“You’re right, it should be that way. This is why your decision matters,” he says, before letting his hand fall from my face and letting out a sigh. “Whatever you choose to do, just know I’ll support you. There’s no judgment here.” I furrowmy eyebrows as his words sink in, tilting my head to the side. “I just want to be here for you, in any way I can. I’m here.”
“I just need time to think,” I whisper, instinctively cradling my stomach. “I don’t know how I feel about it, and I think you should know how I feel.”
He smiles, it is small, and it doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s more to comfort me. Maybe reassurance and for what it is. It works. My body instantly relaxes. “Thank you for trusting me with your thoughts.” Isaac’s eyes soften as he reaches for my face and cups it in his hand. “I love you, Veronica, and I’m here. Always and forever.”
Those words tug the remaining light left inside me, drawing it out from the eternal wave of darkness threatening to snuff it out. His golden eyes glisten with tears, and his fingers tremble against my skin. I can see the internal struggle—the relief that it’s his, but also the fear that it might be too much for me.
The fear that this isn’t real. But it is.
I’m not sure where we go from here. All I know is that tasting Isaac is something I could never go back to not having. He is the one thing I can’t give up on. My lifeline, and that’s my truth. I’m tired of living a lie, of living for others. I want to live to love. More importantly, I want to live for myself. With a smile and tears falling from my eyes, I say my truth, “I don’t know if I’ll be a good mother. I’m broken, Iz. I look at my hands and still see his blood… I feel him. I smell him.”
Isaac’s jaw clenches as he takes in my words. Without thinking or giving me a moment to prepare, his arms snake around me, pulling me into his bare chest. His warmth envelops me like a cozy blanket on a cold, rainy day. “You’re not broken. You just went through hell, and now you have to pick up the pieces, but you have me even though you don’t need it. You’re so fucking strong, so fucking strong, my pretty sunflower.” I let his words wash over me, knowing that he means every bit of it. Even though I don’t feel that way. Still I cling to his words, needing to believe them. Tofeelit. Despite knowing myself, that I’m broken. I could be optimistic, I know things could get better, but what if they didn’t? I shake those thoughts away as the darkness begins to take hold, and hold on to this moment. Right here,I want to be here. Stay here with him. Not with the memories. Still, the questions claw their way to the forefront of my mind.Could I bring a child into this world? Into my world?
My eyes burn from the tears beginning to form, my mind drifts to Harry, of the damp, musky smell permeating my skin. I hate that, despite my desire to heal, to move on, I feel stuck, but I wouldn’t let him see this. He needs to heal as much as I do. “I’m scared, Iz… I’m scared to tell my mom… I want this. I want us,” I say. “And it’s so fucked that it happened this way. I just wish that our beginning wasn’t tarnished by trauma.”
Iz’s nose flares. He doesn’t let me finish talking before his lips crash into mine. His tongue softly demands access to my lips, willingly obeying, allowing him to explore my mouth with a passion that leaves me breathless. His hands cradle my face with a gentleness that touches my soul. The kiss breathes life into me, his tongue a soft caress to my soul. I moan into his mouth, it’s not sexual but something guttural, born from emotion instead of lust. I can feel the warm tears stream down my face before he breaks away, whispering against my lips. “We’ll figure it out, Ronnie. We’ll face it all together.”
I bury my face in his chest and breathe him in as his arms hold me tighter. There’s no coming back from the basement… There’s no going back for us. This is my truth… Isaac Vargas is my truth. My beginning and my end.
“I won’t let you do this alone,” he whispers, peppering kisses on the top of my head. “You got me, girl. All I ask of you is don’t shut me out. Allow me the honor to be here for you, to hold your hand while you find yourself.” I melt further into him, needing to feel him close. Ineedhim. If I loved Isaac before, consider me officially and utterly addicted. Being with him for weeks, not being able to touch him, not being able to comfort one another…fuck, it made those years of depriving myself of him seem like nothing. Not knowing if we would leave that place alive and not being able to hold him made me want it even more. My heart beats frantically in my chest, my stomach tightens, and bile creeps up my throat.I hold on tighter. “I’m scared, Iz,” I whisper, tears pooling at the corners of my eyes. His arms tighten around me.
“It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay.… Just stay with me, we'll face everything together, even if I have to tear myself apart so you can be whole again.” He whispers into my wet hair, his hands running up my back in a soothing rhythm against the chaos brewing within me. “You will find your way out of the dark. I promise,” he murmurs into my hair again, his voice vibrating through me like the steady beat of a drum. “You’ve got me. Even if the world turns its back on us, we have each other. I love you so fucking much, and if you can’t love yourself, then allow me to love you for both of us, allow me to remind you every day how strong and deserving you are. Let me give you all the pieces of me. Wewillget through this. Ipromiseyou.”
Call me naive, but I believe him.
Nothing feels safer than his warmth, his arms. Isaac is my silver lining. I pull away, my fingers reach towards his face, and smile as I trace his jaw. Something I’ve always wanted to do—just touch him without feeling guilty, to love him without feeling like a sinner. I tilt my head up to meet his eyes, those soulful orbs that seem to hold a universe of promises just for me. Pressing a soft kiss on his jaw, I feel the stubble prick against my lips. Something raw, something precious, strengthens between us. “Thank you, Iz,” I say, “You’re my strength.” His nose flares, and one lone tear falls from his eye.
