“Where are you going? The funeral isn’t over.”
“It’s over, Carlos. She’s dead. No changing that.”
“This wasn’t your fault,” he says for what feels like the hundredth time.
“Don’t waste your breath.”
He grabs my arm, and I snatch it away, glaring at him.
“You just…you need to say goodbye,” he says quietly.
“I will, but not until I’ve sought retribution.” I can’t sit here and say goodbye, speak words of what a good person she was, all while her killer runs loose, laughing at me. No. I start walking again, heading for the car.
“What are you going to do?”
I reach the car and yank the door open. “Something Dominges doesn’t expect. And he expects me to be at a funeral today.”
His lips tip up in a small smile, the only trace of anything other than misery I’ve seen from him in days. He rounds the car and opens the passenger door. “What did you have in mind?”
“I’m going to set fire to his entire world.”
56
Anna
Shifting my weight from one foot to another, I adjust Dante on my hip. He happily wraps my hair in his chubby little fist before trying to put it in his mouth. I gently rock him as I stare out at the sprawling city of New York far below the penthouse, the lights like fireflies wandering aimlessly through the darkness. There are thousands of people down there, living lives that they take for granted. Making dinner, feeding their cat, watching television…and here I stand, so far removed, so envious of their basic normality.
These moments with my nephew are the only times when I feel like I can actually breathe properly. He’s so absolutely unaware of anything but what’s in front of him. When I’m with him I’m able to focus only on the exact moment I’m in. The rest of the time, I simply long for what I can no longer have: Rafael, and it’s slowly killing me.
Whatever small trace of happiness I had previously found in this life has been ripped from me because I live in a world of dangerous men and unfortunate girls. Rafael is as dangerous as any of them, but he was my safe harbor, and now I’m just lost; a vessel cast adrift without an anchor. All that lies before me is an endless sea of nothing, with no land or salvation in sight.
My chest aches painfully, as though something vital has been removed, and all that’s left in its wake is this gaping void. I find myself seeking out that dark little place inside myself where I know this will all just stop, but in a sick way, I crave the pain. It reminds me that it was real; that our love was real. But I know that if love was enough, nothing could separate us. In a way, that’s the worst part of it all. My agonized, flayed heart hates him for this, even if my head can rationalize the reasoning. We promised each other we were ride or die and he broke that promise.
The bedroom door clicks open before hushed footsteps fall over the thick carpet. “Rafael called,” Una says quietly. My heart trips over itself, limping along in a faltering beat. I focus on Dante, trying to ignore the stabbing sensation behind my ribs. Just keep breathing, in and out, in and out. “I gave him your new number.”
I whirl around to face her. “Why would you do that?”
She narrows her eyes at me and steps forward, taking Dante. “Because I’m not going to field calls for you. If you don’t want to speak to him, don’t answer.” I don’t know that I’m strong enough to reject a call from him, but I know I can’t hear his voice. I can’t listen to him making false promises when he’s already broken the only one that mattered.
I rub at the aching spot in the center of my chest.
“This needs to stop,” Una shifts Dante to her hip. She looks so out of place, all tight muscles and danger, with a baby on her hip.
“What?”
“You’ve been in New York for a week, and all you’ve done is cry and pine after him.”
Years spent wondering if my long lost sister is alive and this is what I get. Turning away from her, I train my gaze back out the window, hoping she’ll disappear.
She forces herself into my line of vision. “You survived nine years as a sex slave, Anna.” She eyes me up and down, a trace of disgust in her eyes. “You can certainly survive a little heartbreak.”
“It’s not the same.” I’d sooner take physical pain over this.
“Rafael has made you weak.”
I always said that after everything, he would be the one to break me. Bones will mend, psychological scars can be masked, but the heart…the heart is so easily destroyed.
“I don’t expect you to understand this, Una.” My sister is cold and hard, almost impenetrable. There is no room for emotion in her world unless it’s for her son.