Chapter 12
LORETTA
“Is she awake?”
Rafael’s voice reached me through the darkness.
Even half-conscious, I recognized it instantly.
Not because of the authority in it.
Because of the panic.
I had never heard panic in Rafael Pérez’s voice before.
“Keep her awake,” he barked.
The command echoed through the haze surrounding me.
“I don’t care what you have to do. If there’s a specialist needed, bring them. If there’s treatment she requires, she gets it.”
“Sir, her condition is stable—“
Rafael replied immediately, but his words blurred together before I could make sense of them.
The voices around me faded in and out, muffled and distorted, as though I were listening from the bottom of deep water.
A few seconds passed—or perhaps several minutes. I couldn’t tell.
Slowly, the darkness loosened its grip on me.
The void that had swallowed everything began to crack, allowing fragments of the world to seep through.
The steady beeping of machines reached me first, followed by the low hum of hospital equipment and the sterile scent of antiseptic hanging in the air.
Awareness returned in painful increments, pulling me upward through layers of exhaustion and cold until consciousness finally broke the surface.
Every part of my body hurt.
My back throbbed with a deep, relentless ache.
My shoulders felt as though they had been crushed beneath stone.
My legs were heavy and weak, every muscle screaming in protest.
Even drawing a breath hurt.
The cold still lingered beneath my skin, buried so deeply it felt fused to my bones.
Snow.
The memory returned in fragments.
The relentless storm.
The freezing wind clawing at my face.
The crushing weight pressing down on me as the snow piled higher and higher.
The helplessness.
“Sir.”
A calmer voice broke through the memory.
“She’s awake.”
The room immediately fell silent.
Then heavy footsteps moved quickly toward my bed.
“Loretta.”
Rafael’s voice.
The sound of it immediately tightened something inside my chest.
He sounded exhausted.
As though he hadn’t slept in days.
“I am glad you’re awake.”
A pause followed. “I went too far.”
The admission sounded reluctant, as though the words had been dragged out of him against his will.
“But you touched a wound you knew nothing about.”
I remained silent.
The anger inside me was too large for words.
I had thought I understood Rafael.
I knew he was dangerous. I knew he was ruthless.
He was a mafia boss. Violence lived in his world as naturally as breathing.
But somewhere along the way, I had begun to believe there was a line he would never cross with me.
The snow had proved otherwise.
“How long was I unconscious?” I asked quietly, directing the question to anyone but him.
The room fell silent.
“Three days.” The doctor’s voice was gentle.
Three days.
The words hit me harder than any physical pain.
Three whole days.
Three days trapped in darkness while my body fought to survive.
Three days that could have easily become forever.
My fingers tightened around the hospital blanket.
I could have died.
The realization settled heavily in my chest.
“Leave.”
Rafael’s voice cut through the room with quiet authority.
“Everyone,” he said again, calm but unmistakably commanding. “Leave the room. Now.”
No one argued.
No one dared.
I heard immediate movement around me—the scrape of chairs, the soft shuffle of shoes against the floor, the rustle of clothing.
A door opened. Then another.
Within seconds, the room began to empty.
One by one, the sounds faded until only silence remained.
The door clicked shut.
And suddenly, the room felt smaller.
There were no doctors now.
No nurses. No witnesses.
Only Rafael and me.
I could tell he was still somewhere beside the bed.
Not speaking. Not moving.
As though he didn’t know where to begin.
Finally, he spoke.
“You had hypothermia. The doctors spent seventy-two hours trying to stabilize you. They weren’t sure you would wake up.”
A pause.
“You nearly died, Loretta.”
I turned my face toward the sound.
Not because I could see him.
Because I wanted him to know I was listening.
“And whose fault was that?”
“Mine.” The answer came quietly. “But not entirely. You pushed where you shouldn’t have.”
His voice hardened slightly.
“You kept making assumptions about things you know nothing about.”
“Assumptions?” I repeated.
“Yes.”
For the first time, some of the remorse disappeared from his tone.
“Zara is not a subject you get to dissect whenever you’re curious.”
My fingers curled into the blanket.
“You provoked me.”
His voice lowered dangerously.
“And before you say anything, I know exactly what I did. I know I went too far. I know I lost control.”
Another pause.
“But if you insist on touching wounds you don’t understand, eventually you’ll get hurt.”
I stared into the darkness that had been my world for years.
The irony almost made me laugh.
