Page 9 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

"Fuck you," I snapped back, racing away from Joaquin before he could grab me. With the knowledge that whatever he owed Rafael had been enough for him to step aside and hand me over, I’d be damned if I did a thing he told me to.

Sebastian reached out an arm as I passed, catching me around the waist and trying to contain me as I dropped my weight to the floor so suddenly that he shifted off balance and tipped forward. "What the fuck?" he asked. As he struggled to regain his footing, his grip loosened so that I could get free and race ahead of him. I might not know how to fight, but I knew how to get away thanks to Joaquin’s lesson.

"Isa!" Joaquin shouted, chasing after me as I threw the office door open and barged in on the chaos of the room. Andrés sat on the sofa, his head in his hands as Rafael destroyed everything in sight.

I'd never seen him so unhinged. His fury had always been carefully controlled and felt more like ice on my skin than what I knew must be blazing inside him. Watching him in that moment, I saw the devil who could stand among the flames and not be burned.

"Get her out of here," Andrés ordered as Joaquin emerged behind me. His arm wrapped around my waist, moving to drag me from the room as Rafael's blazing multicolored gaze settled on us.

His body stilled, a jarring pause in his destruction as his fury fixated on that offending limb and every inch of me that Joaquin touched. In the space behind me, the sounds of Sebastian making his appearance felt like it came from the other side of a fog.

My world narrowed down to the feeling of Rafael’s stare on me, on the animalistic way he watched every move I made. Somehow I knew that one wrong twitch from me would shatter the stillness in the room.

"Easy, Rafael," Andrés murmured. I was left with the distinct impression that while I may not know the Rafael who could lose control like this, there had been a time when he wasn't so restrained. My heart panged with the picture of a young boy raging against the injustice of his mother's murder and his father's abuse, so consumed by the violence inside him that he didn't know what to do to release it.

My need to calm him overcame the nerves pooling from the distinct impression that the center of this version of Rafe’s attention was a very dangerous place to be. "I think you may want to take your arm off me. Slowly," I said, reaching out a hand to touch Joaquin's. He allowed me to pry it from my body, my gaze holding Rafael's as I moved slowly. His head tilted in that way of his, the movement much more predatory than normal. Like the devil was too close to the surface, a beast all but unleashed. I took a step forward, watching him draw in a steady breath as his eyes narrowed in on my hand. I raised it, the tattoo and brand that marked me as his stark against my skin.

Another breath.

No part of him moved except his chest as his lungs released the air trapped within them. Then he inhaled again, his nostrils flaring as if he truly was an animal and he could smell me. What would he scent if he could? Would he smell himself on my skin?

"Talk to me, Rafe," I murmured as I took another step. Andrés moved on the sofa, looking like he might intervene as I moved close enough that my fingers brushed against Rafael's shirt. His muscle jumped beneath my touch, his eyes gliding down to study the contact of my hand on his chest.

He raised a hand to mine, wrapping his fingers around my palm and squeezing tightly. I swallowed back my nerves, choosing to believe that, in this moment, in this way, Rafael would never hurt me.

He would claim me and mark me and take me, but my nightmare wouldn’t damage me.

Those feverish eyes returned to mine, recognition finally settling in that piercing stare as I said, "I need to know what's going on."

He exhaled as he lifted my hand to touch his cheek. The stubble on his cheek scraped my palm as he pressed it in firmly, breathing deeply when I stepped into his chest and touched my torso to his. He wrapped his other arm around me, holding me tight as the office remained silent.

"He almost took you from me before I even found you. I'd have gone through my life without you, never knowing that you'd been taken from me," he murmured, seeming not to care if his cousin and uncle overheard the admission. It felt too close to revealing his love for me in front of others, and while I didn't have an issue with his family knowing how he felt about me, it felt like maybe Rafael would.

It hadn't been long ago that Regina had worried the knowledge of his feelings for me would put me in more danger. To be loved by the devil was to be very useful to his enemies.

"He tried, but he failed. Did your phone call provide anything useful?" I asked, studying the tight lines of his face.

"He won't help us," Rafe said, shaking his head as anger seeped back into his face. It chased away the lingering sadness that had accompanied his concern of almost losing me. "We'll have to find the answers for ourselves."

I nodded, because if I believed in anything, it was Rafael's ability to do whatever it took to get what he wanted.

He'd find his answers. I just hoped we were ready for whatever they might reveal.

* * *

Martina's arms wrapped around me, while the male members of Rafael's family kept their distance. I couldn't blame them, not with the shadows that continued to lurk in Rafael's gaze and the memory of his reaction to Joaquin’s attempt to restrain me. If any of the men so much as made a move too close to me, they might find himself lacking limbs.

Or a head.

Either was possible in Rafael's mood. While I thought I should hate the territorial bullshit of it, something about it soothed the frayed edges inside me after the last twenty-four hours.

I'd murdered a man in cold blood, and while he might not have been a good man, neither could I claim it was self-defense. Not when he'd been helpless by the time I stabbed him in the heart. I'd discovered that my connection to Rafael went farther than even he knew.

Even in the moments of knowing I couldn't and shouldn't trust my husband, his quiet ownership of me was a comfort.

"No one has ever pulled him back from one of his rages," Martina said quietly, drawing back with her hands on my shoulders to stare down at me. "After his mother's death, he was inconsolable. His father didn't want to deal with him, so he sent him here for us to attempt to bring him back from his devastation. That was the first summer he spent with us, and in the years following, the rages came with the season like clockwork." She paused, glancing over to where Rafael nodded at something his uncle said. The older man's eyes were gentle on his nephew, trying to convey something to him that I couldn't hear but understood was a private moment between the two of them.

"The anniversary of his mother's death was always the worst. We had to lock him in that shed on that day for years," she whispered, her eyes clenching closed as the reality of what they'd done overtook her. "He was unreachable and would hurt anyone who came near him. She might not have been perfect, but his mother loved him deeply. Losing her killed the last of what was human inside Rafael. Until you," she said. "Thank you for bringing him back to us." She leaned forward, touching her lips to my cheek before moving away to stand next to her sons.

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