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At least she’s dealing with women even if Una is a little prickly. I didn’t have that luxury. A small smile touches my lips as I remember the first time I ever met Rafael. I was tied to a chair, distraught at having nearly escaped and failed. The second I looked into those dark eyes, I knew he was a monster, and I hated him instantly. He was like the devil in disguise, the ink crawling up his neck and over his hands the only clue to the man beneath that expensive suit. Little did I know it was actually the other way around, that tattooed exterior hid one of the best men I’ve ever known. When I had no one and nothing, he saved me and dragged me into the light.
I can’t offer those girls that, because what Rafe gave me was a soul-deep bond. I try to push him from my mind, but now more than ever, I can’t. Even after months away from him, I still feel the ache at the very depths of myself. I’m surviving and doing what I feel I have to, but it’s as though a fundamental part of me is missing—like it’s been torn out. I want to hate him for it, but I can’t. And that’s the worst thing, to hurt and long for someone, to suffer this kind of loss without being able to pinpoint a reason, a definitive factor as to why. He let his enemies tear us apart. He gave up on us when I never could.
My blood paints the canvas bag, but still I keep hitting. Three months of Una’s training have left my knuckles calloused and scarred. And even as they split and bleed, I barely feel it. The image of Rafael’s bloodstained knuckles flashes through my mind, his words whispering out of my memories as if he were standing right beside me, breathing them against my ear. Sometimes you break something to make it stronger. Why does everything come back to him?
I’m so lost in thought that I don’t notice Una until I’m flat on my back staring up at her. My chest heaves as she glares at me.
“Pay attention,” she snaps.
Blinking, I push to my feet and steady the swinging punchbag. “I’m trying to clear my mind,” I say.
“It doesn’t matter. You always stay alert.” This is her world, the only one she knows. I don’t think it would be possible to sneak up on my sister. “You’re upset because of those girls,” she says, her brows pulled tightly together. She looks at me like I’m a puzzle she simply cannot piece together.
“No… I mean, yes, but…” I hesitate, struggling to express myself around her. We may be sisters, but we’re still very much strangers in so many ways. “How did it feel…when you killed Nicholai?”
“He was hunting me. He wanted Dante. Nicholai’s death was as much necessity as anything else. I was relieved my son was safe.” She sighs and looks straight at me, imprisoning me with her gaze. “You don’t feel the way you thought you would after killing Alexandru.”
“I just…I thought it would be…more…” I wrap my arms tightly around myself. “I thought I’d feel this huge satisfaction, but I don’t.”
“I’ve killed many men for many reasons. They may deserve it, they may not, I don’t really think about it, but that man deserved it, Anna. It doesn’t change what happened to you. It doesn’t make it better, but it’s as close as you’re going to get to justice. The rest…you have to figure out for yourself.” I nod, and we fall into silence. I jump when I feel her fingers brush over my shoulder. “You know, I never really hated Nicholai before Dante. What he did was wrong, but he made me strong. In a way, Alexandru made you strong.”
“He broke me.” How can she see what he did as anything other than cruel?
“And broken things—”
“Heal stronger,” I whisper.
She shrugs one shoulder. “You can look at your entire life as a negative or you can try and build from the wreckage, something better.”
“I don’t know what to do now,” I admit.
“What do you want to do?”
I’m not sure how to answer that. She said I needed purpose in life, and the only time I’ve ever felt that is when I walked out of that house with those girls, knowing that the man who had tortured us was dead. In a way, I’m angry that he’s dead. That my revenge was over so quickly because now there’s this void like an absence.
“I don’t know. I wanted to kill Alexandru.”
“And now you have.”
“Yes. But it’s not enough.”
“So, what would be enough?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. I want them all. Every single one. Every man who hurt and raped me, who would willingly destroy girls like me, girls like Zara. “I want the Sinaloa.”
