Page 32 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

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Isa

"Did you nameMoonafter Luna?" I asked as we emerged from the restaurant and went to walk along the river. My heart was in my throat as it always was, trapped in the memory of what had happened the last time I walked alongside the river so freely. I'd avoided it like the plague since the accident that wasn't an accident, staying as far away from the dark water as I possibly could.

Something about having Rafe by my side soothed me and made me want to face that irrational fear. His father was dead and gone, never again to throw me into the river and drown me for some unknown reason. Never to stalk me and obsess over a child who'd survived his attempt at murder. The presence of our shadows at our back probably added the notion of some level of protection as well. I didn't know Santiago well, but I knew Joaquin well enough to know he would keep me safe.

From everyone who wasn't Rafael, anyway.

"Yes," Rafe agreed, a warm smile on his face as he leaned over the railing for the water. I kept some distance, not willing to step quite that close. "I rebranded the hotel after I went home, andMoonjust seemed appropriate. I didn't really consider that it was for her, but I suppose it was. Ivory was who set the events of the war in motion, and if that had never happened I wouldn't have needed to come to Chicago."

"I imagine lives would have been saved," I said, shaking my head to push back the hope in his voice. War could never be seen as a good thing.

"Some, but others would have been lost to the trafficking operation that we stopped. The men who died knew what they were fighting for. They were good men, good people, and I imagine it wasn't easy to say goodbye to some of them. But I think we honor their sacrifice by living, and by focusing on all that we accomplished through that fight," he said. "Besides, if I hadn't come to Chicago, I never would have met you. I can never regret that no matter how many people died for it.”

"You didn't exactly meet me," I said, refuting the reality of that statement as he pushed off the railing and stalked closer to me. The breeze on my face felt like a relaxing balm on a warm summer night, cooling me despite the humidity to the air.

He grinned, that dark tinted smile that I'd fallen so head over heels in love with before I ever understood the place where it came from and the depths of his darkness. I never could have guessed that he'd drag me into the darkness with him.

He moved so suddenly that I almost didn't even see him, lunging for me and tackling me to the ground. The sidewalk stung my back as we landed and skidded across the concrete, tearing the skin from my flesh as the sound of a gunshot cracked through the air.

His body covered mine completely, his hands tucking my head into his chest the best he could and those broad arms shielding the sides of my face with his own body. "Rafe!" I yelled over the sound of repeated gunfire, hoping to dislodge the man using himself as a barrier between me and bullets.

"On the count of three, run for the car," he said, grunting as his body jerked to the side. Warmth seeped through his clothes immediately, filling me with dread as I registered what the sticky substance dripping onto my chest was.

There was only a grunt of pain to indicate he even felt it, a single sound that resounded through me as my terror mounted. "You're shot," I gasped, reaching up a hand to press against the wound in his shoulder. Even through the fabric, the warmth of his blood seeped free, staining his white shirt with bright red in the shadows.

"I need you in the car,mi reina," Rafe rasped, fury in his voice. He pulled a set of car keys from his pocket, pressing them into my hand urgently. "One. Two." He paused, lifting his head to glance around him."Go."He vaulted up with shocking agility, despite his injury, and pulled the gun from his back pocket. I ducked low as I scrambled to my own feet, making for the stairs at the edge of the walkway that would take me up to the parking lot where we'd parked the SUV.

The sound of harsh breathing and heavy footfalls sounded behind me, making me spin backward in fear of who might be following. My eyes met Joaquin's, his shock of furious dark eyes roaming over me and checking for injury before he tucked me under his arm and hurried me to the foot of the steps. "Rafe," I said, wheezing past the catch of my breath in my lungs.

"He'll be fine," Joaquin argued. "He can take care of himself." We raced up the steps, leaving the gunfight next to the river and stepping into the more illuminated parking lot. Joaquin pushed me forward, turning to watch our backs and make sure no one followed us up the steps.

My feet took me closer and closer to the SUV, and I pressed the button on the fob to unlock the doors before I could reach it.

Heat suddenly knocked me back like two molten hands at my shoulders, shoving me away from the raging inferno in front of me. Time slowed as my feet left the ground with the force of the explosion, my body weightless for a few brief seconds before reality crashed back in.

My legs hit the ground first, crumpling beneath me and unable to absorb the force of the impact. My head cracked against the pavement, my sight lost to a blinding white light as the heat in front of me became unbearable and my skin felt molten.

There was no sound, only the void inside my head and the throbbing pain of every inch of my body. I shifted my legs on the pavement, the slickness of blood coating them as ringing filled my ears and I forced my eyes open. Joaquin stared down at me, panicked, his lips moving silently.

He exhaled a sigh of relief, his body drooping with the force of it. Reaching down, he prodded the back of my head gently. When he pulled it back, the red stain of blood covered his skin. He muttered something, his face twisting in fury as he turned back to look at the blazing inferno where the SUV had sat waiting for me.

I was struck with the terrible knowledge that, if I'd waited even seconds longer to unlock it, I'd be dead. Burned alive like Rafael's mother.

"Hurts," I groaned, my lips feeling cracked as I forced them to move and form the words.

Sound trickled in, the pain in my ears only amplifying the throbbing in my skull. "You've got to get up,mi reina," Joaquin said, his voice soft as if muffled by a pillow despite the urgency on his face. Sirens split the silence of the night, a ringing shriek in the distance as I turned to my stomach and forced myself up onto hands and knees. Gunshots peppered my hearing periodically, confirming that the fight was far from over.

And there was no vehicle to protect me.

Standing slowly, I unfolded my body to full height and winced as I looked down at myself. At the pink skin on my arms where the heat from the explosion had barely kissed my flesh.

Joaquin took my hand, guiding me to the shadows at the side of one of the buildings. He folded me into the wall, bracing his body over mine as he kept a watchful eye on the light at the corner. Tucked safely into the shadows, he heaved a sigh as he watched. "You're okay," he whispered, running a hand over the lump at the back of my head as my body swayed and nausea burned my throat.

The gunfire stopped, the air consumed by silence except for the approaching sirens.

I stilled as a figure appeared in the lights of the parking lot, coming to a sudden stop in front of the SUV and staring at in horror. The sound of the furious roar was distant, like it somehow came from another world and pierced the veil between the living and the dead. The wind caught my name, carrying it through the air as Joaquin took my hand and guided me away from the wall.

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