Home > Miscellaneous > Blood Will Tell > Chapter 2
He was still in his office when he heard her come in. There was an open bottle of bourbon on the desk beside him, but it was still close to full. There was half an inch or so in the glass he held in his hand, and he swirled it around and around, his eyes darkening as he listened to the clicking of her heels on the hardwood floor. Carefully, he set the glass down, then added another inch or so from the bottle before taking the glass and standing up, walking quietly over to the fireplace. He stared down at a framed photo from their wedding day, her all in white, looking pure, virginal, angelic, and his fingers tightened on the glass. Sixteen years. In sixteen years, surely she would have told him if it'd been more than just the once. Maybe it was an... accident. Maybe she'd been attacked and ashamed to tell him. He had to keep the anger under control until he knew. He owed her that much. He'd loved her for so long.
He could tell when the silent house started to bother her, could hear it in the faster, slightly arrhythmic tapping of her high-heels. She hated being all alone. She'd be running soon, frightened by the silence. If she ran in the heels she preferred, the possibility existed that she'd fall and break her neck, and for a moment he wondered if that might not be the best solution. But no. He sighed. He didn't want that. Even if things were the worst he could imagine, he didn't want that. And Raeka would never believe he hadn't killed her. That he could even consider it, even for a moment, was a frightening thought, and he left the glass on the mantle as he headed for the door. "Alexia," he called softly.
"Rafael?" she called back, and he could hear the relief in her voice. "I thought you were... gone." Her voice trailed off as she came around the corner. "Rafe? What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
He smiled grimly as he looked down at her. "No ghosts. I do not know exactly what I am seeing, but it's no ghost. Come in here, wife, and let us talk."
He drug a chair around to face her and sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and stared at her, his eyes full of pain. "Just once, I give to you the chance to confess to me. To tell me the truth, and your reasons, and your reasons for hiding it from me. I will listen to you, and believe you, because I have loved you for so long that I can do no else, but I must have truth from you, Alexia, and I do not want to hear that you do not know what I mean, for that would certainly be a lie, and I give you this one chance to start with other than a lie."
Rafael's hands clenched. "So? What do you say to me, mi esposa? How do you explain what you have done?" he asked tightly.
"I can't," she whispered, slumping. "Nothing can justify it. Every time, I told myself it would be the last time, and every time, when he called... there's no excuse for what I've done, and I know it." She looked up at him, eyes full of tears. "But it's over now, I swear it! He got transferred to France last summer. It will never happen again, I promise!"
Pain clenched in his gut, and he was standing before he realized it. "Every time?! Last summer? How many times, Alexia, how long? How long have you been lying to me?" Despite his best intentions, he was yelling by the end, towering over her.
"Ever since... please don't make me...." She looked up at him, tears running down her face. "Please...."
"Don't make you what?" he demanded. "Don't make you tell the truth? I have a right to know, Alexia, and you are going to tell me."
At the name — the name of the bastard he'd always thought he'd saved her from — his hot rage chilled, turned to something deeper, something dark and icy. "So since the beginning," he said coldly. "You have lied to me always."
"Yes. It was. What was it, Lexi? He was just too good of a fuck to give up, even for security?" He leaned over the couch, putting his hands on the back, on either side of her shoulders. "You wanted it all, is that it? One man to take care of you, and another to be a little whore for?"
"BULLSHIT!" He drew back his hand as if to strike her, but instead spun around, clenching his fists at his side. "If it had been just once," he said, quietly, his voice seething with anger, "I could have forgiven it. Especially back then, when you might have had some reason to feel neglected. We were both young, and things happened so fast... mistakes could have been made. But instead..." Stalking angrily back to the desk, he leaned over it, placing his trembling hands flat against the cool wood. "You made a fool of me, and our entire life together has been nothing but a mockery." He snarled and slammed his fists against the desk, the sound shockingly loud in the sudden stillness. "Get out! Get out of my house and do not come back. Go to him. Go to France. Go to hell for all I care, just get the fuck out!"
"NOOOOO!" Alexia wailed. "Please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please, I always loved you... please don't make me leave!"
He spun around, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Zorra!" he hissed, shaking her. "You lying bitch! How dare you? You little whore! Get out! Go to the _cabrÃn_, you deserve each other! Get away from me before I break your filthy little neck!"
"Please, I'll make it up to you. I'll do anything, anything at all, anything you want, just don't throw me out, please..."
He dropped her abruptly against the couch. "What is it, bitch? Don't think your precious alcahuete will take you in? Why the fuck should I care?"
"Please... don't send me away." She looked up at him, desperate. "You can't understand... I don't understand, so how could you? But I never wanted him. I never cared about him. I just... couldn't say no. I don't know why." Her voice dropped, and she looked down. "And I hated it, afterwards. I felt so dirty, so... so used. But I couldn't help myself." She looked back up. "I couldn't. But I'll do anything, anything at all. Just don't send me away. Don't let Emily know what... you called me a whore. You were right. Maybe not technically, but... please, please, don't let her know what a... what a whore I was. I will do anything... just don't take her away."
