Chapter 24 #2
Her life would also be on the line. I’d need to be prepared to handle the situation accordingly.
“Trust me, Kazimir. That girl will never exist again.”
“A pity that someone so beautiful could become so jaded.”
She gripped my jacket. “Yet you don’t trust me. You think I had something to do with ruining your life.”
“Did you?”
When she tried to slap me, I caught her hand.
“After everything I risked you still accuse me of betraying you. If you honestly think I could do something like that then you’re crazy and I want nothing to do with you.
Not one damn thing and I don’t care if you force me to be with you, that doesn’t mean I’ll ever give you my heart again. ”
She shifted her eyes, defying me just like before. As the elevator doors opened, I withdrew my hand, rubbing the backs of my fingers across her cheek.
Which was hot to the touch.
“I had to ask.”
“Yeah?” she countered. “Do you need proof?” When I said nothing, her expression was both one of hurt.
And fury.
“Trust is earned, little healer. Even a printsessa should comprehend that placing your trust in anyone without verification is potentially deadly.”
“Well, what about your heart?”
“My heart?” When the doors started to close, I threw my arm in between them.
Her nose wrinkled as she glared at me, complete venom in her eyes.
“I can’t believe you spent the last three years in prison.
I’m horrified and feel guilty for anything I might have done to place you in such jeopardy, but I didn’t tell my father anything that would have gotten you captured.
And do you want to know why I didn’t, when doing so would have been much easier on me in so many ways? ”
“Tell me,” I snarled as a gut reaction instead of a preferred reaction.
Now her face fell, the moment when she completely understood nothing would change the fact I was a monster by birth.
“The reason I did everything I could to keep the horrible soldiers from finding you, refusing to tell my father anything was because of my heart. The one I’d already given to you.
” Her stare was pointed and after a few seconds, she licked her lip, nodding several times as the realization all emotion had been driven from me settled in.
“But that’s nothing you can understand.”
She stormed off the elevator with Golden right by her side before I could say anything, keeping her distance. I moved toward the door, sliding the key into the lock and ushering her inside.
I stood just inside the doorway as she walked in, uncertain what to do or how to react. With her back remaining toward me, her shoulders were heaving.
Her heart.
“The single weakness that will get you killed every time is love because love means trust. They go hand in hand. Yet so does manipulation and betrayal. If you learn never to fall in love, your life will be a success.”
Something my father had told me more than once, a statement that had become an easy mantra in my life. Yes, I cared for my brothers, but I had also learned a long time ago that no one was perfect.
And everyone had a price.
Everyone.
Which should make it easy to obtain the necessary information, perhaps to use her as a pawn then move on. But I couldn’t. Seeing her pain tore through me, shredding not only every concept of keeping emotional protection for myself but also the willingness to keep her at arm’s length.
“We need to talk, Rafaela.”
Golden Angel rubbed her face against Rafaela’s leg, the beautiful woman responding by bending over and rubbing her fingers along the scruff of the dog’s neck. Even whispering words and using some form of sign language that I couldn’t understand.
But Golden did, peering at me as if issuing a warning of her own not to fuck with her mother. Then she padded off, slumping down while keeping her gaze locked on me.
Rafaela took a deep breath, continuing to remain facing away from me.
“Rafaela,” I started.
“Stop. I need to say this,” she gritted out.
“When you left that night, I thought you’d escaped.
A part of me was so happy you’d be able to return to your life.
Yet a larger part of me was sad because I knew I’d never see you again.
I tried to ignore the pounding in my head and heart until I heard the guards just outside my window.
They were angry, enraged by something. Then they were racing toward the woods. To where I knew you’d gone.”
She took a deep breath, fisting both hands before continuing.
“I couldn’t stand thinking something happened to you. I couldn’t take the not knowing, the nagging fear that refused to allow me any peace. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself racing through the woods, trying to find you. I was ready to do anything to ensure you were safe. Anything.”
Hairs on the back of my neck stood up as she slowly rolled one strap of her dress over her shoulder.
“There was noise everywhere, shouts from the soldiers, an indication they’d found you.
I was close to being hysterical. I even had a knife with me.
I was determined to be your champion. What a crock of shit.
Right? Do you know what happened? My father caught me and locked me in my room for four days.
He said he couldn’t deal with me. Four days of only water for me and my baby.
No dog food. A guard came twice a day to take Golden outside.
That was it. Then one day, Tomaso came into my room.
Without saying a goddamn thing, my baby was taken from me.
I screamed and threatened the bastard. You would have been proud of me.
But he didn’t care. He was just following orders. ”
“Chortov sukin syn.” My hiss was through gritted teeth.
“Yes, he was. I was allowed to see the truth about my father. Once and for all. I had no idea where the bastards had taken Golden. I thought my father had killed her. I couldn’t breathe, the panic attacks were so horrific.”
What. The. Fuck? I was angrier than I’d been in my life.
“On the day my father finally appeared in my room, I begged to see my fur baby and he told me only when I told him the truth about you. I refused. First, he showed me the dagger I’d given you, but even as my heart sank, I didn’t break.
