25. Isabela
ISABELA
Danya comes in to tidy the room while I'm dressing to go down and see my father.
She floats around me, gathering the towels I left on the floor, straightening the bed I never bother to make.
It's strange to have someone waiting on me hand and foot like this.
Even when I was young and my mother was alive, I don't think she did this.
Hell, I'd never do it for a grown adult.
But it's part of the luxury of being with someone who has so much money. He doesn't have to think about anything. He has maids and men to wait on him and cooks to cook for him. It's comforting and something I could definitely get used to.
"You're going to your father?" she asks, smiling at me. She's not usually one for small talk when she's around, but today she seems friendly. I smile back and nod.
"They said I could see him before dinner.
" I pull a sweater over my head and tug it down.
"He's been asking for me every day, apparently, and the doctor thinks it helps his mood.
" Seeing Papa is always the highlight of my day, and today I have really good news for him.
I hope that he will accept what I'm about to tell him and want it. It would be life-changing if he does.
"It would help anyone's mood, a daughter who visits." She folds a towel against her chest and looks at me with a warm, motherly expression. "He's lucky, your father. A lot of men in this house have no one to care for them but me."
It's a sad thing to think that in Demin's world men are so isolated and alone because their lives have too much conflict.
It makes me wonder if Demin was lonely before I came here, if that's why he's claimed me so fiercely.
I was raised around this life, so I know just how dangerous it can be.
Maybe he thinks that makes me more apt to welcome his possessive nature.
I sit on the edge of the bed to pull my shoes on and finally decide to open up a little. Mostly, I've been quiet about my thoughts, but Demin isn't exactly the social butterfly. When we talk, he never quite opens up. I want to find a way into his inner world, and maybe this is the only way.
"Danya, how long have you worked for Demin?" I peer up at her as I run my fingers through my hair and try to work out some tangles.
"Nine years."
"That's a long time." I smile as I say, "And he's never—I mean, is he…" I don't know how to ask it without sounding like a frightened girl, so I just ask it. "Is he a good man? Underneath it all?"
She sets the towels down and cocks her head like she's thinking, which I appreciate.
"He's not a soft man," she says. "He does hard things, and honestly, he can be very harsh at times if you don't do things as he requests.
" She smooths a wrinkle out of the bedspread.
"But in nine years he's never once raised his voice to me unless I actually deserved it…
" She looks nostalgic for a second and then blinks a few times as she catches my gaze again.
"When my mother was dying, he paid for everything and told no one he'd done it. He'd be angry I told you just now."
"He doesn't sound like a horrible man…"
"No." She smiles and pats the towels. "I've watched a lot of people come through this house," she says, picking up the towels again and hugging them to her chest as she stands.
"He's a good man to the people he decides are his," she says on her way to the door.
"It just takes him a while to decide." Then she pauses with her hand on the frame.
"You should go. Your father's waiting, and Bart will be here for you soon. "
Danya walks out, leaving me to sit there thinking about what she said.
She's a kind woman and I don't think she'd lie to my face.
And from what I've seen of Demin, she must be telling the truth.
His men don't seem afraid of him. They seem loyal.
That loyalty seems to be earning them protection and power, which is exactly what I think about my entire walk down to see Papa.
When the door opens, he looks up from where he lounges on his cot, reading a magazine.
"Mija." He sits up and turns his legs off the cot, setting the magazine aside.
"You look well. This place agrees with you…
" He sounds like he wants to encourage me, but as I move toward him, he says, "You are talking to that man a little too much. "
"Papa—" His words feel like daggers. I want him to see that Demin isn't as evil as he thinks. Today's visit is supposed to help him see the light, and we're already off to a bad start.
"Sit. Sit with me." He draws me down onto the small couch they've given him and keeps my hand in both of his. "I have been thinking and I know how we can get out of here…"
"Listen to me," I say, turning toward him. I need him to know that escape is not possible, but yielding won't be a death sentence. He has to see.
"No, Mija. We have to—"
"Papa!" I snap, and I know it sounds harsh but he has to listen to me. "Demin made an offer and I need you to hear me."
His head drops and he nods, but I can tell he's biting back anger.
"I need you to keep working for him, Papa. If you do that, he will pay you and give us a real life. Papers to stay in Berlin. You can retire here…"
When he looks up at me again, I don’t see the joy or hope in his eyes that I hope for. I see discouragement and pain. I see fear and the evidence of extended torture still stealing his ability to believe.
"Oh, Mija."
"It's true, Papa, he meant it. I heard him say every word of it."
"And you believed him?" he says gently, shaking his head. "He is a monster, Mija. You cannot believe anything he says to you. Do you understand that he has me caged right now, yet you want to believe in this fairy tale?"
"He's not what you think he is. If you knew him—"
"I know exactly what he is," he bites, cutting me off.
"I have spent my whole life among men like him.
They promise you the world while the door is locked, because a hopeful prisoner is an easier prisoner to manipulate than a desperate one.
The visa never comes. The house is never built.
There is always one more batch, one more reason, one more year, until you are too old and too used up to leave, and by then, you have stopped wanting to.
" His eyes well up with tears. "He has done a worse thing to you than he ever did to me.
He has made you grateful for being his slave. "
His words feel like a slap to my face. I would never just let him use me. I know Demin now, well enough to know he doesn’t say something unless me means it. I believe he'll do what he said.
"That's not fair," I say, now angry enough to raise my voice to him. "I'm trying to keep us alive. And you won't even—you won't even consider that maybe, this once, the door really does open."
