23. Chapter 23 #2
“Mouse, you didn’t make him your father when you said the word.” I tightened my hand around hers. “He’d been doing the job your entire life. You finally got to call him what he already was.”
Her chin quivered.
“He told you being your father was the greatest honor of his life. He got to tell you the truth before he died, and he heard you call him Papá. He left this world knowing that he was loved by his daughter.”
The first sob tore out of her before she could stop it.
I opened my arms, and Isabella came into them without hesitation. She pressed her face against my chest while I held her, one hand around the back of her head and the other spread over her spine.
“I should have known,” she cried. “I should have understood why he was always there.”
“How could you? Telling you would have gotten all three of you killed.”
“I loved him.”
“He knew.”
Her hands tightened against my sides.
“He didn’t have to die wondering what would happen to you. He heard me promise I’d keep you safe, and I will.”
“Everyone who protects me dies.”
“I’m hard to kill.”
A broken little laugh escaped through her tears.
“And I come with considerable backup,” I added. “And this time you’ve got The Syndicate behind you.”
She stayed against me until the worst of the crying passed. I didn’t rush her. There was no fixing the loss, and I wasn’t going to pretend a few sentences could.
Eventually, she lifted her head.
“Can you really get me out of El Salvador?”
“Yes.”
The answer came easily, but getting us to that point was another matter.
“We still have to make it down this mountain, find a way to contact my men, and avoid everyone Marcela sends after us. I’m not pretending tonight is safe. But my people are already in this country, and once I reach Nik, borders stop being much of a problem.”
“What happens after that?”
“You come with me.”
“To Manhattan?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“And if it isn’t?”
I disliked the question immediately. I didn’t like imagining her anywhere out of my reach.
“Then you choose somewhere else.”
“Just like that?”
“No part of this will be just like that. But the choice will be yours.”
She hesitated. “Will I have to live in hiding?”
“For a while, probably. Marcela is alive, and Ciro had an entire network of violent men who won’t disappear just because he did. I won’t lie to you about that.”
Her shoulders lowered.
“But hiding while we remove the people hunting you isn’t the same as being imprisoned,” I said. “You decide where you stay. You decide who comes near you. No one locks you in. You’re protected, not confined.”
There were practical problems too, and those I could actually do something about.
“If we need to make you disappear for a while, Nik can give you another identity. Clean papers, records, a passport. Whatever keeps you safe.”
Isabella recoiled. “No.”
I stopped.
“I don’t want another identity. Marcela already stole mine.” Her fingers curled against my chest. “I want my own name back. I want to be Isabella Eliana Del—”
The word died on her lips.
For several seconds, she didn’t say anything.
Then her face pinched.
“Delgado,” she finished quietly. “Except I’m not, am I?”
I let her work through it.
“Ciro wasn’t my father.” She stared down at my chest. “Rafael was.”
“Aye.”
“So what is my name?” The question came out with more bewilderment than I’d ever heard from her. “Isabella Eliana Duarte?”
She drew a breath.
“Or Dravik. My mother was Eliana Sofija Dravik.”
I remembered her telling me in the dungeon that her mother had been a princess from Eslovenya before Ciro abducted her and brought her here.
“Dravik belongs to your family too.”
“But Delgado is the name I’ve had my entire life. It’s the name Marcela stole from me.” Her brow furrowed. “I wanted to take it back from her, and now I don’t even know if I want it.”
For the first time since I’d met her, Isabella sounded completely lost when she said, “I don’t know what my name is.”
I gave her waist a gentle squeeze.
“Your first two names are already figured out. What’s one more to decide?”
She turned those pale blue eyes on me. “That isn’t helpful.”
“It was a little helpful.”
“It really wasn’t.”
“Sure it was.” I brushed my thumb over the curve of her waist. “Your surname is paperwork, Mouse. You’re still you.”
For half a second, I’d actually surprised her with something I said, and damn if she wasn’t pretty that way.
“That was almost profound.”
“Keep it to yourself. I have a reputation.”
She gave my side a small squeeze.
“You don’t have to decide tonight whether you’re Delgado, Duarte, Dravik, or something else entirely,” I said. “When you do decide, Nik can make the paperwork match.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“With Nik?” I gave her another small squeeze. “It probably is.”
“Nikolai Volkov can make a person disappear from any country on earth and reappear with school records, a tax history, and a passport before most people finish breakfast.” I cupped her cheek with my hand and brushed my thumb beneath the last damp streak on her cheek.
“If you want a new life under another name, he can give you one. If you want the world to recognize you as Isabella Delgado, he’ll make that happen instead. ”
“Even after everything Marcela did while using it?”
“Those crimes belong to her. We’ll separate your name from every piece of filth she attached to it.”
Her eyes dropped again.
“I don’t have a degree. I don’t have a résumé or proper records. I don’t even know whether anything I know would count outside the finca.”
“You don’t need a résumé the day after escaping a cartel compound.”
“I’ll need one eventually. I can’t expect you and your friends to support me forever.”
“You can expect us to make certain you’re safe for as long as necessary.”
“That isn’t the same as taking care of myself.”
“No.” I understood the distinction mattered to her.
“When you’re ready, you can study whatever you want.
Work wherever you want. Open a bakery, spend your days in a library, or decide you hate both after trying them.
My people can give you money, time, and every opportunity you should have had years ago. What you do with them will be yours.”
Until that moment, I had been thinking almost entirely in terms of safety: get Isabella off the mountain, out of the country, and somewhere no one could reach her.
Safe was no longer enough.
I wanted her happy.
I wanted to see what she chose when she no longer had to measure every decision against Ciro’s temper.
I wanted to know what made her laugh when she wasn’t exhausted or frightened, what she would study when no one was deciding what she was allowed to read, and where she would go simply because the door was open.
Manhattan could give her more than money and protection.
Lacey and Scarlett would understand parts of what Ciro’s world had done to her that I never could.
Nik had hired therapists for Lacey after The Sacrifice and paid whatever it took to find the right people.
I could do the same for Isabella if she wanted it.
She would have women around her who understood what it was to survive Ciro’s world.
And I would burn what remained of that world before letting it touch her again.
She would have a family before she even understood that was what The Syndicate had become.
And selfishly, I wanted a place in whatever life she built. I wanted her books in my home, her bare feet on my floors, her hair across my pillow, and every man who looked at her to know she was mine.
“Will you help me until I can take care of myself?” she asked.
“Of course, Mouse.”
“What if it takes a long time?”
“Then it takes a long time.”
“What if I never become the person you think I should be?”
“I haven’t decided who you should be.”
“Men usually do.”
“I’m not most men.”
“No,” she said softly. “You aren’t.”
I eased us down until I was lying on my back with Isabella settled against my chest.
For a while, we listened to the forest and the faint movement of water farther down the slope.
Eventually, Isabella lifted herself onto her forearms while my hands rested at her waist. The last traces of daylight coming through the opening were almost gone when she asked, “Do you believe what Marcela said about me?”
“I believed she knew where to put a knife without holding one.”
“That isn’t an answer.”