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“What happened to them?” I ask, my curiosity reaching a new high. Surely Rafe would have told me about something as important as having another child.
“Gina wanted to keep the baby. She actually believed all the religious crap that our parents preached to us. She thought that if she got rid of it, she would be damned to hell. And so that left me with only one option.”
“What did you do, Rafe?” I hear the quiver in my voice when I think about the man I’ve been exposed to lately, the man who I fear is capable of anything.
“I asked her to give me time. I needed to get the money together for us, enough for us to leave town and set up somewhere new. Fate had decided that I was going to be a father, and so I was going to be one. But I wasn’t going to bring my family’s reputation down in the process. I knew losing me would hurt Dad, but I’d have preferred that over bringing shame to his name.”
“That’s really sad, Rafe.” I bring his hand to my lips and kiss his knuckles.
“We ran out of time.” His voice breaks with hurt. “Gina managed to hide her pregnancy from her family. They were hardly ever home, and she avoided them when they were. I gave her hoodies so she could hide herself when she couldn’t. She managed to keep our secret while I worked for my father whenever I could. He even let me make my own investment.”
“When you say investment, you mean…” I shudder at the thought.
“Yes, my father released money from my trust fund so I could purchase my first woman.” He shrugs like that’s not incredibly fucked up.
“And when you say you ran out of time…” I try to get away from the subject of how Rafe makes his money. Knowing about it and hearing about it are two different things.
“Gina went into labor way sooner than we expected her to. We couldn’t go to a hospital or ask for any help because we were both too scared. And I was still too fucking worried about protecting my father’s reputation.” The anger in his voice starts to build again.
“She was so scared when she called me. I was too, but I had to be brave for both of us. I remember that night so vividly, Riley. The memory of it is what haunts me in my sleep.” His eyes are full of tears when he looks up from the spot on the inside of my leg that he’s been stroking with his thumb.
I want so badly to comfort him, but I don’t want him to stop talking to me. I need to know what happened to Gina and their baby.
“She asked me to meet her in our shelter in the woods, and I rushed to get to her, having no idea what the hell we were gonna do with the baby when it came out of her.” He’s shaking, reliving the trauma. “I heard her screaming like an injured animal, and when I found her, she was in so much pain. There was nothing I could do to make it go away. It was so dark, and all I could do was hold on to her hand and watch her agony.”
“That must have been so scary for you both,” I sympathize, thinking back to the pain I felt giving birth to Gabriel. I had Rafe, his doctor, and Sylvia there, and I was still petrified.
“It was, especially when the baby finally came out of her, and it was quiet.” My eyes widen, and my heart starts to sting.
“He was so still I didn’t know what to do with him. So I wrapped him up in my hoodie, and I rubbed at his tiny little chest. He was limp and lifeless and so small I knew I couldn’t save him.”
Tears stream down his cheeks, and I hold him close to my chest so I can comfort him. It must have been so tragic for him, and it explains why he was so protective of me during my pregnancy.
“I didn’t know how to tell Gina, but I didn't have time to worry about that for long because she was bleeding so much, and I had no idea how to make it stop. She just kept screaming at me to help her, and I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. I should have called an ambulance and tried to get her help, but I was too busy trying to stop all the bleeding so I could save her.”
“What happened to Gina?” I ask, clutching him tight and feeling my own tears start to drip into his hair.
“She stopped screaming and got weaker. I put our child in her arms, and I held her tight. Then I kept promising her that she’d be okay until she fell asleep. For hours after that, I sat with them both and cried while she turned cold.”
“Rafe.” I stroke my hand through his hair, trying my best to soothe him.
“I didn’t know what to do with them. So I called Adriano.” He looks up at me, full of regret.
“Your brother?” I question, unable to imagine Adriano being a shoulder to cry on at such a sad time.
“He came, and he saw what had happened. I was surprised at how sympathetic he was. And it was him who helped me think clearly about what we had to do next.”
“And what did you do next, Rafe?” I ask, fearing his answer.
“Me and Adriano buried them together in the woods. We covered our tracks well enough because, to my knowledge, that’s where they still lay today. Do you understand now why I could never shut down my brother’s agency? What he knew could have ruined me.”
“No.” I shake my head at him. “When you were still a kid, sure, but not since you’ve been a man. Adriano could never have gone to the cops. Surely you knew that. You break the law every day with what you do. I don’t understand why you let him have that over you.”
“It wasn’t the cops I feared him going to?” he tells me.
“Your parents, Rafe, they have both been dead for years.”
“But hers aren’t.” He looks back at me with fresh tears. “And after my father died, I couldn’t risk losing the one person he had trusted.”