With my refusal to say anything, he dragged my fur baby in front of me and put a gun to her head.
Can you believe that?” Her entire body shaking, she slipped the second strap down her arm, allowing the material to fall a few inches before wrapping one arm around herself.
I would kill the motherfucking man with my bare hands. The level of anger exploding inside was off the charts. Spots of blood formed in front of my eyes from the increasing rage.
“Can you believe anyone would do that?” She laughed, pressing the fingers of her other hand against her face.
“I begged him to let her go, promising him anything. So he asked me one question. One fucking question but he said he’d know if I’d lied.
I thought he was going to ask if I helped you escape, but he didn’t. ”
She allowed the dress to fall to her feet, once again her hands fisted as her body swayed. A single sob filtered into the room and I was at the point of destroying every inch of Sicily. “What did he ask you?”
Rafaela laughed while looking up at the ceiling.
“He asked if you’d touched me. That’s all he cared about.
My Golden’s life to know if you’d ruined me.
So I told him the truth. I took control of my life.
My. Life. That I was the one who touched you.
I was the one who wanted you to be my first kiss, my first love. My first everything. Everything.”
Very slowly her head dropped and she grasped her hair, another racking, horrific sob leaving her mouth.
“Rafaela,” I breathed, taking a single step closer.
“He called me a whore and said he wanted nothing to do with me ever again. That I was sullied, ruined. That you’d ruined me. Then he told me I was to be punished in front of everyone. And you know what? I didn’t care.”
Even after she eased her hair to her shoulders, my mind had an impossible task of processing what I was seeing.
When I took a single step forward, everything I’d been through, every bullet and knife wound, every lash of a whip or cane, every brutal punch with broken bones and cracked ribs meant nothing.
I would line them up and take every anguished strike again and again if it meant having been able to protect her from her fucking father.
And the strike of his whip.
Over and over again.
Marring her beautiful skin.
Leaving her scarred both physically and emotionally.
“He, um… Afterwards, I thought my life was over and I didn’t care at that point.
He’d told me you were dead. He made me watch as the man who warned you was slaughtered.
Right in front of my eyes.” Her voice suddenly held no emotion, the protective layers she’d placed around herself returning.
She’d been forced to become hardened as had happened with me.
All because of her… love.
“Then he tossed me aside, handing me five hundred euros and telling me he never wanted to see me again.”
I took a step closer. And another. All while watching her beautiful body stiffen.
“He thought he could break me, but he was wrong,” she said, her voice more defiant than before. “I managed to get a job. Then a second. And I worked very hard to get myself back into school. Maybe I should have gone somewhere else, anywhere that he couldn’t find me, but you know what?”
Another step felt as if I was slowly going headfirst off a cliff. She’d suffered because of me. “What?”
“After almost a full year of hiding, I returned to Paris, resuming my life. It was important I be there. Because I told you I would be there.” Even with her voice and body highlighting her strength, her utter rebellious nature, I could tell tears were streaming down her face.
“And in my heart, I didn’t believe you were dead.
I couldn’t. I could still feel you. I could almost taste your lips and there were days I’d walk into a room and your scent filled the air.
So I refused to be pushed away by him or anyone else.
And you’re not going to push me away now.
Trust me. Don’t trust me. I don’t care. I would never betray you, never in the way you’re thinking. Never.”
Her sob turned into a hiccup and I closed the distance, furious with her father, the fucking bastard who’d betrayed me. The goddamn world I’d been born into. The lies. The greed. The power. I hated it all.
But mostly, I loathed myself.
“Rafaela,” I whispered and slowly dropped to my knees.
“I’m ugly. I’m so ugly.”
Jesus Christ. Is that what she really believed?
I lifted my head, trying to keep my voice even so as not to scare her.
“You need to listen to me. I mean it. You are without a doubt the most beautiful, sensational, sexy, and appealing woman in the entire world and there is no one else I’d rather be with. No one. Do you understand? Do you?”
The single nod of her head was all I needed.
She turned around to face me, peering down at me with eyes searching mine. Such intensely pain-filled eyes forced to see so much horror. “Oh, Kazimir. I knew you were alive.” As I pressed my face against her stomach, she wrapped her arms around my head, holding me tightly against her.
And in those moments, not only did I crave her body, but I needed her heart. Not just to keep in a perfect locked box, but to heal mine, to remind me that there were amazing things in this life.
I’d promised her I’d return. I’d told her I’d protect her. I’d claimed her as mine and I’d failed her in more ways than one.
Never again.
She was mine, but not as a possession. As the only woman who could lift the ugly veil of darkness.
“Kazimir,” she whispered again. “I love you.”
Hearing her words, an admittance that I sensed was as painful as the punishment she’d received because of her strong feelings shattered something deep within.
I should remember my father’s words, a warning that had kept me alive. I should drive my emotions over her away.
But I couldn’t.
No, I refused. But what I would do was make good on the promises made.
She was mine.
I would protect her.
I would also destroy every single person who’d caused her a moment of anguish.
Only then could I ask for her forgiveness.