Until Tomorrow Comes: A Dark Mafia Romance (Beauty in Lies Book 1)

It came to a dead end as I slowed, the black King staring back at me as if he had eyes of his own. As if he could see me and feel my fear along with me. My last free breath came in a broken sob, but I shoved down my desolation.

I whirled to run, stopping short when the movement brought me face to face with Rafael's cold eyes staring down at me. He stood with his hands in his pockets, his head subtly cocked to the side. Even in the dim light, I'd never mistake the handsome face that had stolen my breath.

Lost to the nightmare that stole him away.

I backed away a step, looking at the end of the alley over my shoulder before I swallowed and turned back to him. My heart beat out of control as my lungs struggled to get air past my panic.

"Checkmate, Princesa," he murmured, stepping toward me slowly as I raised my hands defensively.

"Rafael, what are you doing?" I asked, sobbing as one of his hands reached up to stroke my cheek with a mocking gentleness.

"It's time to go home," he said, his face twisting with a moment of regret.

A startled gasp broke free as something pinched my neck, my eyes tracking down to watch him withdraw a syringe from my flesh and toss it to the side. He wrapped me in his arms, holding me through my struggles as I beat his chest with furious hands and struggled to get away.

A car engine started up at the side of the alley as my vision turned fuzzy. My body went limp in his hold while he held my gaze. “Shhh,” he whispered, his thumb making small circles on my spine. Everything felt heavy, but I fought to keep my eyes open. Fought to get away. “Go to sleep, Princesa. I’ve got you.”

“Why?” I asked, my eyes barely open as he stared back down at me intently. Leaning down, he ran his nose up the side of mine as he scooped me into his arms and carried me in the direction of the fuzzy black SUV waiting at the corner.

"You shouldn’t have left me," he said, as the sound of a car door opening hit my ears. I rolled my head to the side as the door for the back seat creaked open. Rafael climbed into the car, laying me in the seat so that my head rested on his lap. “It didn’t have to be this way,” he whispered softly. All I could make out in the darkness was the vague shape of his face and two shining eyes staring back at me.

A phantom from my memory.

My head lolled to the side as darkness crept in.

Then there was nothing.

Rafael & Isa’s story continues in Until Forever Ends. Coming March 25th

n my bones, but as she screamed out her orgasm and shattered around me, nothing else mattered when she sent me spiraling with her.

I grunted, grinding my pelvis into her as she rode out the waves of her orgasm and I filled the condom with what should have been inside my princesa. When her breathing steadied, I pulled out of her and moved to the bathroom to grab a washcloth to clean her up. She didn't move in the time I was gone, her eyes drifting shut as if she needed to close out the world.

She blushed as I cleaned her but didn't speak, the sudden influx of silence between us feeling unnatural. My world wasn't complete without her smile and her voice in it, now that I finally had her with me.

I wanted to hate her for it, for making me so dependent on her happiness. Instead, we'd both hate me for stripping that away from her.

At least for a time.

ISA KNOWS.

The void inside of me widened as I turned my eyes back to her sleeping body and the innocence on her face. Pursing my lips, I moved to the balcony and pulled the glass closed behind me as I pressed the button to call Hugo back. "Tell me, Hugo. What exactly does Isa know?" I asked the moment he answered the phone.

There was a pause of silence, and then his response of what Chloe had told Isa in their brief conversation before he got through the door to stop it. "That's unfortunate," I said, spinning back to stare at Isa as she slept. It could have been worse, and perhaps she would brush off the rumor as simply that.

I wasn't optimistic enough to think that was the case.

"What do you want to do?" Hugo asked.

"Clear the streets," I said. "If she decides to try something stupid, I don't want any witnesses to what will come next."

He paused. "Why not just take her now?" he asked, and the question held merit. With everything crumbling around me, I could just slip a needle into her neck and she'd be on El Infierno before she woke up.

She'd never know a moment of fear, until it was too late to change.

"I need to know," I said, ending the call as I stepped back inside and crawled into bed with Isa. If she left me, she deserved to have to deal with the monster vibrating under my skin.

I'd warned her what would happen, and Isa would very quickly learn that when I made a promise?

I fucking kept it.

The gentle kiss contrasted everything about the moment, the helplessness I felt with him looming over me and controlling my body so efficiently. "How should I show you that your pussy is right?" he asked, dragging the head of his cock through my folds. With my legs pressed together, the pressure of him as he nudged against my clit and then slid through me to bump against my entrance seemed even greater.

He pushed himself inside me in a single stroke, pressing through me in spite of the tightness he met as a result of the position. I gasped, staring up at him as he groaned and drew his hips back only to thrust harder into me. Whimpering, I pulled at his grip on my wrists. "Condom," I moaned, reminding him and staring up at him as indecision crossed through his eyes for a moment.

