"You fucking bastard." The words come out low and level and I mean every single one of them. "She is nine years old!”
His expression doesn't move. Not a flicker. "She is nine years old, she is completely unharmed, and she will remain that way as long as you do exactly what I tell you. So, I suggest you take a breath and listen."
I want to put my hands around his throat. I want to take his phone and throw it into the dark and scream until someone comes. I want to grab my sister and run until we hit water deep enough to disappear into.
Instead I breathe. One breath. Then another.
I look at her face on the screen and I breathe.
"There's a burner phone in your jewelry box," he continues, like this is a normal conversation between a father and a daughter on her wedding day. "You'll contact me with updates. Regularly. If you try to warn Rafael or anyone in the Brotherhood, Laurapays. If you refuse to cooperate, Laura pays. If you disappoint me in any way?—"
"I understand." The words come out even. They taste like something rotten. "I understand you."
"Good girl." He straightens his jacket. "Rafael will expect to consummate the marriage tonight. Don't give him any reason to think something is wrong. Be convincing."
And he walks away.
I stand there in the shadows at the edge of this beautiful expensive lie of a party and I let it all arrive.
He never considered that I wouldn't. Not for a single second. He built this entire plan around me and it never once crossed his mind that I might be a person who could refuse.
I fold it up. All of it. Somewhere I can't see it right now.
Then I turn back toward the reception.
Rafael is where I left him.
Watching me. Not staring, not obviously, but positioned so that I was in his sightline the entire time, and when my eyes find his he doesn't look away or pretend he wasn't watching. He justholds the look with that steady unhurried patience and there is a question in it he isn't asking out loud.
I have to betray you.
The thought arrives clean and cold and terrible.
He starts walking toward me and I lock every single thing behind every wall I have.
"They're asking for us," he says when he reaches me. "Time to leave."
I look at him. This man I married today. This stranger I'm going to lie to.
"Ready, little Gia?"
My jaw tightens.
Little Gia. He has known me for approximately six hours and he is already?—
"Let's go," he says firmly.
And I follow him out because I don't have a choice.
I'm sorry,I think, watching the back of Rafael's head as he walks ahead of me.
I don't examine why.
CHAPTER FOUR
RAFAEL
She's going to be a problem.
