Page 36 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

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Rafael

"It would be far easier for me to help you find information if you weren't withholding what you know," Matteo said, crossing his arms over his chest as we stepped out of the freezer and into the main part of the warehouse. There was no trace of kindness in his accusing eyes, only a hardness I'd seen far too often since returning to his city.

I wasn't one of his men who worshiped at his feet.

"If I'd thought it was relevant, I'd have mentioned it. I didn't exactly realize that it might all be connected until Isa identified my father in the photo. Even then, I still had no reason to believe Pavel recognized her." I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose between two fingers. My shoulder twinged with pain as I forced it to move, ignoring the stitches that pulled at my skin.

"Explain to me how it couldnotbe relevant that your fathersoldyour wife to your enemy," Ryker said, raising a brow at me as he lurked in the shadows.

"She was one of hundreds," I stressed, gritting my teeth against the insistence that I needed to explain myself. "I didn't realize who she was until I looked through the photos Don and Alejandro gathered from her childhood. It was a vague memory of her face, and I wasn't certain until Alejandro found the contract and confirmed her name."

"One of hundreds?"

"My father had a thing for kids with strange eyes. He sold them to buyers all over the world," I explained, making Ryker heave a sigh.

"You thought she was just one of the lucky ones who wasn't taken before your father died," Ryker said, nodding his head to the side.

"Nothing else made sense. There was no reason to think it was any more complicated than that," I agreed.

"Until the photo of your father," Matteo groaned, touching a hand to the rough walls of the warehouse and staring toward the fridge. "Why did Kuznetsov want her?"

"I'm not sure. I remember her photo, but it was almost thirteen years ago. I can't remember the specifics of their conversation, and I tended not to listen to the gruesome details when they were talking about kids."

"Why wouldn't he take her right away? Why was she left with her family for so long? That's the part that doesn't make any sense to me," Matteo said, glancing to Ryker with the reminder of exactly what kind of family life his enforcer had lived before coming to the Bellandis.

"She was too young," Ryker said. "Dima prefers women to children. A five-year-old wouldn’t interest him. He would have wanted to wait until she was a preteen at least."

"She was to be delivered on her thirteenth birthday," I agreed.

"Does she know?" Ryker asked, pursing his lips as he considered what that might mean.

"No," I grunted, shaking my head. "She doesn't have a clue, and it is going to stay that way." I cast a warning glare to Matteo who twisted his lips in thought.

"This is unraveling faster than you can control. You don't want her to find out that you've known all this time and never bothered to tell her, Rafe. Take it from me. Secrets like this? They cause wounds that never really heal."

I grunted, confirming I'd heard his warning, but nobody would tell me what I could or could not keep secret from my wife. "Keep him alive. He knows more, and I'll be damned if he doesn't suffer for what he did to Isa for as long as it takes us to find out what that is." Turning and making my way out of the warehouse, I was met by Santiago and three other men at the car.

After the attack, we wouldn't be taking any chances where safety was concerned. "Where to?" Santiago asked as he climbed into the driver's seat of one of the SUVs from the house. The fact that it was the exact same make and model as the one that had blown up and nearly taken Isa with it made me dig my fists into the seat beside me.

"Back to the house," I ordered, desperately needing to feel Isa in my arms. Picking my phone out of my pocket, I hit Alejandro's number on speed dial.

"How is she?" he asked, undoubtedly having received a report from Joaquin through his brothers.

"She'll live. I don't think he expected that to be the outcome of the night," I said, sighing as I thought over the options. "It seems the Kuznetsovs want her dead."

"Are you sending her home?" Alejandro asked. "I'll have the plane ready whenever it's safe for her to travel."

"No. She insists on staying here, and, given how the meeting with her family went, I can't exactly blame her. I want you to send at least ten more men, including Gabriel and Hugo. She's not permitted to leave the house, so she'll need people she's familiar with to keep her from going stir crazy."

"I'll put them on the next flight," he agreed as I ended the call abruptly. Fortunately, the house was fully stocked with every weapon I could possibly need after the war we'd fought the last time we'd been in Chicago. I just needed the men to wield them.

As Santiago drove through the streets of Chicago to bring us back tomi reina, I considered Matteo's words. I never wanted her to know that she'd been sold as a child.

Especially when I'd been there and done nothing to stop it.

The space in my chest that I'd thought to be a void before Isa came into my life throbbed with pain at the look of betrayal I could picture on her face. I'd let my father sell my wife, never thinking anything of it beyond the horror that came with each and every life he’d ruined. If I hadn't burned him alive, Isa would have been dead long before I could spot her in Chicago and fall into her trap.

She could never know the truth.

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