His hands were clenched so tight they hurt, and he was shaking. "How dare you? Do you think she doesn't know? Why do you think she's not here tonight?" It hurt worse than he'd imagined. All while she was gone, he'd told himself it was just once, and almost convinced himself that it wasn't really her fault. That there would be a good reason. But now... pain and anger went round and round, feeding on each other and growing stronger. "You don't deserve her. And she deserves better than you."
"SHE TOLD ME!" He started to reach for her, then snatched his hands away and stalked to the other side of the room, fighting for self-control. "Did you really think you could lie to her forever? They typed their blood in school this week. A fun thing, just an experiment they do in science class. How do you think she felt, Alexia? All week, wondering if I'd still love her if I knew? No. You don't deserve her."
He snarled, taking a step toward her. "Dios, Alexia, just get the fuck out! Get out before I fucking kill you!"
"No. I don't have to let you do a thing," he said. "You've had exactly what you wanted for sixteen years. You can't make this up to her. All you can do is have enough fucking shame to stay the hell away from her!" He stared at her, anger overwhelmed by pain and confusion. "Why? Why Lexi? Wasn't I enough for you? Didn't I offer you enough? How worthless are we to you, that you would choose that instead?"
That was more than he could take. He was across the room in an instant, and grabbed her by the hair, lifting her from the couch. "STOP IT! You lying little slut! Vas a callarte?! Do you expect me to believe that you fucked him for sixteen years because you didn't want it?"
"I didn't! I hated it," she repeated. "I just couldn't say no." She didn't struggle, hanging limply, despite the pain she had to be in. "I couldn't. There's nothing you can do to me I don't deserve, and I'll let you. Just don't take her away. Find some way to let me stay and make it up to her."
"Bitch!" He slapped her, hard, then dropped her, the anger dimming, replaced by sick horror. "You kept going back to him. You chose him. Now you live with your choices. Get out before you die from them, Alexia."
"I never chose him," she whispered. "I never called him, never approached him... I just couldn't tell him no." She looked up at him. "Let me stay. Please."
"So what, he kidnapped you? Every time?" He sneered at her. "Or did he force you some other way... maybe he held your mother hostage? Was it blackmail— he knew something about you that was even worse than being his slut? What is it, if it's not your fault?"
"I never said it wasn't my fault," she said, her voice never rising above a whisper. "I said I never chose him. I know I should have told him no, and I don't know why I couldn't... but I never pursued him, never asked him. Never."
"And you never TOLD ME!" He reached for her again, grabbing her by the shoulders. "If you'd told me... if for some insane reason you really couldn't resist that piece of shit... I'd have taken you away somewhere. Something. You never tried to stop it." His fingers tightened. "You lied. Over and over again. Everything has been a lie."
That shook her, he could tell, and she broke down into tears, begging and pleading with him to let her stay. Or at least that's what it sounded like; she was so frantic that she was almost unintelligible.
He stared down at her. "Why, Lexi?" he asked, almost gently. "You were never anything but a willing hole to him. A handy little slut. How could that be worth it to you? How could you lie to me for that?"
"I don't know! Don't you think I've asked myself that a million times? Don't you think I knew he was using me? I hated him!" She looked up at him, pleading. "If you think about it, you can name the day he told me he was leaving."
He let go of her shoulders and stepped back, sighing, thinking of the night last summer, when for no reason she'd insisted on going out, dancing and partying until dawn. It could have been a celebration... but of his leaving, or her years of getting away with it? "Why didn't you tell me? If you truly wanted to stop, why didn't you ask for help?"
The anger surged back. "Did you really think I wouldn't find out? If you'd told me early on... we could have worked things out, perhaps, but not after years and years of you playing whore for a total pringao! What am I to tell my daughter... sorry, honey, not only is your mother a whore, but your biological father is the biggest piece of shit to walk the face of the earth?"
"If you were sorry you wouldn't have done it!" He slammed his hand into the wall above her head. "Damn you! I trusted you! I gave you everything you ever wanted, I took care of you, I loved you! And all along what you really couldn't resist is being treated like a cum-dump?! Well fuck, if I'd known that I could have saved a fortune in roses! You fucking puta! Is that what you really wanted? Is that how I should have treated you? Would it have made you faithful if I called you a cunt and beat the shit out of you a few times? Is that what it would take? ANSWER ME!"
"I DON'T KNOW!" she yelled back, showing an emotion other than horror or shame for the first time. "I keep telling you, I don't know why I couldn't tell him no!"
"That's bullshit! You wanted it or you would have told me! You would have done something! Damn it, if you'd told me that's what you wanted, I would have given it to you!"