CHAPTER FIFTEEN #2
He’s too close and yet so far away. I don’t know if I want to lean into him or stay as still as possible so he doesn’t change his mind. I can tell he wants to open up and I need this. From the moment I met him, he’s felt like a puzzle that needs to be solve.
And more than anything I want to solve that puzzle.
“What happened, Rafaelle?”
He exhales softly, “I had a daughter.”
“You what?” I question, my voice going an octave higher.
“No one else knows. I think I was about 21 years old. Fresh out of college and back home, training extensively under my father. He wanted me to be the family’s enforcer, said I was the only one that had it in me to be sadistic enough to do it.
Make no mistake, Liliana, even back then I was already a killer, but I wasn’t soulless yet,” he says dryly.
“What was your daughter’s name?”
Although I already know the answer to that question.
“Tara,” he murmurs, “My father took me on a mission one day. We were meant to wipe out an entire family for betraying us. A father and his three sons. I put a bullet in the father’s head easily.
Two of his sons tried to protect him and they died in the process.
The last one was in a bedroom with his arms around a little girl who was fast asleep.
I think she was about five years old. I don’t know where she came from but he was begging me not to hurt them.
This last boy was pretty young too. A couple years younger than me.
He had so much fear in his eyes, was trembling from the weight of his terror and I-”
He keeps his gaze ahead and steadfastly away from me as he speaks.
“I couldn’t pull the trigger. I told him to run away instead, to disappear.
Promised him that I’d take care of the little girl.
So he ran. I thought he’d left the city for good.
I thought it was over. As for the girl, my father wanted me to take her to an orphanage or dump her somewhere she’d be found.
But I was na?ve back then, still had a bleeding heart I suppose.
I told him I would raise her. She was a sweet little thing, with big blue eyes and a soft smile that made you want to destroy every bad thing in the world.
It took a while for her to open up to me but once she did, she trusted me and depended on me. She made living easier.”
“She sounds wonderful,” I say gently, my heart aching at the pain in his voice.
“She was. In the end, I’m the reason she died,” he states, regret twisting his expression.
I suck in a sharp breath, “What does that mean?”
“The last boy,” he grits out. “He came back for revenge two months later. Tara had been living with me in my apartment. She was happy, although she missed her family. I was happy too. She made me feel good and fulfilled. Like my life had meaning. I was taking her home one day, to meet my brothers. They had no idea she existed up until that point. We were on the road, when a car suddenly rammed into me from behind. The roads were icy. We went crashing into a tree. I guess he didn’t know his little sister was in the car.
She snapped her neck, died immediately.”
“Oh God,” I murmur, lifting my hands to my mouth in horror.
“Yeah, and the worst part is, a small cut on the head was all I got for the trouble. I didn’t know she was dead yet.
I was fine. Alive. And I was livid. I didn’t even check on Tara in the back seat.
I was just so angry at the person that rammed into us.
He and three other guys were there. They had guns.
But there were also coward. I didn’t hesitate to kill each and every one of them.
Saved her brother for last but his death came swiftly as well.
In the end, when I realized she was dead, my only regret was that I offered them an easy death.
I should have made them suffer for days.
Tortured them until they wished they were dead.
And even then, I wouldn’t give them that small mercy. ”
I think about my daughter. Our daughter and a bone chilling understanding climbs through me. If anything ever happened to Mila, I’d burn the world down to destroy whoever was responsible.
“They would have deserved it,” I say to Rafaelle.
The words are soft, simple and not without weight. He smiles, the action making him look younger, almost like the 21 year old Rafaelle that faced that devastating loss.
“You really need to stop saying things that make me want to keep you,” he says gruffly.
Suddenly, I can’t think of anyone or anything else but him. I shift closer, placing my hand over his. He’s so warm and enticing and I’m utterly drawn to him. My attraction isn’t something I can control. I don’t want to.
“You can’t keep me, Rafaelle,” I say softly, “But you can have me. At least for now.”
“For now,” he repeats, dark eyes intense as they clash against mine.
I nod once and he shifts, closing the distance between us.
“Rafaelle,” I whisper in the space between our lips.
My voice sounds desperate, needy and I’d be embarrassed if desire wasn’t rippling through every inch of me. I need him more than I need air right now.
“What?” he murmurs back, pulling me even closer, his hands encircling my waist.
My heartbeat quickens even more as I say, “I want you to fuck me.”
Molten desire spreads fire in his expression. “Getting to that, siren.”
“No, not here,” I murmur. “The sex room in the basement. I want you to fuck me there.”
It’s like I took a bucket of ice and doused it over his head. Rafaelle reels backward, his eyebrows rising at the end of my statement.
“Why the fuck would you want that?”