18. Maricela
Those who speak of the claws that routine dig into your skin to the point of comfortable pain were right.
For several days now, I’ve been in limbo, where I accompany the children with Marlina, dropping Connie off at her kindergarten class and Amado to daycare, then I go to the office where Killian abuses me until I scream loud enough for the entire office to hear.
Surely, everyone there thinks I’m a nymphomaniac.
Fuck, I’m not so sure they’re wrong at this point.
This game of ours is ticking like a bomb. Each day, he lays his hands on me, and each day I break just a little bit more.
We both know this is a game I will lose spectacularly. The question is, what will the breaking point be that shatters the routine I’m hiding behind?
I’m almost sure I’ve become addicted to the euphoria of reaching the edge of orgasm without actually crossing the line I so want to cross.
Raven thinks it’s hot. I had to tell her what was happening in the office because she witnessed my screams like everyone else when she came to Liam per his order.
Liam is another problem. Yesterday, he asked me in the middle of the office if my pussy was still intact. Kai and another god-like man—I think his name is Hayato—looked at me sheepishly.
The older Fierro, Maddox, didn’t have such restraints. He simply looked me dead in the eyes, then at my lower area, and said for all to hear, “It’s chafing, but she’ll be fine.” When I told Raven about it, she just shrugged and said, “That’s who Maddox is.”
“I think that’s who you’ve always been,” Raven argues now, “no matter how much you refuse to believe it.”
We’re sitting in one of the restaurants near the office and close to Raven’s studio. It’s my break time, and Raven, who runs her studio alone, can go in and out whenever she wants.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I bite into my spicy tuna sandwich. Damn, I missed fish. It wasn’t always available where I spent most of my time in the last four years, and New York has the best tuna sandwiches I’ve ever had.
Raven tells me that Japan is a place I should travel to because of my love for fish. I think she doesn’t grasp who I worked for and what I really did.
“We all notice what you’re doing, Chica. We’re not stupid, you know. You don’t address Killian by his name. And you avoid the office every time you hear Isabella’s voice for a reason still unclear to me. You always loved and respected her. I think you need to see someone. Maybe you have PTSD or something. It must have been tough to be in war zones.”
Sometimes, I forget that Raven, for all of her princess-like privileges, isn’t a spoiled brat, and she sees much more than she lets show. I want to tell her, but then I’m reminded of what she did the second she discovered about the poison ivy incident with Lila, and I shudder.
I think she sees it because she adds, “I think you need psychological treatment. You lost the most important person in your life. You haven’t cried, you don’t break down, you just show the world and yourself that everything is fine.”
Her face contorts as I savor my red tuna, and she insists, “You need help.” Her hate for fish is cute.
“No psychologist can solve my issues.”
I don’t tell her that I tried therapy. Ronen insisted on it. He was afraid I would do the irreversible act. He wasn’t wrong.
I thought about it many, many times, especially during the first year when the nightmares were so prevalent.
But as soon as I stopped allowing their names to pass my lips and stopped giving them power in my head, the nightmares subsided. It’s like I turned that part of my head off.
“What about Lila?” she asks out of nowhere after the biggest sigh.
She does that a lot around me these days. Tries to push me, gives up when she sees I won’t relent or react, and changes the subject for safer topics.
Lila, however, isn’t a safe anything.
“What about her? Weren’t you in the office when your cousin yelled at her loud enough for everyone to hear?”
“You’re doing it again. Say his name. Say her name.”
“I have no problem saying that bitch’s name.”
And it’s true. I think about Lila, her perfect looks, her femininity, and everything I refuse to feel guilty about.
“And since when are you defending him again? I thought you were mad at him.”
“I’m still mad at Killian, and I won’t forgive him for making me live on Liam.”
“Chica, I thought you were living with Liam,not on him.” She gasps.
“You know what Freud would have said about your slip-up? Do you want to live on Liam? Or maybe you already do?”
Her pale skin becomes almost translucent. It’s comical how much she wants her future husband, and if he wasn’t an asshole, maybe I would have pushed her to get naked in front of him.
Or that’s what the old Maricela would have done. Scratch that. The old Maricela would have demanded what she wanted and needed, spilling her feelings out and about. I wish Raven would.
“Don’t change the subject. I can be as mad as I want at Killian,” she says, emphasizing his name, “but you shouldn’t. You told me yourself that the video thing wasn’t his fault and that he explained everything to you. Killian said those things to her then because he knew she had told his father everything. We all know who Franco is.”
Another name I refuse to say, but no one notices, or maybe they refuse to.
When I asked Julian how he knew what happened to me, he said that he chose not to ignore it and that it was evident to anyone who wanted to see it. But ever since, he treats me differently.
He doesn’t tease me like he used to. He calls me to see if I’m okay without telling me about his troubles.
