Page 9 of Dark Reunion
“Hmm. Maybe not.” He waved his hand in the air, like her threat was nothing more than a fly buzzing around his head. “Doesn’t mean that one small sacrifice can’t be made for the greater good. Understand?”
She swallowed the bile rising in her throat and nodded.
The man laughed, rolling out his shoulders he brushed the imaginary dust from his sleeve. “I do enjoy this game.” He leaned closer, his cologne suffocating, his lips grazing the edge of her ear as he whispered: “But until Mercurio finds the balls to kill me…they are mine to threaten, and you are mine to watch…maybe one of these days more than watch.”
Her skin crawled. She forced herself not to recoil, to not to give him the pleasure.
Isabella fussed in her arms, sensing the tension. Yasmine stroked her daughter’s back, her voice soft but steady. “Shh, baby girl.”
Carlos lingered, close enough she could feel the heat off him. Then, with sudden movement, he reached out past her head and plucked a little flower from a vine that was growing up a decorative lattice. Like he had the right to touch her, he tucked it behind her ear. The act twisted Yasmine’s gut into knots.
“Yellow suits you,” he murmured. “So bright. So fragile. Eres muy hermosa. Mercurio es un hombre afortunado de poder llevarte a su cama cada noche.”
He stepped back, admiring his handiwork as if he hadn’t just gutted her with every disgusting word. How dare he talk about her and Dean like this, whether Dean was lucky to marry her, or sleep with her was none of his business. She would never go to bed with Dean’s father. He could rot in hell.
Yasmine met his gaze squarely, her voice low and steady. “Fragile things can bite back when you press too hard, Señor.”
His smile sharpened. “Ah, but sometimes that makes it all the sweeter.”
The boys buried their faces against her. She stepped in front of them and glared at Carlos. He was no man…he was a pig, just one that walked on two legs.
Dean’s father turned away at last, signaling his guards. “Enjoy your garden, mi preciosa. I will visit again. Next time maybe a more private setting.”
He chuckled as she ground her teeth and glared where he’d disappeared. Only after he was gone did she allow herself to sink to her knees. Opening her free arm, the two boys hugged her tight.
“We don’t like him, Mommy,” Tate said.
Yasmine smiled. “I’ll tell you a secret just between the three of us. Neither do I.”
The boys held on to Yasmine a little longer. Isabella fussed, tugging at the flower tucked behind her mother’s ear. Yasmine yanked it free and crushed it in her fist, the petals bleeding little specs of yellow between her fingers.
She bent down, pressing her forehead to her sons’ hair, whispering. “You are both so strong, and I’m proud of you. We will go home as soon as we can, I promise.”
They nodded, their eyes wide but trusting.
She drew in a shaking breath and tilted her face to the sky. For a heartbeat, she imagined the walls of this place falling. The sound of helicopter blades and Dean’s unit bursting through the doors to rescue them.
But when she opened her eyes, there was only the garden and beyond that the tall wall with the twisted barbwire on top.
Yasmine swallowed her fear, set her jaw, and began to teach her sons again how to tend the flowers.
Even here, in a garden of cages, she taught them to grow, to be strong without cruelty, and to love, even as her heart hardened a little more each day.
