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

"So don't," Regina said. "Why would you want to be that girl? Were you happy?" She paused when I didn't answer, too afraid to give voice to the answer that pulsed through my veins.

I hadn't known what it was to be happy until I'd met Rafael. I hadn't known what it was to feel anything. Now I had a lifetime of emotions tearing me apart every second of the day, but there was no complacency with him in my life. Never a dull moment, never an instance where I didn't feel something. And I didn't know how to cope with it.

"What is so bad about embracing the woman we all see clawing to escape the cage you've put her in?" Regina asked, reaching over to the sink and grasping the bloodied fork in her grip. "This is the woman you are meant to be," she said, tossing it onto the counter so that I had no choice but to stare down at the red stain. "You are meant to be the woman who bleeds the man who does her wrong. You are meant to be the woman who challenges him to be better and to do better for you. But more than anything?" Regina asked as tears built in her eyes. "You are meant to be whoever the fuck you want to be. Your family doesn't get to make that choice for you. Rafael doesn't get to make that choice for you. So be the woman who stabs Rafael Ibarra with a fork and doesn't fear the consequences. Be the woman who looks the devil in the eye and says ‘fuck you.’" She sniffed back her tears, wiping her face as she dropped her apron on the counter. "Be the woman I wasn't strong enough to be."

She fled the kitchen, leaving me staring at that fork for what felt like hours. "You'll never be that girl again," Joaquin said, murmuring his agreement with everything I'd already come to realize. He stayed silent at my side after that, watching over me as I worked through the dueling sides to my personality. I would never leave Rafael. He'd made that painfully clear, and the Isa I'd once been had no place in his life. She couldn't survive in his world.

But the little demon who wanted to dance with the devil in the moonlight would thrive there.

Regina had composed herself before Rafael emerged from his office in the middle of the afternoon. His face was drawn and serious as he met my eye and nodded, something hanging over his head. I had to hope it didn't concern my family, because I wanted that phone call. Even if it did terrify me to talk to them. Even if I still had no clue what I would say to explain my absence. I didn't want to lie, but the truth seemed so far-fetched and too painful to admit.

I'd fallen in love with my captor.

Rafael guided me to our bedroom, sitting in the chair beside the bed and leaving me to curl my legs underneath me on the mattress. He dialed my mother's phone number for me, handing me the phone as I swallowed back my nerves. I took it with trembling hands, holding it up to my ear as it rang. There was a brief moment where I wondered if she would answer. If I'd be saved from having to decide what to tell her by her undoubtedly hectic schedule with two of her daughters missing.

"Hello?" My mother's voice sounded weak, as if she hadn't been able to sleep since I'd gone missing. Since I'd stopped returning phone calls and hadn't come home with Chloe as planned.

"Hi, Mom," I whispered, my voice catching as I tried to sniffle back the sadness surging inside me. I knew deep in my heart that the first moments of this phone call would be the last time my mother thought of me as her good girl. They'd be the last seconds of my life where I did what my parents asked of me, and losing that piece of myself felt like tearing part of my soul away.

I'd been the obedient daughter for so many years. I'd done what was expected of me without fail. Shedding those expectations was like a splintering of my soul.

"Isa?" she asked, her voice trembling as a sob caught the breath in her lungs. She'd already had to watch her daughters die once. Reliving that possibility thirteen years later seemed like a cruel twist of fate.

"It's me," I agreed, my voice hesitant as Rafael reached out a hand and wiped the tears off my face. He studied me as if he couldn't relate, and I expected he couldn't. His father had been a cruel man and his mother died when he was young.

When was the last time Rafael cared about someone other than himself, before me? Was that part of why he clung to me so tightly?

"Oh my God, Isa," she sobbed, bringing more tears to my eyes. Ten days. Ten days had passed with me missing in another country, after Chloe returned home with horror stories about the kind of man I'd spent my time sinning with. "Waban!" she called, my father's name echoing so loudly over the phone that I had to draw it away from my ear. "It's Isa!"

"Isa?" My father's voice said as my mom put me on speaker. "Baby girl?"

"Hi," I said with a sniffle.

"Are you okay? Honey, where are you?" my mom asked. "The embassy said that they spoke with you and you chose to stay in Spain. But Chloe said not to believe them."

I cast a look toward Rafael, reprimanding him for making it look like no crime was ever committed. "The embassy was right. I chose to stay," I agreed, hating the lie as it rolled off my tongue.

But I couldn’t ever change the reality that I was never coming home, at least not for anything longer than a visit. My family