Page 64 of Isabela

“Yay for drugs,” I mutter.

“Other than that, are you okay? Gael called me when he found out you’d been kidnapped, and I wasn’t very nice,” Aria admits. “I told him not to come home without you.”

I reach out and squeeze her hand. “I’m working on being okay. It’s too early to tell. Charles had a plan to break me. No one knew where I was, and he held all of the cards. I feel… gross. I needed to get him to untie me, so I could do something, anything. But I don’t know how I’m going to live with it now,” I explain. “I don’t deserve kindness or respect after any of that.”

Aria shakes her head as she squeezes my hand. “The things you do to survive will never be held against you by me or Gael, Isabela,” she says fiercely. “I don’t care if you rode his cock while you fucking sliced his throat, baby. Your one and only job on this earth is to make sure you come back to us.”

The tears start to fall unbidden as I stare at her. Holy shit. I don’t deserve this woman.

“Yes you do,” she whispers. “You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met. You didn’t ask him to do the things he did, but he deserved your wrath.”

“Hey,” Gael says, gently rapping on the door. “Anything I need to know?”

“Yeah,” Aria says, blinking quickly. Her eyes are shiny, and I watch her swallow hard. The word feels thick in the air as she reaches out and wipes away a tear. “I’m going to quickly tell him in the hallway. Anything else we should avoid?”

“I can’t call anyone Sir anymore,” I whisper. “Not in a sexy way. It’s just… I can’t.”

Nodding, Aria leans forward and kisses my forehead. “Alright, love. You’re so damn strong. I’m so in awe and I love you. I’ll be right back,” she says, getting off the bed.

I’m dumbfounded by her words as she walks to Gael and jerks her head to the hallway. “A word, husband,” she says.

Aria is the badass in the room if I’m being honest with myself. I’m just… a survivor. My eyes unfocus as I let myself drift, as they walk out of the room, until I wake up and realize I fell asleep. Stretching carefully, I see Aria sleeping in a chair next to Gael, her head on his shoulder.

Gael is dozing and his head jerks up as if he can feel my eyes on him. Yawning, he gives me a small smile as he rubs the sleep away. Glancing at the clock on the wall, I see it’s almost seven in the morning.

“Hey, beautiful. Good morning,” he says softly.

“Good morning,” I whisper. The nurse never came back before I fell asleep again, and my throat feels extra raw. Wincing, I rub it, hoping it’ll ease up.

Gael gently moves Aria before he gets up and grabs a glass. There’s a tumbler I realize has ice in it next to it, and he shakes out ice chips for me with some water. Sticking a straw in it, he brings it over to me.

“I don’t want you to drink too quickly, so I’m controlling your volume,” he explains as he hands it to me. Wrapping my lips around the straw, I hum happily as the cool liquid slides down my throat.

God, that feels so good. Gael likes to control a lot of things, but most of it is in an effort to protect the people important to him. I force myself to pull the cup away so I don’t make myself sick.

“Thank you, my throat is killing me,” I say softly. Talking louder than this just hurts.

“They turned the good drugs down,” he says with a smirk.

“Shame,” I huff. Leaning back on my pillows, I watch as he appears to be gearing up to tell me something. I just don’t know what. “Spill it, Gael.”

Blowing out a breath, he nods. “I’m sorry. I fucked up,” he rushes out. “I didn’t know Lily had turned on us until it was too late and I’m so sorry. This was my fault. I saw the room, and even though I don’t know everything, I can tell it was bad.”

“This wasn’t your fault,” I tell him. “This was Lily and Charles. You didn’t kidnap me.”

“No, but I didn’t stop it, either,” he growls. “I promised you it was safe to go to class.”

“It was safe. I was kidnapped after class,” I say drolly. I’m being a brat, but I’m not letting him take the blame for this. It’s bad enough that it happened at all.

“Isa,” he says, exasperated.

“Gael,” I mimic, deepening my voice. Unfortunately, my throat riots, throwing me into a coughing fit, making Gael sigh as he rubs my back. I sip more water as it eases, hoping it’ll help.

“I’m letting you have this one,” he mutters as Aria shifts in her sleep. “Do you want to go home? There’s a trauma psychiatrist on call if you want to talk to him, too.”

I make a face because I really don’t want to. “Home,” I grunt. Talking is overrated at the moment.

My bladder chooses that moment to wake up, and my eyes widen. “Any chance I can get unhooked from all of this to pee?” I beg.

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