Temptation couldn't distract me from an unwanted pregnancy. If he was truly a murderer, if there was something as off as seemed likely, given the look in his eyes, the last thing I needed was to have his child.

I'd need to go home and never look back, not give him a reason to come after me seeking the child I hadn't meant to give him.

He ground his teeth, reaching into the nightstand and grabbing a condom as I breathed a sigh of relief. He withdrew from me and released my hands long enough to slide the condom onto his length. There was a brief moment where I could have fought, where I could have tried to get away.

But something kept me rooted to the spot.

Knowing it was my last time with the man I shouldn't love, I couldn't bear to walk away. Even as he drove back inside me with more ferocity than before, and drew a sharp whimper from my lips. Even as he clasped my wrists in his hands and pinned me once again, setting a furious pace as he fucked me with hard snaps of his hips that bottomed him out inside me.

"Rafael," I whispered, the name Rafe felt wrong with the darkness swimming in his eyes. Rafe was the man I loved. Rafael was the phantom who lurked inside him.

Rafael was the monster I would walk out on while he slept.

He held my eyes as he took me, glaring down at me as if he could will me to tell him all my secrets. But the sins of the flesh were different from the sins of the mind, and as much as I hated his secrets, I would never tell him my own.

I shook my head, staring straight at him. I held up my phone, deciding to let my self-preservation take over. "I've just been trying to get in touch with Chloe and Hugo. They aren't answering the phone, so I'm worried about them." He took another step toward me, and I made myself stay casual as I dropped my other hand onto the glass railing and my phone lay balanced on the surface precariously within my grip.

He closed the distance between us, his body nearly against mine as he stared down at me with those haunting eyes. One of his hands raised, touching my cheek under the eye with the heterochromia in it. "You wouldn't lie to me, would you Isa?" he asked, his voice dropping lower as he touched his forehead to mine.

My heart pounded in my chest.

My breathing came ragged as I closed my eyes and tried to will myself to suddenly be a better liar. But I wasn't, so I did the one thing I'd gotten skilled at over the years. I deflected. I answered his question with a question of my own, easing the tiny margin of guilt I felt by not lying again. "What reason would I have to lie?" I whispered, opening my eyes to find his intent on mine. He touched a hand to my shoulder, sliding it down to caress the skin of my arm as he wrapped his fingers around my wrist. My hand twitched in response to the shiver that wracked my body, sending my phone teetering over the edge of the balcony.

I stared back at it in horror, watching as it disappeared into the darkness below. There was no chance it had survived the fall, and I'd officially lost all my contact with Chloe and Hugo in a moment.

"That's a shame," Rafe said, watching my face as I dragged my gaze back to his. He didn't say another word about the phone, sliding his fingers through mine as he guided me away from the balcony and toward the bedroom. I swallowed my fear as I eyed the closet with my belongings, remembering the words he'd spoken at the waterfall.

He'd follow me. He'd chase me if I walked away.

"You haven't asked what happened at the club," he observed, guiding me over to the bed where I sat on the edge cautiously. His fingers worked open the buttons on his shirt slowly, methodically undoing each and every one while my eyes narrowed in on the movement and the smooth expanse of skin he revealed.

"You told me not to ask questions if I'm not ready for the answer. This feels like an appropriate time to be cautious of what I ask," I said in response. He chuckled, pulling the shirt out of his pants as he slid the sleeves down his arms and tossed it to the side. His rippling muscles were at eye level with me, but for the first time, the overwhelming attraction between us was the last thing on my mind.

Somehow, I knew in my gut that whatever she had to say would break me. That those shards would shred the last pieces of my soul that I clung to. Still, I took a deep breath and hit the button to accept her call.

"Isa," Chloe's harsh whisper said over the phone.

"It's me," I said, my voice quivering as I tried to hold it steady. "You okay?"

"Get out. God, Isa you have to fucking get out of there right now. Before he comes back."

"What?" I whispered, hating the fear that filled her voice. Fear for me. Fear that I felt down to my bones as I moved to the closet and shoved the last of my things into the bag. I tucked it back behind Rafe's suits so he wouldn't immediately see it when he came back.

Even with the warning filling my body with dread, the thought of never seeing him again tore me in two.

"He's a murderer, Isa," she whispered on the other end as a loud banging echoed in the background. "Get out. Go to the embassy. I'll meet you there as soon as I can."

My voice didn’t convey the shock I felt. Nothing could come even close to hinting at the feeling slithering through my body. "Are you sure?" I asked.

"I wouldn't do this if I wasn't. Just get out," she growled. The line disconnected as I went back out to the balcony to grab my purse with my passport and wallet. I hurried forward on shaky legs, snatching it off the table where we'd played chess only the day before. It felt like a lifetime ago that I'd done something so simple with him.

I'd played chess...with a murderer?

