Page 53 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

“It’s negative?” I asked, stepping up beside him with hope surging through me. I just needed moretime.Time to figure out who I was becoming and if I evenlikedher. Time to decide who I wanted to be outside the confines of my family’s expectations and the cage without walls where I’d locked myself.

Two solid,verypink lines showed in the window on the stick. My hand went to my stomach, fingers digging into the fabric of my nightgown and swallowing past the lump in my throat.

I was pregnant, and my child would be the son or daughter ofEl Diablo.

“Rafe,” I whispered, the burn of tears stinging my throat. The thought that maybe he’d changed his mind, that he’d only thought this was what he wanted threatened to make me collapse in the seconds before he pivoted and snatched me up in his arms.

His mouth hit the top of my head, his breath ruffling my hair as he sighed contentedly. With my arms still wrapped around myself, I made no move to hug him back. His joy filled the bathroom, dancing over my skin as he smiled into the top of my head and laughed happily. “You’re pregnant,” he murmured.

I stayed silent, not wanting to disrupt his happiness with the storm of emotions raging inside me. I loved Rafe. I even lovedEl Diablo, but to bring a child into his world was at best irresponsible. And at worst? Selfish. What kind of life could a child ever have with two murderers for parents?

“Oh God,” I sobbed, crumpling in his arms as he supported my weight. “My family will thinkthisis why I married you. They’ll think it’s because I was stupid and got knocked up. We can’t tell them.”

“You want to keep our child a secret from its grandparents?” Rafael asked, pulling back to stare down at my face. The clench to his jaw told me just how thoroughly I’d pissed him off with my demand, his eyes blazing with accusation as he didn’t even try to consider how it felt to be eighteen and pregnant.

“Not forever,” I explained quickly, tugging out of his grip and resuming my pacing in the bathroom. Rafael dropped the pregnancy test on the counter, his arms hanging by his sides with all the tension of a cobra about to strike. I swallowed back my fear, plowing forward even though Iknewit was stupid. “Just until things settle.”

“No,” he said, his nostrils flaring in anger. “I will not hide the fact that my wife is pregnant. This should be a time of happiness,mi reina—”

“And it would have been, if you’d given me time like I asked!” I shouted, knowing in the deepest part of me that I would have found a way to cope with the reality of my life with the murderer. That I’d have come to terms with raising a child with him and even looked forward to it. But he’d taken that away from me.

Away from us.

I clutched my stomach as he prowled toward me, my fingers digging into the fabric of my nightgown as I sidestepped him and left the bathroom to go to the more spacious bedroom for the fight I knew was coming.

Dropping onto the bed, I hung my head in my hand while the other still held my stomach. As if touching it could make me bond with the child I wasn’t ready for. “I’m not ready for this,” I mumbled, looking up at Rafael’s pained stare. The anger in his body was palpable, and while I wouldn’t have said that anything in him was capable of feeling guilt for something he’d forced on me, there was a lingering sadness in his eyes.

Sadness that I didn’t want the child he’d so desperately tried to make.

“We’re monsters. Ikilledsomeone, and while his blood covered my hands, I was already pregnant,” I said.

“We’re nightmares who will protect our children no matter the cost,” Rafael said, stepping closer to me. He placed a finger under my chin, tilting my head up to meet his eyes as he cupped my cheek in his hand. Darkness filled his eyes, all that possessive obsession that I’d thought we could overcome.

I’d given him everything. Caved to every demand he’d given, with very little resistance.

All because I loved him.

“I don’t understand how it happened so quickly. Some couples try for years and never conceive,” I whispered, watching the skin on his cheek twitch as he pursed his lips.

“You were given a fertility shot when you were unconscious,” he said, holding my chin as I jolted back from his touch in shock.

My body seized, staring up at him and waiting for the moment when he would take it back. When he’d tell me it was a cruel joke. “What?” I whispered when it didn’t come.

He clenched his jaw, not bothering to repeat the words he knew I’d heard loud and clear. He didn’t take them back or apologize, only staring at me and watching me process from where I sat on the bed I shared with him.

The bed I’d shared with the man who’d proved time and time again that he would deceive and manipulate to get what he wanted, and never care whatIwanted. “When I brought you toEl Infierno, a doctor gave you a fertility shot. It was the right time of your cycle to take effect before you ovulated.”

I didn’t even want to think about the amount of planning and forethought that had gone into tracking my cycle. To knowingwhenI would be ovulating.

“You did what?” I whispered again, shaking my head as I stared up at him. He sighed, reaching up a hand to cup my cheek as if it didn’t matter. What difference did it make to Rafael when the end product was the same, regardless?

But it fucking mattered tome.

I slapped his hand away, watching as fury filled his eyes and he raised that hand again. When it came near me, I swatted him away more harshly, the slap of my hand against his skin echoing in the silence of the bedroom. “It was bad enough that you took away my choice, but this?” I asked, placing two hands on his stomach and shoving him back with all my might. He stumbled, his brow furrowing as I stood and moved away from the bed. I couldn’t even look at it, couldn’t think about sleeping in the same bed as him.

Maybe not ever again.

“What does it matter?” he asked, shaking his head as he followed me to the little sitting area next to the massive windows. I spun, panting as I glared at him. My lungs heaved with the need to make him feel every bit of the pain he’d given me.

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