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17
ISABELLA
Idon’t sleep. How could I? Somewhere in the bowels of this compound, Niall is suffering. Suffering because ofme.
I can’t sleep knowing that.
I don’t know what kinds of things Javier is doing to him. My father kept me sheltered from the world I live in, from the horrible things that men do to each other. All I have to imagine is what Javier said before he dragged Niall off, the threats he made, and all night they take life in my head, blooming into more and more awful things as I lie there in the dark.
By the time the sun rises, I can’t cry any longer. There are no tears left, just my swollen face and dry mouth, my body heavy and dehydrated from abuse and crying. I feel stiff and bruised as I get up, still wearing the same dress, not having bothered bathing. Why should I? Let Diego take me back home filthy and stinking. It’s only a fraction of what he deserves.
As long as I obey, he can’t find fault with me. And he didn’t tell me to bathe.
I know I’m pushing the boundaries of what I promised, but it’s all I have, the only way to express how I really feel about this.
Of course, I’m not allowed that, either.
Javier arrives just a little while after the sun rises, clothing in his hands. He looks exhausted, dark circles marring his otherwise handsome face, and I feel sick at the thought of what might have kept him up all night.
His nose wrinkles as he sees me. “You can’t greet your future husband looking like that, little one.” He tosses the clothing on the bed. “Bathe and get dressed. The guards will be back for you in an hour. Make sure you’re well-groomed,” he adds, his eyes narrowed. “Diego was especially firm on that point.”
I don’t want to think about why that might be. I nod silently, well aware that he didn’t ask me a question. Before yesterday, I would have had some retort, something to throw back in his face, but I don’t dare speak to him that way now. I don’t know if Niall is still here or already cut loose, but it doesn’t matter. For the rest of my life and his, his safety rests on my behavior.
It’s entirely possible that once he’s back in the States, there won’t be any way Diego can get to him. I don’t know how far the reach is for men like Diego and Javier. Clearly, my father needed to bargain with Niall in order to have influence there. But I don’t know what allies Diego or Javier might have. I don’t know what their reach is—and I won’t know when Niall returns. I won’t know if he’s here again, doing more work for his bosses or my father in service of the deal they made. I won’t ever know—and that will keep me biddable and obedient.
It begins today. I might as well get used to it.
I strip off the ugly black shift dress, throwing it on the bed. My skin prickles with the cold, all of my small hairs rising up, and that, more than anything else, propels me into the shower, the need to be warm overriding everything else.
Javier didn’t bring me food, which I’m glad for. I don’t think I could have eaten anything. Even now, I can feel the thick sense of nausea rising up, even on an empty stomach. I don’t think any of it would have stayed down, and the possible reasons for that make my stomach churn all the more.
I’m going to find out very soon, and there’s no escape. No way to save myself or my possible baby from the future laid out for us—not without condemning Niall. And even if I fought back, I know I wouldn’t win. Diego will have me, whatever he has to do to break me, and if I’m pregnant with a baby that isn’t his, he’ll never allow that to continue. I can’t risk Niall’s life for nothing.
I wrap my arms around myself in the shower, shuddering with tears that don’t actually fall. I’ve cried too much, and there’s nothing left.
When I’m done bathing, my hair washed, and the rest of me scrubbed clean, shaved to a smooth finish, I turn the shower off and wrap myself in a towel. I braid my thick wet hair back away from my face after I towel it off, aware as I look in the mirror of the weight I’ve lost, the way my cheekbones stick out more than they ever did before, the hollowness of my cheeks. I look like I’ve survived something terrible, but I know no one will care. Where I’m going, I’m unwanted by anyone other than my husband-to-be, and even he only wants to use me for his own pleasure, his own means.
I mean nothing to anyone anymore. I don’t even know how my family will react to me when I see them again, or when that will be. When it comes time for holiday celebrations, if I’ve kept my word, I imagine Diego will allow it if only to be seen and to be sticking to tradition. But it won’t be for long, and certainly not unsupervised.
I’d chafed for so long at my life before all of this, and I’d had no idea how much worse it could be.
The dress Javier left for me is marginally better than the one he’d given me before, another loose sleeveless dress, but this one in a dark green and made of some softer material. It even includes panties and a pair of uncomfortable black flats—I assume to make me presentable to travel back with Diego. The thought makes me shudder, but I get dressed anyway, repeating the same mantra over and over in my head as before.
It’s the only thing I can do now.
Obey.My disobedience has cost enough.
When the guards come to get me, I don’t argue or fight. I walk between them out into the hall, to a room even more opulently appointed than Javier’s office, a living room I’ve never been in before. Diego is seated in a leather armchair, and I see the doctor standing near the fireplace, looking nervous and twitchy.
My stomach knots and I swallow back nausea. The look on the doctor’s face tells me that whatever he has to say, Diego isn’t going to be pleased with it. And that doesn’t bode well for me—or my possible baby.
Javier walks in then, looking smug. “Hold her,” he instructs the guards. “Don’t let her try anything funny.”
“I’m not going to,” I say evenly, looking at him. “I made a promise. I plan to keep it.”
“As we’ve kept ours.” He waves at the door. “You can bring him in now. He’s still alive, you’ll see,” Javier adds, glancing back at me. “Just not in the condition you might hope.”
I thought I’d felt all the pain I could feel, but all that changes when Niall is dragged in between two guards—all that it takes to hold him now. His handsome face is bruised and swollen, his lip split and purpled, and his jaw and throat are covered with bruises too. He’s wearing loose sweatpants and a ribbed tank that Javier must have given him, and his chest and arms are covered in cuts, bruises, and welts. It doesn’t look like there’s an inch of him that hasn’t been hurt in some way, and his nose looks very much like it’s been broken and reset.