“Impossible… You’re mine. You’re everything… You saved me… us,” he says as he leans in and kisses me softly. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pull him closer, deepening our kiss because I can. Because I want to drown in our love… After being locked up in that basement, being raped, not knowing if I would ever experience this love, this connection, or even see my family again. It broke me. To think for weeks that I could die… and the last thing I would experience was hopelessness, emptiness, disgust… Harry’s touch. To be free… I wanted to live, but more than living, I wanted to love. I wanted to be free to love him. Feeling his warm breath against my face, his hands encasing me as if I were delicate porcelain—it feels like a dream. But I know it isn’t… he’s real… we’re real.
Chapter Thirty One
Veronica
Aknock at the door interrupts us, pulling us out of our bubble and slamming us back to a reality too painful for me to bear.
“Ms. Vargas, it’s Agent Blake with the FBI,” a woman’s voice calls out from behind the closed door. My stomach churns, my mouth instantly dries. My body tingles with anxiety at the mention of her name. Another reminder of what I went through. Another round of questions, I’m sure. My mind goes instantly to a worst-case scenario, as if I just didn’t experience and survive one. It conjures up even worse ones. I swallow over and over, trying to moisten my mouth as I hurry to dress myself with the soft two-piece flannel pajamas that either Max or Mom packed for me to have, when another knock startles me, making me squeak out, “Coming.”
I glance over at Iz, who hurries to get dressed in the same white shirt and grey sweats he appeared in before. I step out of the bathroom and take a seat on the bed, waiting for Iz to join me before allowing the agent inside the hospital room. Two women enter—one dressed in a grey suit with a perfect ponytail and an elegant stature, and the other with purple hair, jeans, pink Crocs, a pink sweater, freckles, and funky glasses that remind me of Rayna.
“Hi, I’m Elle, and I’m a victims’ advocate,” she introduces herself with a warm smile. “I just wanted to stop by and make myself available if needed. But I’m sure the agent has questions to ask.”
She looks over at Iz, who sits in a recliner with his right eyebrow raised and his hand covering his mouth as he rests his arm on his knee. The agent, whose nametag reads “Blake,” stands up straight from where she had been leaning against the doorframe. She gives us a curt nod, her piercing gaze flicking between Iz and me.
“I'm sure you have seen plenty of us, but I wanted to come by and formally introduce myself as the agent in charge of the case. I wanted to personally inform you that we found two more bodies, and while it might not pertain to you two, I think it’s better to be informed personally than to find out the news. Secondly, Priscilla is still alive, and she will be formally charged with kidnapping and a list of other crimes that are yet to be disclosed. Given that you two were the only couple to come out alive from that basement, we need to get every detail we can.”
I feel my blood freeze at the mention of more bodies. A sickening feeling churns in the pit of my stomach, making me shudder involuntarily as memories of the dank basement flood back. Blake pauses, her gaze shifting directly onto Iz, before opening a small notebook and retrieving a sleek pen from the pocket of her suit jacket.
“How about we start with how you ended up in that basement?” she asks, her eyes sharp and pointedly focused. Iz glances at me before he replies, his voice low and raspy as he begins to fill her in on the details. While I recall all the events from that night, everything was so normal until it wasn’t.
How it felt to see him hurt. How it felt the first time Harry raped me. Only leaving out how that night we almost gave in to our hunger for each other. Guilt gnaws at me, eating away my insides until there’s nothing left but despair. Tears stream down my face before I have a chance to stop them, my hands wipe away furiously, but they are no match for the speed of them. Agent Blake gives me a sympathetic look but remains silent, allowing Iz to tell our story. Iz’s voice trembles with suppressed emotion as he continues to share the details of those horrific experiences. Subjected to an endless cycle of terror for days on end. “What about Priscilla?” she asks. Iz opens and closes his hands as he recalls how she forced him to have sex with her, about the things we were forced to do. Blake’s harsh features soften perceptibly at the graphic recounting. The pen in her hand stills, suspended in mid-air as she listens intently to the horrors we were forcedto endure. I hide my face behind my hands, not daring to look at her reaction. Iz soldiers on, his voice growing hoarse.
“And how exactly did you escape?” she inquires, her voice betraying no emotion, though her knuckles are white as she grips her pen.
Iz glances at me again.
I don’t look, but I can feel his gaze on me as he speaks. He recalls how Harry was about to rape me after feeding me cheese, and dropped a knife. What Idid. How he manipulated Priscilla into releasing him, the desperation that had fueled his actions. With every word Iz speaks, I feel my mind being dragged back into the hell we’d narrowly escaped, into the echoes of pain, humiliation, and fear. Each syllable summons a new wave of goosebumps on my flesh as I'm forced to relive those nightmarish moments over and over. I’ve grown sick of the questions. The answer is always the same.
She sighs before clicking the pen twice and closing her notepad. “This is enough for now. Priscilla more than likely won’t cooperate, but we'll try to talk to her once she’s more alert. We might be able to get more information and closure for the families. I appreciate your cooperation. I understand this is painful for both of you,” she says. My hands feel sweaty and clammy, my heart fluttering in my chest. Before I can stop my words, they come out.