Everything between us is different now. And the same will happen, no doubt, with Raven and anyone else, for that matter, if or when they find out.
“Chica, your secrets are yours. I know you keep a lot of things from me. People have been hiding what’s happening around me my whole life.” If she only knew. “But I think you have to deal with what’s stopping you from continuing a life that could be perfect for you.”
I have never aspired to an ideal life, and I don’t think I will ever achieve complete happiness. You are already happy. Let it loose, the girl inside me almost begs. The kids adore you. Your friends sacrificed a lot for you, and he’s by your side.
He. Even the little girl doesn’t dare to say his name, knowing I will crumble.
Our conversation continues in other directions. Like any normal human being, Raven knows when to give up and change the subject.
Picking up on her plans to open a gallery—a big dream of hers, I ask, “Why don’t you ask one of the artisans you found to work with you? Isn’t it better to find someone who likes the place and the profession?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to run it by Liam. Right now, I have to inform him of everything. And my bodyguards” she says, glaring at the two giant gorillas sitting at a table next to us, not even trying to look invisible.
“I need someone administrative, and I need a good chef.”
“What about Ronen?”
Raven has opened her dream gallery, but from what I understand, she’s short on staff. Her dreams are big, and I can see how it will work for her if she just takes the full leap.
“Ronen has his own restaurant. Why would he open another one inside the gallery where it might not be successful? He has too much responsibility already.”
“Hey, it will be a huge success. The paintings you showed me are beautiful, and I know little about art, but the restaurant part is great. What could be better than looking at art and eating good food?”
“You could join me.”
I shake my head. “Your cousin would never allow me to leave the office. Besides, I haven’t been near an oven in four years. I had no reason to. I must be rusty as fuck.”
“Don’t you miss it? And I refuse to address what you said about Killian. For several reasons, but mostly because...yuck.”
Her hearing my screams must be terrible for her artistic imagination. Raven’s mind works with visual sensation. She sees everything that she hears or reads.
“I didn’t give it much thought.” Raven looks mortified. “Stop it now!” I say, pointing a finger at her face.
“What? It’s not my fault you fuck like bunnies. And the Maricela I know doesn’t ask what she can do with her life.”
The Maricela, you know, no longer exists. She disappeared that damn night.Her eyes tell me she saw something on my face. I need to control my expressions better.
“Do you see yourself sitting in an office for years and years answering phones?”
“I can’t think about what will happen tomorrow, let alone years from now.”
“And that will come with time. Your inner strength will return. You’ll return to be yourself again.”
She takes my hand as I look at my now empty plate.
“I didn’t mean you should go back to being the same person you were before your sister was murdered. Maricela. Chica. I love you so much, but ignoring things helps nothing. Look at me. I ignored Liam for years instead of trying to build a relationship of mutual understanding at least, and now I’m stuck with him in a situation we both hate.”
“You could always start developing that relationship now.”
“He hates me, Mari. There are things I did when I was little, but it was little girl nonsense. And I realize I’m not his type.”
I’m glad she doesn’t call herself ugly anymore. Just like his best friend, Liam was off-topic for us those four years, but I see things, although maybe not as clearly as she does.
“Are you going to sit here much longer?”
Liam and his shadow, Kai, appear out of nowhere, both dressed in jogging clothes that strain against their muscles. And sure enough, everyone is looking at them.
“I’m working, idiot.”
Raven licks and sucks the straw of the dark chocolate milkshake she ordered, not looking in Liam’s direction. But I look at the idiot as she called him, and if a look could strip someone and fuck them, she would have already put on the show of her life in front of everyone. Not his type, my ass.
I say, “I don’t think anyone called you, and I’m sure dumb and dumber over there,” I add, pointing to Raven’s bodyguards, “are going to report to you everything we talked about.”
Liam lets out a snort and crosses his arms, taking an intimidating stance.
“And the little fish opened its mouth and made a sound. Even though we hear your screams daily.”
I’m not intimated by Liam. He’s just a thug who hasn’t grown up and remains the same British rascal I knew in high school.
“At least I get what I want, unlike cowards like you who refuse to see what’s in front of them out of spite for something they can’t change.” I shouldn’t have said that, dammit.
“Kill told you why Liam hates me, huh?”
Raven sounds resigned to her fate.
“So only I don’t know everything. I knew it wasn’t because of what I did. That’s okay, I guess. Nothing new in this caged bird world.”
No, it’s not okay, dammit.
“You two, out,” I say, pointing at Liam and Kai.
Neither budges, and Liam turns his attention to Raven.
“Kill should keep his mouth shut. Tell me, Rotten One, are you as loyal to your friend as she was to you?”
“Out!” I order again, but of course, he doesn’t move.
“It’s okay.” Raven puts a hand on mine.
