Consent (The Loan Shark Duet 2)

She stares at me for the longest time while silent tears streak her cheeks. Finally, she whispers, “What now, Gabriel?”

There’s so much loss in her tone. The words sound broken coming from her lips. What now? How does one move on after something like this? How does she pick up the pieces of her life and build a new one? My heart aches for her, but my girl is strong. She’s loyal, determined, loving, and brave. She’ll make it.

“Magda is dead. She put a gun to her head when I confronted her this morning.”

Her complexion pales further. “No.”

No longer able to keep my distance, I climb next to her onto the bed and pull her into my arms. The minute my body molds around hers, she snaps. Big, insufferable sobs shake her shoulders. I soothe her the only way I know, holding her close. I push Valentina’s head against my chest, willing her to purge her soul with bitter tears.

Valentina’s cries must’ve alarmed a nurse who comes into the room and asks if we’re all right. Taking in Valentina’s state, she addresses me. “Post-natal blues. If it doesn’t go away within a couple of days, call her doctor.” She straightens the bed sheets and leaves without posing further questions.

I take the box from my pocket and place it on Valentina’s lap. “I wanted to get you something memorable so you never forget how brave you were.” I kiss her lips. “Always remember that you fought and survived.”

The words are charged. We both know what I really mean. She survived my family. If she can survive Gabriel Louw, she can survive anything.

“Open it, please,” I say when she doesn’t reach for the box.

After a second, she pulls the ribbon free. Painstakingly slow, she removes the wrapping paper and regards the golden logo on the velvet for what seems like ages before she lifts the lid.

She bites her lip. “I can’t.”

“Don’t say no. This is for me, not you.”

“Will it make you feel better?”

Nothing can make me feel better. “Yes.”

She lifts the diamonds from the box and fixes them in her ears. They suit her perfectly. She looks like she was made for flawless, brilliant stones. I take my time eternalizing the picture in my mind.

“Thank you,” I say, feeling those two words to the bottom of my soul.

I’m not ready to go, but there’s much to take care of. A lifetime’s planning needs to happen in five days. I take her telephone from my pocket and leave it on the nightstand. Cupping her face, I kiss her forehead. The past is a thick, dark cloud stifling the air between us. Nothing can be said or done to take it away. All I can hope is that my decision will make it better.

Valentina

Inside, I’m hacked to pieces. My soul is broken. There’s nothing left of the woman I once was or the one I could’ve been. I’m still a burnt-out volcano––ashes and black––but where that burn was fueled by fear and anger when Gabriel first broke down my door, now it’s the result of inconsolable sadness. The crater that used to be my heart is bubbling with emotions of loss, shame, deceit, and worthlessness. I’ve lost so much of myself I don’t know if there’s enough left to build myself up from the cold embers of destruction. Gabriel’s father took something from me I was supposed to save for the man I’d one day love. He took more than my innocence. He took my ability to have a normal relationship with a normal young man. Maybe that’s why I fell for Gabriel. Maybe I can only have unhealthy, unequal, anything-but-normal relationships with older, twisted men. Owen Louw took my joy for life and gave me nightmares and shame instead. Because of a moment in time when he took something he shouldn’t have wanted, I lost my parents and my future. I lost my beautiful Charles to a boy in the shell of a man. Because of Owen’s crime, we became outcasts who lived in poverty with the cruelty of people like Tiny. When the time came, we would’ve paid the ultimate price––our lives.

Then there was Gabriel. Because of him, Charlie and I didn’t die the day he came for us. I’d like to believe there was more than lust. A small part of me likes to think it was the kernel of something greater, something deeper. I have to believe he feels more than a physical attraction or even a sick obsession, because the seed of pleasure and pain he planted in me germinated to undeniable attachment and care. The fragile stalk of affection that shot up in my heart from the rotten secrets of our past grew as thick and sturdy as a tree. That tree may have sprouted in the fermenting layers of deceit, but that very compost made the branches rise high and strong. The addictions Gabriel gave me are woven like ivy around that trunk. They are grafted with the plant and the roots. They are part of who I am. In the center of it all is one, encompassing emotion. Love.