Until Forever Ends: A Dark Mafia Romance by Adelaide Forrest (free children's ebooks online TXT) 📕

“I think you’re awfully angry for someone who claims not to care,” I argued, grabbing his wrist and shoving his hand off my stomach. “I think it kills you to know that I don’t want you enough to walk away from everyone who loves me.”

His eyes lit as something passed behind them, a thought I knew instantly he wouldn’t allow me to be privy to until he was ready. His lips curved into a smirk despite my harsh words, the punishment he’d no doubt crafted in his mind taking the sting away from him.

I could try to hurt him with my voice, but Rafael and I both knew that he was the one with all the power. He could crush me with a glance, break my heart with a word.

Destroy my soul with his touch.

“I suppose we will find out how much it matters in the end,” he murmured, taking my hand and guiding me toward the door of the bedroom without another word. While his mood had improved with whatever terrible plan he’d concocted to torment me, I grumbled at his heels as I followed. Knowing that Chloe was at least safe, Hugo was in the front of my mind. My concern for him grew, knowing that he lived close enough to be readily within Rafael’s grasp should I disobey him in a severe enough way to make him follow through on his threat to my friends.

I’d pressed enough for one conversation, but I’d need to ask after Hugo and his brothers soon enough, though part of me wondered if Hugo might be better off if I never mentioned him and hoped Rafael simply forgot he existed.

That didn’t seem likely for the man who saw everything and used it to his advantage.

As we moved through the halls, the house seemed different in the light of day. The shadows of the corners weren't ominous, but brightly lit with the Mediterranean sun. He turned to stare at me as we emerged from the labyrinth of halls, waiting until I stepped into the open space where he'd reminded me of the consequences for failing to escape him.

I'd never stood a chance against Rafael. I'd never had a hope of protecting my heart from him, of keeping him out of my soul. He'd claimed it as his. Even as I stared up into his dangerous eyes, I knew that no matter what he'd done, I would never get it back.

We all lived with formative events in our lives, moments that defined us as people. The day I'd placed my hand in Rafael's and let him take me to bed had been the day that would define me as a woman for the rest of my life. For better or worse, he’d stained my soul with his darkness, tangling it with my own until I couldn't deny what stared back at me from the shadows.

I'd never been meant for the light.

He wrapped his arm around my waist as I jolted in his touch, guiding me toward the kitchen and the woman who faced away from us. Stirring something on the stove, she spun slowly as we approached and Rafael pulled me forward with gentle hands. "Regina, this is my Isa," he said as her warm brown eyes dropped to mine. So like my mother's, the immediate comfort in them made tears burn the back of my throat irrationally, even as my irrational heart swelled at hearing Rafael call me his.

I missed my family in a way I'd never thought to experience, something that only came with the knowledge that I might never see them again. That they may never know what had happened to me. Forcing a smile to my face and resisting the tears that threatened at my eyes, I nodded to her in greeting. "It's nice to meet you."

"Oh, mi hija," she said softly, patting her hands on the dish towel she’d grabbed off the island in front of her and stepping around to meet us on the other side. Rafael's eyes were heavy on my face, his stare weighted by the confused furrow to his brow. She reached out a hand to slip a gentle finger beneath my chin and tilt it up to look at her. "She's so beautiful," she said warmly, turning a proud smile to Rafael. He never looked away from me, staring at my face as I turned my gaze away in a hurry to escape the questions in his eyes. "His mother would have loved you."

"You don't even know me," I said, whispering as I sniffled. The last thing I needed was for Rafael's mother to approve of me, but I still couldn't help the irrational grief I felt for a woman I'd never known.

For the closeness I felt to a ghost.

"It's in the eyes, reinita," she said, cupping my face in her hands. "You are everything she would have wanted in a daughter, and you wear that in them like a window to your soul." The words reminded me of my grandmother, of her assertions that you could tell everything you needed to know about a person with one search in their eyes.

The mouth could lie, but the eyes only ever spoke the truth of our souls.

If it was true, I wondered what she would see if she looked at Rafael. I'd seen the darkness in him that first night, but I'd thought it something I could withstand and then walk away. I hadn't seen the truth, but I wondered how much of that was because of my own desire not to see it.

"Go and work, El Diablo," Regina said teasingly as she waved him off. "I will take care of your Isa for now."

"Are you alright?" he asked me, ignoring her attempt to shoo him away. I turned my gaze to his finally, nodding my head even if the movement felt fragile. I wanted nothing more than to break down into tears, and