"Because I love you too much to watch you hope for it," he says as a tear runs down his cheek.
"Listen to your old Papa." He takes both my hands again and sighs hard.
"Men will charm you, Mija. And he will do things to you—to your body" —his eyes meet mine as heat floods my cheeks in embarrassment— "and you will want him, but I promise you, he is still a monster. "
"You haven't even spent enough time with him to know, Papa. You don't—"
"I don't need to meet a wolf to know what it does to sheep." He shakes his head. "I have met a hundred versions of this man, in Madrid and in the towns before Madrid, my whole life. The face changes and the accent changes, but the promise is always the same one… empty and shallow."
"Then tell me what you want me to do, then," I hiss, standing and pulling away from him. "Refuse the only offer he's giving me? Throw it back at him and watch what happens to you afterward? You keep begging me to find the door, and every single time I find one, you reject it."
"I want you to stop looking like you looked just now when you said his name." His eyes are steel now, cold and unmoving as they pierce my heart. "You don't even know you do it, but I see the way it has changed you."
I can't even answer him. He's stubborn and angry and wounded.
And if he wants to stay in this war, trapped as a slave to his own ideals, then there's nothing I can do.
I want freedom, and I want to take him with me, but I can't force him.
So when the knock comes at the door, I'm almost grateful for it.
"Time, Miss," Bart says from the hall.
I kiss my father's forehead and promise to come back tomorrow. He holds my face in his scarred, gnarled hands and looks at me like he's trying to memorize my face. Then I leave before either of us can argue any more.
Bart walks me back through the house, toward a set of doors I've never seen open. I know I'm supposed to eat dinner with Demin tonight, but the dining room is the other way. I'm not sure what Bart is even doing.
"Where are we going?" I ask, wiping my eyes.
"Boss wants you for dinner." Bart's a man of few words. He flicks a glance at me but doesn't bother slowing his pace. "Proper one tonight."
I follow along until he opens the doors onto a formal dining room.
There is a long table decked with place settings and the service is all golden and polished.
Candles burn down the middle of the table, with a bottle chilling in a bucket.
Demin stands at the far end in a dark shirt with the collar open, waiting.
"You've been crying," he says. And instantly, his face contorts into an expression of pain.
"My father and I disagreed, and it went badly." I stop a few feet inside the room. "What's all this?"
"Dinner." He pulls out the chair to his right, and says, "Sit with me. Danya's made too much food for one man, and I'd like to share this time with you."
Sighing and remembering the way my father looked at me just moments ago, I walk over and take the seat he pulled out for me.
He pours the wine and settles into his own chair, closer than the long table requires.
But he doesn't push for conversation. He takes a bite of his food, and I uncover my plate to find roast meat and vegetables.
As delicious as they smell, I'm finding myself not as hungry as I ought to be. "You're different tonight," I say finally, wanting to know what this is all about.
"Well, it's been a different week." He wipes his mouth and sets his fork down. "Someone put a bomb under my vehicle… and well, that does things to a man."
The fork stops halfway to my mouth. "You were—someone tried to kill you?" My hand slowly lowers back to my plate as shock washes over me. This is getting too dangerous. Attacks at his businesses are one thing, but car bombs? That's personal.
"I'm safe, Milaya. They weren't successful, but it suddenly has me reassessing my priorities." Demin takes another bite like this is just news to be shared and not something to freak out about.
"Are you hurt?" My gut twists and I feel fear rising up. I see the scrape on his forehead, and a bruise beneath it, but he’s got a dangerous life. How was I supposed to know that was from a car bomb?
"A cut on my head. Bruised ribs. Nothing critical." He waves it off, but I see the somber expression. It has him rethinking his life, which means it scared him.
"Demin, this is serious. I—"
He reaches over and takes my hand, locking eyes with me. "I know, Milaya. I know how serious this is and I know what is at stake. I could lose everything in Berlin."
My eyes well up at the idea that he could’ve died today and I'd never have been able to say goodbye. I squeeze his hand and say, "This is my fault."
"No," he says firmly, pursing his lips. "This was my choice. I chose to take Octavio out of that compound and they are rebelling against me. This is not your doing."
"But my father—"
"Is a treasure in my home and I'd do it again tomorrow if it meant having you."
His words shock me, especially as he lifts my hand and kisses my knuckle. "What?" I'm speechless, listening to this man say he'd take these risks again all for me. How can my father not see how real Demin is, how honest he's being?
"I don't feel it's right to keep living my life as a single man when I have a perfectly good partner who should know the truth.
" His words are rigid, not full of emotion, and he sets my hand down and continues eating matter-of-factly.
But I sense deep emotion under the surface he might not be able to articulate.
This man cares about me, deeply. And I'm finding that I feel the same way. I love him. I want to be with him, and I'm scared that if he goes out that door again, one day, he won't come back to me.
"Thank you… for telling me." I don't know how to respond. Now isn't the time to blurt out my revelation that I love him, at least not after the day he's had. I don't want him to think this is a hasty reaction to a scary moment.
When I tell him how I feel, I want him to know I've thought it through and that I choose him.
"Eat," he says sternly. "You need nourishment. We have an empire to run."
I duck my head as I pick my fork back up and stab a carrot, bringing the savory morsel to my mouth to enjoy the flavors. But I blink back happy tears that want to flow so he doesn't think I'm crying in fear or sorrow.
Papa is wrong. Demin is a good man, and he will prove it to my father soon enough. And when he does, I will finally have my dreams come true and my prayers answered.
I just hope this war doesn't escalate any further and take from me what I’ve just found.