Page 1 of The Bratva’s Captive Flame

1

ISABELA

Iget back to the compound a good hour later than I should, worn down to nothing. My shift at the diner started with a party of twelve who couldn't agree on a single thing, and it ended with me on my knees mopping up a pitcher of sangria some teenager knocked clean off the bar.

My feet hurt. My shoulders hurt. There's a stain dried into my blouse I never got two seconds to deal with, and all I want is to sit in the quiet for a little while and not think about anything at all. Being around people is so overstimulating some days, especially when my entire life is nothing but a warzone.

The man at the gate jerks his chin up at me when I walk up the drive. The gated compound isn't much of a home, but it's the only one I've got. I lift mine back the same as every night, and then he's looking back down at his phone before I even walk through. They stopped worrying about checking me a long time ago. To them I'm just the chemist's daughter who waits tables.

Sometimes, it makes me feel invisible—like I could walk through life and no one would ever see me again. But other times, I'm grateful for their ignoring me. It means I don't have to think about how to act politely to avoid being struck, and I can just pretend this isn't the life I live.

I sulk through the walled compound past the cinderblock buildings on either side of me. Our room is at the back of the second building, past all the others. Most nights, I hear my father before I even reach the door. He keeps the radio going and sings along to it or sometimes argues with the radio announcers.

But tonight, there's no noise coming from our small little corner. I fiddle with the key sticking in the lock and let myself in, wondering if he's gone to bed early again. But when I walk in and see him, my stomach drops.

He sits on the couch slumped over with his head hanging and his forearms braced on his knees. Blood oozes from a cut on his split lip, and the entire left side of his face is battered and purple.

I drop my bag on the floor and rush over to him, dropping to my knees next to him. "Papa." It's a horrible sight any time this happens, but I've never seen it this bad before. "What happened? Don't you dare tell me you fell." My hands graze over his wounds as I fight back tears. Those fuckers did it again! Why do they keep doing this? Do they think beating a man makes him work harder?

"I won't insult you with a story about falling." He tries for a smile but the split in his lip bleeds more, making him hiss. "It looks a lot worse than it is, Mija."

"¡Hostia puta!" I grumble, pulling my hand away with bloody fingers. He needs this cleaned up and he might need stitches for a gash near his eyebrow. "I want to know who did it." I take his chin in my hand, as gently as I can, and turn his face toward me so I can see all of it. My father has never let me fuss over him a day in his life, so his letting me do this isn't a good sign. "Tell me which one of them put their hands on you."

"Does it matter which one? It's always the same one in the end." He closes his good eye for a second and opens it again. "Solano sent a man down to go over the schedule, and I opened my mouth when I should've kept it shut. That's the whole story. It's nobody's fault but mine."

"It is not your fault that⁠—"

"Isabela. Listen to me." He takes my wrist and pulls it away from his face. "I provoked them, okay? They were within their rights."

I have to get up and walk to the sink because I can't sit there and listen to him say they were within their rights to break his face open. Tears burn my eyes as I fill a glass with water and stare out the window over the back wall of the compound. I'm so angry. Life shouldn’t be this… this prison we live in, the chains they keep my father locked up with. We had such a good life when Mama was alive.

"Mija," Papa says, head hanging. I turn to watch him slumped back down, like he's struggling to breathe, and I wonder if those bruises are on his ribs too.

For most of my life, my father was a respected man, a real chemist in a pharmacy. When Javier Solano found out those same clever hands could make something he could sell, my father stopped belonging to himself. It's infuriating, but what am I supposed to do? They might as well own me too.

When I've calmed down a little, I bring the glass back over and put it in his hands. I don't let go until he's taken a few swallows. He drinks, then he sets it down on the floor by his foot, but he's not happy with me. I can see that sour look of apprehension on his face. He knows how upset I am and that I won't let this kind of shit go.

"Go to bed, Mija." He still won't look at me. "You've been on your feet since this morning, and there's nothing left to do here tonight. I'll be better by morning, like always."

"Papa, you can't let them do this to you anymore. You're getting too old to work for them. What if they beat you so hard you⁠—"

"What do you want me to say?" He lifts his head, and his good eye finds me. It's so painful seeing him like this. "That it's wrong? Of course it's wrong. All of it is wrong." He gestures with his hand as he speaks and it makes him wince. "But this is the life we've been given. We have to deal with it."

I cross my arms over my chest again and glower at him. We do not have to deal with this or accept it. This is not how life should be for anyone. He makes the drugs for those assholes and they should be respecting him—paying him.

"I know that look on your face," he says. "Don't even think about it. Do you remember how they hurt you?" Tears well up in his eyes and run down his cheeks. "Then they came up here and told me to keep my daughter where she belongs. Every time you put yourself in front of those men, all you do is remind them that you're alive. I would rather they forget you were ever born. Mija, promise me you'll stay in tonight."

I heave out a sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. I have no intention of staying in tonight and letting those men get away with this. But I don't want to upset him. "I'm just going to step outside and get some air." I turn toward the door and run a hand through my hair. "That's all."

"Please don’t leave this room, Isabela. I'm warning you."

"I'm getting air," I tell him, and I'm out the door, pulling it shut behind me before he can get himself up off that couch. We both know he can't move fast enough to catch me anymore and we both know I'm never letting this fly.

Those fuckers think they can knock an old man around and no one is going to stand up to them. Well I am. I'm going to fight them back with both fists bared for the rest of my life if I have to, and I'm not going to give up, not even when they beat me. My father doesn't deserve this. He works his fingers to the bone for them.

I don't even have a real plan as I stomp down the slope of the compound grounds toward the water where those men ship their drugs off. I'm just too angry to sit still in that room and listen to my father tell me this is his fault. And he's right. The last time I did this, I got my own black eye and a split lip to match his. But it won't stop me from doing it again. I won't let them get away with this.

When I pass by the front side of the warehouse, hoping to go right to Solano's office, I hear a few male voices, and one of them says my father's name. It makes me pause and listen for a second, standing in the shadow the building creates in the moonlight.