CHAPTER 26
FORGIVENESS IS A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
ARELLA
Seven days had passed since I last saw him, and today I spent most of the afternoon cooped up in my room, pacing the floor as Julio’s words played in a loop inside my head.
I wasn’t even upset at my father anymore, because now I could see how I was wrong.
I shivered when I realized that I was in my mother’s shoes in the equation. Same as her, I loved a criminal, and same as her, I didn’t care how much danger that put me in.
I thought about the fact that if Grimm and I were ever parents, I wouldn’t want our daughter to hate her father in case our world sent me to an early grave. No. I would want her to cling to him and draw strength from him. I would want them to keep each other afloat, not separated, and behaving like two strangers.
I wouldn’t want her to blame him for my choices, same as I had blamed my father for my mother’s. I wouldn’t want my daughter to make the same mistakes I did.
So, I stood up from the window seat and threw a last glance over the hills, where the moon reigned supreme, almost as if whispering that forgiveness was the only thing that could take me back into Grimm’s arms, then I closed the window and got out of my room with my heart up in my throat, heading towards the office I knew my father spent most of his time in.
I slowly knocked on the wooden double doors, feeling my knees buckle as drops of sweat ran down my back.
How was I going to tell him that I forgave him for my mother, but that I would never forgive him for taking me away from Grimm?
How was I going to offer forgiveness halfheartedly, and how was I going to beg him to take me back to where my soul was at peace?
“Come in,” his cold tone sounded, and I opened the door, entering the room while my legs shivered.
His eyes widened for a second, almost as if he didn’t understand what I was doing there, the scowl he usually wore being replaced by surprise and remorse.
He let out a long sigh, then shook his head and gestured for me to sit, which I did rather reluctantly, shifting in the seat as if the leather covered pillows were stinging me, my eyes set on the floor, because I didn’t know how to start.
The lighting in the room was dimmed, all of it coming from a singular lamp on the desk, breaking the dense darkness that the curtains created.
“I’m sorry,
mija
,” he sighed, thick regret coating his tone.
He stood up from his chair and went to his drink cabinet, from where he took out a bottle of whiskey, and I watched him, allowing myself to analyze him for the first time since I’d been brought here.
He had gotten old, but his age didn’t make him look less intimidating, like it did my grandfather. Much like Grimm’s father, his stature seemed even harsher as he matured.
He had always been a massive man, the kind you either feared or wished to have as your protector. The hair that was once a light brown shade was now almost white, and a few more scars marked his face, almost as if he had entered too many brawls for his age. The raw green in his eyes had faded, as if it dried up, as if life had mercilessly gone through him and stole away his will to truly live, but because he was one of the most persevering men I knew, he never would’ve allowed those surrounding him to see just how tired he truly was.
He’d never allowed anyone to catch a glimpse of his vulnerability, because a
Snchez didn’t show his feelings, but repressed them until they were mere figments hidden among the stones.
“I forgive you,” I whispered, holding his stare. “For mom,” I continued.
He nodded and turned his back on me for a moment, gripping the edge of the cabinet in his fists as though he wanted to break it beneath his fingers.
I knew why he couldn’t look at me right now, just as I knew why he’s allowed me to go to college in the United States and helped change my identity, erasing everything that had ever been documented on Reina Ins Snchez.
He did it because I looked like her.
I was a carbon copy of my mother when she was young, exactly her before she died, especially now when I wasn’t a child ready to burn the whole house to the ground, and my father couldn’t look at me without seeing her.
I was the ghost he couldn’t escape, in the flesh, and I would’ve haunted him at every turn.
I knew what it felt like, because I experienced the same pain every time I looked at myself in the mirror.
“Your mother was the only woman I have ever loved, Reina, the only woman I still love, even if she isn’t here anymore. Trust me when I say that you could never blame me for what happened to her more than I blame myself,” his voice broke when he turned towards me, and he blinked repeatedly to rein in the tears.
“Then what was that bitch doing in her place at the table?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
He leaned against the desk, holding the glass in his hand.
“I won’t lie to you and say that I haven’t touched a woman since then, but they don’t mean anything. None of them step foot inside my bedroom, and they never will.”
I nodded and bit the inside of my cheek, feeling the question rolling off my tongue.
“Why did you take me away from him?”
I wasn’t as strong as him, so when tears pricked my eyes, I allowed them to fall, just as I allowed my regret to show on my face. It was the only question I wanted an answer to, the only thing I cared about, because nothing hurt more than the empty hole his absence had punched in my chest.
“He’s not the right man for you, Reina.” He shook his head, still averting his eyes. “You have worked so hard to get out of this world, and for what? So that you could enter a more dangerous one with a fucking Russian gangster?”
“That fucking Russian man is the only one who made me feel an ounce of happiness since mom died. That fucking Russian has shown me more love than anyone in this fucked-up life. That man is all I’ve ever wanted and more, and you had no right to take me away from him!” I shouted so loud his eyes widened, then I stood up and walked to the cabinet.
I took a bottle of vodka and poured myself a glass, which I gulped down as if it was water, then poured a second one.
I was drowning in tears, in alcohol and in Grimm’s memory.
“What happens when you’re the one caught in the crossfire?” he slammed his fist on the desk, the thunder in his voice traveling through me like a shiver.
“I’ll die smiling, knowing how much he loves me,” I answered without a shred of doubt.
“If he loves you, where is he? If it weren’t me who took you, but one of his enemies, what would have happened? It’s been seven days, and he is not here. You would have been dead at the bottom of the ocean by now,
por Dios
[21]
!”
“I don’t know where he is,” I answered bitterly. “But I’m sure he’s turning the earth upside down to find me, and when he does, I will pray for all of those who dare keep me away from him, because that ‘fucking Russian gangster’,
father
, is more ruthless than all the devils you ever confronted.”
I wasn’t even surprised by the certainty in tone, close to breaking the glass in my hand from how hard I was squeezing my fingers around it.
“You would choose him over your family?”
The question took me by surprise, and my breath caught in my throat when I knew the answer. It was so clear, so unquestionable, that it shook me down to my core.
I straightened my back and took a slow sip of vodka, then pulled the robe down one of my shoulders, showing him the Bratva star I still drew every day, because it made me feel closer to him.
“Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and for eternity…”
I would choose him over anyone, anytime. I would spend my life healing criminals if it meant I had him. I would sell my soul to the devil with a clear conscience. I would die for him and embraced the inferno with his name on my lips.
Every day.
Unapologetically.
“Reina, I…”
A loud explosion broke the silence of the night. The ground shook beneath our feet and my father grabbed the edge of the desk to steady himself.
A triumphant smile curved my lips upwards, and gunshots echoed from the courtyard.
“Looks like he found me.”