeah, nothing but smooth sailing for the first three years. We would get updates and photos every week, you seemed happier each month. Then that guy died, so did the next, and the next, and the next,” he continued calmly.
My heart skipped a beat. Grimm had told me he had killed fifteen men whom I had dated, but he never mentioned killing anyone else in my name.
“How many?” I asked through my teeth.
“Fourteen,” he answered, his jaw clenching as his eyes stayed put on the road ahead. “We couldn’t figure out why our men started dropping like flies in a mission as simple as following you around, so we sent Leon to Chicago,” a grin curved his lips.
My whole body tensed when I heard that name, and I put out the cigarette and lit another one, shaking my head and laughing nervously.
Leon Alvarez was another one of Julio’s friends whom I was close with, but he, unlike Raul, was a ticking time bomb, because you would never know if he woke up as the Harley-obsessed biker, or the vicious killer. Granted, his second personality only came out when he felt threatened, but the thought of that man following me around sent shivers down my spine.
“Is Leon dead too?”
Julio turned his head towards me, the corner of his mouth curving up into a smirk. “No. He was always too far away to be seen. Imagine our surprise when we found out your boyfriend was the one killing our men.”
I smiled internally.
“He probably considered them a threat. He doesn’t take lightly to threats, especially those directed at me.”
“Oh, we know. We’ve seen him in action. He’s a crazy motherfucker.”
“Don’t call him that!”
Julio’s eyebrows shot up for a few seconds before he shook his head and sighed, parking the car in front of the mansion.
“You know, it’s funny how you blame dad for everything bad that happened in your life, and then you go and fall in love with someone worse than him. How much do you even know about the Bratva, Reina? How much do you know about this guy you’ve so easily given yourself to?”
I pressed my lips in a thin line and looked down at my hands, remembering what it felt like to have them held by him, what it felt like to have them kissed and caressed by him.
“We don’t choose the people we fall in love with, Julio,” I whispered, the anger in me slowly subsiding as I looked up at him. “I don’t care about what he does when he goes out,” I shrugged. “I only care about what he does and who he is when he’s with me, and while he may be a killer, a mobster, and a villain in someone else’s story, he’s the best man in the world in mine.”
Julio watched me for a long time, then he slowly nodded and smiled.
“You sounded just like our mom right now.”
That’s the last thing he said before getting out of the car and leaving me alone in the passenger seat, his tall frame disappearing inside the house as his words washed over me like cold, truthful waves.
Fuck.