Page 68 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

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Rafael

Sliding my phone into my back pocket, I turned to level Ryker with a look that communicated just how little fucks I had left to give. Joaquin’s urgent voice rang in my ears, the discovery of a connection that shouldn’t have existed making me wonder what else I’d missed that had been right in front of my face.

I’d never told Andrés Isa’s last name, and especially not her mother’s maiden name. Isa looked nothing like her mother, taking after her father’s side of the family with the fawn skin and almond-shaped eyes. Her every feature was different from her mother’s, striking in a way I couldn’t ever imagine Leonora achieving.

She looked like she’d been born in Spain.

I picked up the sledgehammer from Ryker’s stash of tools, swinging it with all my might and a loud roar. It landed on Timofey’s kneecap, shattering it instantly as he screamed. “Fuck!”

I rattled off the date of Isa’s drowning, grabbing him by the hair and snapping his head back until his lazy half-swollen eyes met mine. “What was my father doing in Chicago?” I repeated the question I’d asked far too often in the time since the attack.

“Visting Bellandi and probably fucking everything that walked.” He spat at my face, barely missing before it dribbled back onto his chin. “The anniversary of your bitch of a mother’s death was always the worst.”

Ryker moved at my side, but held back when I raised a hand to stop him. The answers I needed were a step away. Defending my mother’s memory could come when I made sure Timofey died painfully, when he had nothing left to tell me.

“What does that have to do with Isa’s mother?” I asked, watching as understanding lit in his eyes. The fucker knew, had known about that connection the entire time, and why he was protecting a dead man went beyond me.

“He liked to check up on Leonora from time to time,” he wheezed, a smile pulling at the cracked skin of his lips. “Just to make sure she hadn’t been naughty and talked about family business. You know how it goes. But there was no way she ever said a word. From what I saw the one time I went with him, the house was all but dilapidated. The information she had would’ve been worth money in the right hands.”

“It seems excessive to still be checking on her twenty years after her affair with Andrés,” I said, quirking an eyebrow.

“So he had a little crush. It wasn’t often that women dared to say no to Miguel Ibarra, and the protection your uncle put on her only made her more interesting. I don’t think he went to see her every year by any means, or even every visit to Chicago. He just kept an eye on her, because if she ever stepped out of line Andrés protection would be meaningless.”

“Why did he throw her daughters in the river?” Ryker asked, his eyes darting back and forth as we worked to catch up on the information he’d missed in my conversation with Joaquin.

Timofey laughed, turning his face to mine. “This doesn’t have the answer you’re looking for. There’s no deep plot twist to explain the madness that consumed Miguel’s mind and rotted his logic.”

“Fucking tell me,” I snapped, crushing the bones of his hand with a swing of the sledgehammer. He groaned, the sound of his voice drowning out the cracking as he tried to wiggle his fingers in the aftermath.

“Did he ever tell you that he heard your mother nagging him even after he fucking killed her? God, he wished he could kill the bitch all over again for the way she tortured him. It was always the worst in the summer, which was why he never stayed on your fucking island for the anniversary of her death, and sent you to stay with Andrés when you were too young to be on your own. He was so much fucking fun to be around in the summer months. Half-crazed and ready to throw down with any man who so much as looked at him. Willing to fuck anything that caught his eye,” he said, closing his eyes slowly as if he was picturing a rather fond memory. “Dima said he and Miguel were walking along the river. Looking for something tofuckwhile Miguel did his compulsory check in on Leonora.”

“Dima was there with him,” I said, the breath escaping my lungs in surprise. “He was practically a child then.” The very same Kuznetsov who had purchased Isa had been there the day she drowned.

That hardly seemed like a coincidence.

“He was probably ten. Our father gave us whores to play with as soon as we could fight, much like yours,” he said, giving me a pointed look. While my father’s women hadn’t been the same as the Kuznetsovs’, who were forced to work for the family, it was no secret that my initiation to sex had come far earlier than it should have.

“That doesn’t explain why he tried to kill Isa,” I said, a warning sounding in my voice. To be so close to the answers I needed, then to have the man who had them dance around the subject needlessly—I wanted to slit his fucking throat.

“She never stood a chance,” he said, a demented laugh bubbling free. “He took one look at those fucking eyes of hers andknewthat she was a witch. On the anniversary of the day he burned your witch of a mother at the stake? That could hardly be a coincidence to Miguel. He figured if he gave your mom a present, maybe she’d let him off the hook and stop fucking haunting his crazy ass.”

“What?” I asked, going still at the demented answer. After hunting for it for what felt like forever,thatwas it? Another symptom of my father’s madness, another victim to his witch hunt.

“I’m sure it didn’t hurt that Leonora would lose her daughter, well, daughters, since the other one was stupid enough to follow Isa. Your mother always wanted a daughter,” he said, tipping his head to the side with that deranged smile on his face. He knew damn well that his time was coming to an end, that I’d kill him when I was satisfied I had all the answers.

The pain in his beaten and broken body had to be enough motivation to finally give me what I wanted. I glanced over the parts of his body, the missing nails and skin peeling off his arms, the leg and arm bent at awkward angles even though he was secured to the chair.

“A witch for a witch,” I said, humming my dissatisfaction. “But Isa lived.”

“And your father’s obsession ensued,” he said, twisting his lips into a frown. “What do you think your sweet little wife will think of you when she finds out you watched your father and Dima sign her life away and did nothing to stop it? Will she be so forgiving of that?”

“What did Dima want with her?” I asked, ignoring his attempt to prod at the regret I felt over the inability to save the children my father had hurt.

I’d done what I could, when I could. It hadn’t been in time for the others, but ithadsaved Isa.

I was selfish enough that she was the most important to me, but not enough that I didn’t feel the weight of the other’s lives.

“Dima and your wife have far more in common than you think,El Diablo,” he said, tipping his head back to relax the muscles in his neck. I hefted the sledgehammer in my hands, ready to begin the process of deciphering that cryptic message.

The one that he wasn’t ready to share.

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