Page 133 of The Ripper

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 aSánchez 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 Inés Sánchez.

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.

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