Page 38 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

“Isa!” a male voice yelled urgently, making me lose my footing on the slick shower floor as I spun to stare into Rafe’s unique eyes. Concern knotted his brow, turning his lips into a frown as he reached into the shower. Fully clothed, he didn’t seem to mind the water drenching his suit as he turned it to warm. “You’re freezing.”

He stepped into the shower with me, working the conditioner from my hair. The shivers wracking my limbs somehow felt more pronounced with his body pressed into mine. He didn’t bother to wash my body, shutting off the water as soon as my hair was rinsed and pulling me out of the shower to wrap me in one of the massive, plush towels hanging on the rack.

“What were you thinking?” he asked, scrubbing the towel over my skin until I was dry and staring into my eyes as he knelt at my feet to dry off my legs. I winced as the towel rubbed over my wounds, pinpricks of pain emerging from the icy void of nothing the shower gave me.

I didn’t answer as he wrapped the towel around my body, stepping back far enough to strip off his drenched suit quickly. The fabric flopped to the floor in a heap, his arms reaching forward to snag me behind the knees and back as he lifted me into his arms.

The towel pinned my arms to my sides, leaving me trapped in his hold as he made his way out of the bathroom and for the massive bed in the center of the room we shared. “Your shoulder,” I said, squeezing the words past the rattling of my teeth.

“Shut the fuck up, Isa,” he growled, setting me on the edge of the bed. He carefully pulled the towel out from around me, glaring down at my naked body as if it offended him and guiding me to lie back in the bed. He slid in beside me, tugging me forward until my head rested on his chest, then covered us in the blankets. “What were you doing in the cold shower?”

“Am I allowed to speak now?” I asked, hating that the venom in my voice was diluted by the tremble to my teeth and the way I sank into his warmth. He winced as my feet pressed against his legs, seeking the comfort of his familiar embrace.

“Now is not the time to get smart with me,” he warned, running a hand through the hair on the side of my head affectionately to contrast the harshness of his words.

“I just like the cold,” I said, burying my face in his neck and wanting nothing more than to pretend the conversation didn’t need to happen. I couldn’t explain the shame I felt, knowing he’d been shot and went on with his day like it didn’t affect him.

“Since when?” he asked, his body going still beneath me. “The explosion?”

I didn’t answer, finding it impossible to grasp the words to explain when I didn’t understand it myself.

“Isa,” he said, his voice a stern warning.

“Yes,” I mumbled. “I know it’s stupid. You wereshot, and yet you go out there every single day and don’t worry about it happening again. I just—” I paused, the breath expelling from my lungs in a sudden rush as tears stung my eyes. “How am I supposed to get in a car ever again? How doyouget in a car without being terrified?”

He sighed, clutching me tighter to his chest. “Mi reina,why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I can’t do this,” I said, my breath hitching with the sob that felt like it tore free from my soul. “I’m not strong enough—”

“Don’t you dare. You’re strong enough to survive me, and you’re strong enough to survive these people who mean nothing,” he said.

I stared into his face, realizing he didn’t understand. Even with the threat to my life, it wasn’t the fear of my own death that kept me up at night. “I’m not strong enough to loseyou,” I said, wincing when he flipped me to my back and hovered over me.

He stared down at me as he finally understood, his eyes warm in the dim lights of the bedroom. His forehead touched mine, a ragged sigh leaving his parted lips. “You won’t ever lose me,” he promised, but the words were hollow with the knowledge that he couldn’t control death.

Even the devil didn’t have that power.

“Every time you leave, I stare out the window with my heart in my throat. I can’tbreathein those moments until the car is out of sight, and then I sit here and I think about how the fire felt on my skin, and I wonder if that’s how you’ll die. If the skin will melt off your bones while I sit here waiting for you to come home. I don’t want to be helpless anymore, so that I can go with you,” I said.

“The condition of us staying in Chicago was that you stayed home. You’re safest here,” he said, his tone deepening as he prepared to argue.

“I know,” I whispered back. “I’m not asking for you to let me go with you tomorrow. I’m asking you to help me not be such a liability. You took a fucking bullet for me, but if I’m going to die, then I want to do it with you.”

“You’re not going to die,” he argued, his brow furrowing as he stared down at me. The tense lines of his lips made something in me settle, knowing that he would fight death itself to keep me by his side.

“If you’re gone, I don’t want to exist without you. I don’t care if that makes me fucked up or stupid. I didn’t survive everything you did to me and forgive you for it just to live my life without you.”

“You just said you were afraid to get in a car,mi reina,” he said, his voice going soft as he tried to reason with what I knew had to feel unreasonable. “I can’t stay here, even if there wasn’t work to be done, if we want answers.”

“I’m not asking you to,” I admitted. “I just want you to teach me not to be helpless. I don’t want you to have to cover my body with yours the next time this happens, or send me to the car so I can be safe. I want to at least be able to function in the situations we might find ourselves in. I know you want me to stay home and protected all the time, but that isn’t an option for me.”

He groaned, pulling his weight off the top of mine and sitting up. He stared down at me where I clutched the blanket to my chest. “It’s not as easy as taking you into a field and teaching you how to throw a punch. If you want to fight in my world, there are guns involved. Knives.Bombs.Even amidst all of that, your own fear is your worst enemy. If you want to stand any chance of not freezing in the face of all that terror, you have to get used to being afraid for your life. Are you ready for that? For what that will do to you as a person and what it will mean to have fear be a constant companion until you no longer feel it?”

“Yes.” I nodded, feeling like I’d signed the last piece of my soul away to the devil. He’d started calling memi reina,recognizing the shift frommi princesalong before I was ready.

But as the nod he gave me in return settled into me, I knew I’d let go of the last pieces of the girl I’d once been. The only difference was the thought no longer filled me with dread.

I wouldn’t miss her.

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