Page 115 of In the Dark

“Have you had your period? When was the last time you slept with him?” She threw the questions at me like I was on a game show, but the price was my life.

“Jesus, Tía.” The anger bubbled up inside me fast, and it burst out everywhere so quickly I couldn’t rein it in. “I had trauma to my uterus. Did you forget?” I whispered furiously at her.

“Bah! No. I did not. It’s why Monte and I made sure to get you these.” She shoved packages of pills in my hand. “Make sure you’re taking them so you don’t conceive. You’ve already been unsafe and stupid enough.”

“Unsafe and stupid?” I felt like I was gasping the words. After how I’d put myself here, after how I’d tried my best over and over again to show her that I was doing everything I could for the family. “I gave him my hand instead of Maribel’s.”

“Monte wanted it to be Maribel. We are supposed to listen to him. Not question his decisions. You did, though. You thought it your place to do anything without him telling you to?” She poked at my shoulder. “He runs this family now.”

“But I’m a part of it,” I whispered, because didn’t she see that I’d been doing all I could?

“You’re ungrateful, and you don’t listen. So listen now. You tell us every single thing that man is doing with our businesses so we can stay afloat through these two years.”

“I have …”

“Well, the sex trafficking was one thing, mija. And I understand your heart. But that makes enemies. Men who thought they would remain anonymous.” She’d been so kind, so understanding when I told her at dinner with Callahan.

“But you said—”

“I said what I had to at the table with a Diamond.” She tutted. “Now, shape up. Don’t fall in love. And keep it together. For the family.”

For the family?

What was a family?

Who was my family when I was about to marry into another one? I couldn’t tell her it was too late. I couldn’t tell her I was already halfway down the throat of the dragon that was Callahan and I already liked the heat way too much.

“Don’t worry, Tía,” I whispered, my voice sounding steadier than I felt. “I know exactly who he is. I know exactly who I am too.”

I didn’t, though. Before, I would’ve apologized to her, I would have scrambled across the floor to find the broken pieces of our relationship and mend them, I would have even offered up the SD card I still had hidden.

Before I was loyal to them.

All for the family.

Now, I wasn’t sure if I was loyal to anyone at all.

Because the one thing I could agree with my tía on:

I hadn’t had my period. And the doctor had said I was healthy enough to do so.

The music swelled, a haunting cello arrangement that sounded more like a requiem than a processional. I stepped out onto the sprawling lawn of Callahan’s estate, my heels sinking slightly into the perfectly manicured grass.

The dress had come hand delivered to our home, sent directly from the designer. It was simple, yet perfect. Timeless but also sexy. It was conservative, but with a slit that also screamed fearless.

And it was a pure, pure white.

Not because I was innocent and untouched. Not because I was some lamb being led to the slaughter. I had earned it the same as every bride, lied for it, and survived the wreckage of my family to stand here. Whether I was walking toward the love of my life or the bane of my existence didn’t matter.

Today, they were the same man. Callahan had changed me. Made me someone different. Made me someone I might be proud of, but I wasn’t sure of yet.

I stared ahead, but not at him. I took in the beauty of the setup. It was like a page ripped from an elite bridal magazine, but with a darker, sharper edge. Thousands of delphiniums and hydrangeas in shades of electric and midnight blue spilled over ivory pillars. Callahan had personally seen to the palette; he’d wanted the florals to match the rebellious blue streaks in my hair.

That one detail—the fact that he noticed the small, jagged parts of me and wanted to celebrate them—brought a burn to my throat that I fought to swallow. He was supposed to be the enemy, yet he was the only one who had ever really seen me.

The estate glittered. Thousands of hand-cut crystals hung from the weeping willow trees, catching the dying orange light of the sun and shattering it into a million jagged diamonds. The elite of Paradise Grove stood in silence along with the Irish, Ruizes, politicians, celebrities, and CEOs alike. I saw the disdain on women’s faces and the cold anger in the men’s. But as I passed, I caught the eyes of my tía and tío. Their eyes held fear.

Adamantem infractum manet. It was the first time I thought it. The first time I felt so completely disconnected from the two people I thought were there to help me all along that I almost froze to comfort them rather than myself.