My mind was a jumbled mess as I clutched the strap in the palm of my hand. I spun to go back inside through the door, stopping mid-step as my eyes landed on the face glaring at me and then at the purse in my hand.

He tilted his head, stripping his jacket off slowly as he closed the distance between us. I backed away a step, forcing a smile to my face as my butt connected with the railing at my back. I put my hand on top of the sleek glass half-wall, feeling the bite of it as my hand slid along the top and it dug into my skin. "You're back," I said, making a show of dropping my purse to the floor.

With my phone gripped in my hand, I watched his eyes fall to the purse at my feet. They trailed up over my bare legs, over my body encased in the camisole dress he'd put me in for the club. When they landed on my face, his mouth tensed as he clenched his jaw. Darkness like I'd never seen swirled in his gaze, taunting me. Daring me, as if he knew everything going through my head.

The man I loved was gone, replaced by a cold-blooded murderer as he transformed in front of my eyes. Nobody would look at this version of Rafael and question how he could kill someone.

"Were you going somewhere, Princesa?" he asked, the name feeling like a mockery of everything I'd thought was sweet in that cold, expressionless voice that was so unlike Rafe

"I know it was pointless now, of course. Even if it had been possible to count the stars in the sky, what purpose would it serve?" he asked with a sigh. "But knowing that there isn't a purpose doesn't stop me from knowing you have nineteen freckles across the bridge of your nose and on your cheeks." My heart froze in my chest, furiously trying to count my freckles in my memory. In all my life, I'd never thought to put a number to the dots on my skin

Isa often downplayed just how intelligent she was, hiding behind her books and charitable work at the Menominee community center. She seemed to struggle with the difference between herself and Odina, never allowing herself to truly excel. Hugo said he'd seen her diminish her mind frequently, sometimes going so far as to forget about an assignment so she wouldn't have a perfect grade. He'd watched her circle the correct answer on a test and then change it when she was finished.

But within her lurked a mind I suspected would rival the smartest men in my organization. If only she existed in a life that encouraged her to own it, rather than act like it was something shameful.

"This is the Queen," I said, holding out the piece for her to wrap her fingers around. She took it, tilting her head as she studied it and ran her thumb over the crown at the top. "She's the most powerful piece."

"Not the King?" she asked, righting her head as she met my eyes.

"The game is over when the King is dead. But without a Queen, it never truly begins," I said softly, watching as she pursed her lips thoughtfully. "She can perform the most moves on the board. The Queen protects her King, no matter the cost."

She reached out a hand and grabbed the King, running her other thumb over the cross like she had the crown on the Queen. "This is probably the only game in existence where men gave a feminine symbol all the power," she said with a huff of laughter.

I grinned back at her, nodding my head. "You're probably right."

She placed the pieces back on the board. "The King controls the board, but the Queen is what gives him that power," she said, her voice dropping as she accepted the fact that she understood the basic premise.

"Exactly," I said. "Your move."

She widened her eyes at me, pursing her lips and looking down at the board. She moved a pawn, watching as I moved my own. The first pawn I moved had a tiny fissure on the top, a crack I only noticed when my palm brushed against it. I was too preoccupied with watching her to look down at the board, with observing her eyes as they flitted around the pieces and studied the game. She thought everything through, observed all the pieces as she bit her lip in concentration.

One day, she'd be a force to be reckoned with. Both on and off the board.

But today was not that day.

The cheap cotton didn't suit her skin, and the knowledge that she would soon be bathed in a luxury so unfamiliar to her that she'd never be able to go back settled over me

Whatever had caused it, Isa wore the guilt of it on her soul. Maybe that was why she'd suffered through years of abuse at her sister's hands before putting a stop to it.

"It sounds like your grandmother thinks it's a good thing," I murmured, inching my body away from hers so that she had to be on her own for a few moments.

"She thinks it shows how strong I am. That they couldn't claim me as theirs," she scoffed. "But they would have if my mother hadn't pulled me out of the water. Everything had gone dark already. There was nothing but blackness and the sound of flames roaring in my head.”

"Flames?" I asked, stilling at her side suddenly as the memory of my mother's lips moving as she burned on the pyre echoed in my brain.

"They said it was just the sound of the current," she sighed. "That the woman screaming was my mother on the shore before she dove into the water."

Flames hovered at the edge of my vision as I said the words I didn't really want an answer to. I hadn't paid any attention to the date on the reports, hadn't bothered to care about the details beyond how it would influence my understanding of Isa. "When was the accident?"

"I was five," she responded.

"The day, Isa," I said, my voice sharper than I'd intended.

"June fourteenth," she said, her face turning more serious as she studied me curiously. My head roared with the connection, my mind working to convince me that coincidences happened sometimes. With anything else, it might have worked.

If it hadn't been the fourteenth anniversary of my mother’s death.