Page 66 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

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Isa

“Señora Ibarra, your mother is here,” Aaron said, stepping into the kitchen where I sat at the breakfast nook with my chess set in front of me and played by myself. Running through the strategies I’d spent weeks studying.

The specific methodology to chess, and the ability to respond and analyze all the pieces on the board, was something that I had to imagine came easy to a man like Rafael who was used to manipulating people to serve his purposes.

“My mother?” I asked, furrowing my brow as I stood from the chair. I peeked around him toward the entryway, not hearing any noise from inside the house.

“She’s at the gate,” Aaron agreed. “Señor Ibarra indicated it was up to you if I let her on the property.”

I glanced out the window, knowing there hadn’t been enough time for her to come to the realization that Odina was a leach and would continue to take the patience and kindness she offered her and abuse it. That she would continue to abuse everyone in her path.

Especially if Rafe was right, and my mother’s tolerance didn’t stem from her own guilt but from humoring her because she too blamed me. I swallowed back my nerves, nodding to Aaron as I moved to the kitchen to pour the lemonade that I now knew was a pregnancy craving.

Sour things kept the increasing nausea at bay, and sometimes it felt like I could drink a jar of pickle juice and feel like I was walking on a cloud.

A few moments passed, with me using a spoon to add extra sugar to my mother’s lemonade so that her stomach wouldn’t turn from the tart flavor. When the front door finally opened, I returned the pitcher to the fridge and turned to stare at my mother as Aaron led her into the room. “Would you prefer I send for the brothers, or are you comfortable with me staying?” he asked, his face soft despite the usually harsh lines I saw on the man’s face.

I paused, considering the words as I turned to stare at my mother.

“Surely I can be alone with my own daughter?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and leveling Aaron with a glare.

“After the issues of your last several visits, I would prefer you not be alone with Señora Ibarra. Perhaps one day you’ll be worthy of trusting, but that is not today,” he said, raising an eyebrow as if he dared her to argue with his point.

“Thank you, Aaron. Could you call for Joaquin? I think his calming presence will be beneficial today,” I said, giving him a soft smile to ease the blow of the dismissal. I’d have sent for Hugo, but the fact that my mother knew him meant he would only be a distraction. Joaquin was mostly a stranger to her, but he challenged me to be my best self.

He pushed me to stand up for myself and take no shit, and if I’d learned anything in dealing with my mother since coming home, it was that I needed that push.

No longer could I be the whipping girl for the crime I had committed as a child.

Aaron pulled his phone from his pocket, stepping into the entryway but keeping us within his line of sight as he spoke into it. “Would you like some lemonade?” I asked, pushing the glass to the other side of the island.

She stepped forward, shaking her head as she perched on top of one of the stools. “I had hoped to have a word alone with you.” She shot a look to where Aaron had hung up his phone, his hands crossed behind his back in a military stance as he watched wordlessly. “I think what I have to say will come as quite a shock, and since it is about my life and personal business, it is none of your husband’s business.”

“That may be the case, but I keep no secrets from Rafael. Regardless of Joaquin’s presence, I would have told him what we discussed when he returns home tonight.” I nodded my head to Joaquin as he swapped places with Aaron, turning to settle in at the breakfast nook. He took the seat I had occupied previously, studying the board and looking for weaknesses in my play.

I’d forced him to play with me far too often since coming to Chicago.

“I won’t relay anything that he doesn’t need to know,” he said, moving one of my pawns and giving me a smirk that told me he knew how much it irritated me when he touched my pieces. “I’ll leave that up to Isa to decide. I am just here to make sure this conversation is a productive one. Otherwise it doesn’t need to happen at all, Leonora.”

“Fine,” my mother sighed, settling into her seat more thoroughly as I took a sip of my lemonade. “This may come as a surprise to you considering the way I tried to raise you to be better than me, but I was not a virgin when I met your father.”

I stilled, wondering what could possibly come of discussing my mother’s sex life. While I’d never given it any thought, I had assumed her no sex before marriage stance had applied to her as well.

The hypocrite.

“Okay?” I asked, a small smile curving my lips despite the grimy feeling sliding through my body. “There’s no harm in that, Mom.”

“I was involved with a man before I met your father. He was—” She paused, a bitter grin taking her face as her eyes went wistful. “He was incredible. Wealthy and charming in a way that I never thought to experience for myself given my upbringing here.”

I’d never met my mother’s family. Never had the opportunity or explanation, purely because she said that they weren’t a part of our lives and never would be, and that was the end of it. “He sounds like he treated you well.”

“He did, and I needed that after I’d disobeyed my mother to go on my whirlwind trip in Europe. It wasn’t safe for a girl like me, but I wanted to know the country where she’d been born. I thought she would understand when I came home, but while I was in Spain I met him. I decided to stay with him, thinking myself in love like a fool,” she scoffed.

I froze, possibilities running through my mind as I gaped at her. She’d never spoken of a trip to Europe before, never even hinted at what might have been the biggest adventure of her life. “You spent time in Spain?” I asked, the breath whooshing out of me suddenly. The memory of the fear in her eyes, the cautionary tale that must have run through her mind when she said goodbye to me before I left for Ibiza was all consuming. Too fresh in my mind as I stared at the mother who felt like a different person.

“Nearly a year,” she said, smiling sadly. “He put me in an apartment and we dated. He told me his family life was complicated, and I knew there was a woman he was supposed to marry for business purposes. I believed he loved me, and that he would never go through with the wedding to a woman he barely knew, but they were married six months into our relationship,” she said, shaking her head as if she was disgusted with the memory of it.

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