“It’s best if you stay loyal to Killian over me and not repeat anything he’s told you. I won’t be mad no matter what you know. I love you, girl.”
“Raven,” I start, but all she does is rise from her chair in her graceful manner, straighten her gray skirt, kiss me on the cheek, and disappear with her two bodyguards behind her.
Liam watches her go and doesn’t turn back to me until Raven disappears from view.
“So, Killian did tell you things. What do you know, Rotten One?”
Liam twists the ring on his pinky—the asshole. I can’t decide if it’s a nervous habit or an action meant to intimidate those beneath him.
“Everything,” I admit, because Liam may be a monster who refuses to see what’s before him, but he isn’t stupid.
“And you have the best thing in the world in your hands, yet you refuse to see it because of something she’s not guilty of. Damn it, Liam. She’s blaming herself for something she did when she was a child. What could Raven, of all people, have done? She wouldn’t purposely hurt a fly.”
“It’s funny to hear you giving advice as if it’s candy.”
“I give it because I know what living in hell is like.”
“You chose it,” he says, pointing a finger at me. How un-British of him.
“I did,” I admit, because at the end of the day, I could have stayed. Even though I might not be alive today, I still had a choice. I know how much he hates the monster. Yet, I chose to leave. I chose to do something much bigger than just leaving.
“No reprimand this time, Rotten One?”
“There’s nothing to reprimand. I used to think that the little nickname you so kindly bestowed on me was falsely applied. Today, I know it’s true.”
“Who hurt you?” Kai’s rough, almost foreign voice startles me. I almost forgot what he sounded like.
“Too many people,” I answer honestly.
“But someone has damaged you irreparably, and it wasn’t Killian.”
He continues studying me, looking into my eyes as if he’ll find the truth there. I never understood why Raven was so afraid of Kai. I always thought she witnessed something he did, but then I remembered that her own cousin murdered her older brother in front of her eyes, so it can’t be an act of violence.
Now, I’m starting to understand her. Kai is like an X-ray. He sees what’s hidden inside, in the depths of your soul.
“And let me guess,” I say, my voice desperate, even to my ears. “Are you going to tell him what you found out?”
“I didn’t find out anything, Fernandez. And he isn’t stupid. We all see that something happened to you and that it can’t be that foolish video alone. People like you might leave, but your sister’s anger and love would have brought you back to the mansion.”
My love for Serena. I’ve noticed how I’m able to hear her name in my head and even say it out loud lately. Maybe it’s because somehow, in a sick way, I forgave her. And maybe I always knew she didn’t love me the way a sister is supposed to love the other.
“I don’t understand where you’re going with this conversation?”
“Anywhere you want it to go.” Kai shrugs, which reminds me he’s just as human as the rest of us. No matter how robotic he appears.
Liam sighs. “This conversation, strange as it may be, doesn’t interest me. Come, you twat. You spoke enough for a lifetime.”
Liam turns and starts walking away like the king he thinks he is when, in reality, he’s a maniac.
I get to my feet, not that it helps with our height differences, and Liam halts to look down on me.
“And let me guess, you want to warn me not to tell Raven the truth?”
Before he can reply, I add, “But you know what I don’t understand?” I pick up my phone and put it in my pocket.
“Enlighten me,” he mocks. The asshole.
“I understand why your boss won’t tell her the truth. He loves Raven. He loves her so much that he protected her with his life more than once. But you...? You hate her. So why don’t you tell her the truth? What are you waiting for?”
I don’t know what I expected to see on the face of the fragrance model he could have easily been, but the sadness, even for only a second, almost knocks me off kilter.
“You don’t want to hurt her because you know it wasn’t her fault. Treat her like she deserves. Stop punishing her for something she didn’t do, and even if she did something as a child, as she says, it couldn’t have been that big. I know Rav,” I say and brush past him to return to the office.
The office is tranquil when I get back, but that doesn’t surprise me because most of the employees are on their lunch break. Calculating that I have half an hour before they return, I take this opportunity to sit down and go through his diary.
He has five new potential clients. He chose to become a criminal defense attorney. When I learned this fact, he shrugged and said, “It’s required in our business.”
Some of the cases he’s working on have awakened the photographer in me so much that I have an urge to call Miriam.
She’s called several times since we parted at the airport, but I’ve neglected to answer those calls. She wrote me a message saying that she was sorry she couldn’t help me and that she was back to work because the truth was calling her. She also said I needed to contact Maverick as soon as possible. Until now, I have also ignored all calls from him.
As if summoned, Maverick’s name appears on the screen of my phone. I don’t have time to react because the phone is yanked out of my hands.
“Why is he calling you?” he asks in a voice I haven’t heard in a long time. It was as if my boss’s name broke the shards of patience he kept just for me.
“To my office, without clothes, next to the cross. Now!”