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

the end of the aisle. Hugo went along willingly, his shoulders sagged as his brothers watched and did nothing to intervene. Rafael dropped his hand from my waist, reaching into the back of his pants beneath his suit jacket and pulling a gun from his pocket. I blinked at the sight of it, my eyes going wide as I thought over the possibilities of what he might mean to do.

Hurting Hugo because I wouldn't marry him was insane on another level, but it was far from beyond the realm of possibility when it came to El Diablo. "What are you doing?" I asked, my voice a harsh whisper as Alejandro pushed Hugo to his knees. In the same position as he'd been a few nights prior and I'd gotten between them. Rafael's gun pressed against his forehead as his eyes came to me.

"Will you make me kill him, mi reina?" he asked as my lungs heaved. I turned my gaze down to look at Hugo, at the nervousness on his face. It was no act, or if it was, he hadn't been let in on the secret. Joaquin stood from his seat in the background, his eyes pleading as they connected with mine. "Or should I find Chloe and make her suffer for what she told you after all?" Rafael asked, drawing my attention back to him. The devil danced in his eyes, his fury rising with every second that I hesitated.

Part of me could almost justify letting Hugo die. The darkest part of me tried to say that he would deserve it for what he'd done to me. But Chloe was an innocent. The friend who'd risked everything to tell me the truth I'd been too naive to see for myself. There was no justifying letting her suffer for my problems, but I still couldn't make myself say the words to end it all.

Rafael pulled his gun back, slamming it into Hugo's face brutally as I watched the skin split open before my eyes. "Make your choice, Isa," he growled, fury growing more as I clenched my eyes closed and separated myself from him in that final way. I wouldn't give him the victory of my eyes when I caved to his demands, knowing there was no other choice.

Even if I hadn't resisted at all, there'd never been a choice.

"Okay," I whispered, my eyes flying open as Alejandro grabbed Hugo and hauled him out of the way. Rafael took my hand in his, storming up the aisle quickly as I scrambled to keep up on my aching legs.

The moment Rafael and I stood before him, the Priest spoke. "We are gathered here today to celebrate one of life's greatest moments, the joining of two hearts. In this ceremony today we will witness the union of Rafael Ibarra Vasquez and Isabel Alawa Adamik in marriage." Rafael’s mother’s maiden name was another piece of information I’d never known about him, hanging on the end of his name like a sign of everything I still didn’t know.

My heart dropped into my throat, my heart catching in my chest as I stared at the priest in front of me. The crowd of people behind us was eerily silent, the heavy weight of their gaze on my spine making tears sting my eyes. An island full of people, and no one would intervene.

An island full of people, and they'd happily watch Rafael force me to be his wife.

"Rafe," I murmured, turning to look at him. I couldn't do it. I couldn't condemn myself to this for the rest of my life. He slid his massive hand beneath my hair, grabbing me around the back of the neck and turning my head sharply until I faced the priest.

"Get the fuck on with it," he ordered. The heavy weight of his hand never left me, holding me still as I stifled the strangled sob that tried to claw its way up my throat.

"Why are you doing this?" I whispered, clenching my eyes closed. "I stayed. When will it ever be enough?"

"When you're my wife," he growled, his fingers gripping my flesh so harshly I almost fell to my knees at his side. "When you're pregnant with my son. When I am imprinted on your very fucking soul," he snapped. "Only then will it ever be enough, mi reina."

"Do you, Rafael, take Isabel to be your wedded wife, to cherish in love and in friendship, in strength and in weakness, in success and in disappointment, to love her faithfully, today, tomorrow, and for as long as the two of you shall live?" The Priest's words crawled over my skin, the meaning something entirely different for most people than it would be for me.

There would be no divorce for me. No matter what he did, Rafael would never let me go.

"I do," he said, the words cracking against the evening air. I glanced up at him from the corner of my eye, finding his bright gaze turned to me. I bit my bottom lip as I waited, never looking at the man who would help Rafael condemn me to my fate as he spoke.

"Do you, Isabel, take Rafael to be your wedded husband, to cherish in love and in friendship, in strength and in weakness, in success and in disappointment, to love him faithfully, today, tomorrow, and for as long as the two of you shall live?" the Priest asked.

"I can't," I mumbled, flinching back against Rafael's grip.

"Say the fucking words, Isa," Rafael ordered, raising the gun he still held in his grip. He lifted it in my direction, touching the barrel to the side of my head as I looked at him out of the side of my eye.

The gasp caught in my lungs, echoed by the sound of the people standing behind us. "Rafael," the Priest protested. Blood roared in my head, the shock of his gun touching my face making everything beyond the two of us seem fuzzy.

"This is the only way you leave here