I had nearly frozen to death. And somehow he was still warning me about getting hurt.
“Is this your version of an apology?” I asked quietly.
Rafael didn’t answer.
A slow, disbelieving laugh escaped me. “Unbelievable.”
“It’s barely been three minutes since I woke up. Three minutes, Rafael.”
I swallowed hard. “And somehow you’ve already managed to turn this into my fault.”
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut.
“You know what?”
I shifted against the pillows despite the pain shooting through my body.
“I would be a complete fool to stay in this marriage.”
My voice came out steadier than I expected, even with the pain still threading through my body.
“I was not forced into this marriage,” I continued. “I did it for Tess. I chose it. But I think I’ve reached my limit.”
Silence.
“I can endure pain,” I said quietly. “I already have. I have endured more than you think I can. But not this. I did not agree to become collateral damage for your grief.”
The words hung between us, heavy and final.
“You want to spend the rest of your life mourning Zara?” My voice sharpened. “Then do it. Go on. But leave me out of it.”
My fingers curled into the blanket as I forced the next words out, each one cutting deeper than the last.
“I won’t be the person you punish for someone else’s death.”
A painful knot tightened in my throat.
“As soon as I can walk out of this hospital on my own two feet, I’m leaving you,” I said, voice steady despite the tremor in my chest. “I’ll make sure you never find me.”
Rafael’s low, dangerous chuckle sent a shiver down my spine.
The mattress dipped as he leaned closer, his presence swallowing the space around me.
“You still don’t understand, do you, Loretta?” His voice was velvet over steel, dark and possessive. “You’re not leaving. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. You belong to me.”
My breath caught, but I forced the words out. “I’m not your property.”
“No. Property can be bought. Property can be sold. Property can be replaced. You are something infinitely more catastrophic than that, Loretta.”
My breath faltered.
“Hate me if you must. God knows I’ve given you reason enough—especially after what I did three days ago.”
His jaw tightened. “Despise me. Curse my name. Make me pay for it every day for the rest of my life if that brings you satisfaction.”
His hand closed around mine.
“But leaving me?” he said quietly. “Bury that delusion, Loretta. Deep.”
I lifted my chin, refusing to shrink from the heat of him. “The second I’m discharged from this hospital, I’m calling my brother. He’ll pull me so far from your reach you’ll never touch me again.”
A bitter laugh escaped him. “You think he can protect you from me?”
“If necessary, yes.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
“You want a war, Rafael?” I asked. “Then you’ll have one waiting on your doorstep.”
Rafael’s grip on my hands tightened almost painfully, his body leaning closer until his lips brushed my ear. “War?” His voice was a velvet growl, thick with obsession.
“I’d slaughter armies for you, Loretta. Burn cities. Your brother, your family, the whole fucking world—none of them matter. You’re already mine. And I will chain you to me so completely you’ll forget what freedom even feels like.”
The raw intensity in his voice stole the air from my lungs.
I opened my mouth to retort, but there was no time.
His mouth crashed down on mine.
Hard. Absolute. Starving.
It was not the kiss of a conqueror, but of a man losing a battle with his own restraint.
His lips devoured mine with ferocious possessiveness, sucking and nipping as if he had been denied this for years.
A helpless shudder tore through me as liquid heat flooded my veins. Whiskey and sin.
The scrape of his stubble. The way his free hand slid to my waist, fingers digging in like he needed to anchor me to this earth.
My hands rose instinctively to push him away, but the moment they met the solid wall of his chest, they betrayed me.
Fingers curled into his shirt, clutching the fabric as his tongue swept inside, coaxing, demanding, claiming every inch of my mouth.
A broken moan slipped from my throat—he swallowed it greedily, tilting my head back to deepen the kiss until the world narrowed to nothing but him.
My body arched toward his against my will, melting under the relentless hunger of his kiss.
Anger, fear, and something far more dangerous twisted together inside me.
When he finally pulled back, just enough for our ragged breaths to tangle, he pressed his forehead to mine.
I should have been furious.
I should have slapped him.
I should have stepped back.
Instead—
My body betrayed me.
I could feel the thunder of his heart hammering against my chest, a wild, barely leashed rhythm that betrayed the iron control he was fighting to keep.
His lips crashed into mine again, no hesitation this time—hot, insistent.
The kiss deepened before I could even think to push him away, turning the sharp shock of contact into something dangerously addictive.