Deception. Betrayal. Mistrust.
It seems the closer Rayne gets to the truth, the more she finds herself wanting to run away from it. It's complex and terrifying-more than she ever fathomed.
New family members, good and bad, pop out at her like a br...
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𝗧hree weeks.
Three weeks since she was rushed to a hospital in Spain.
Three weeks since she miscarried.
Rayne folded her hands in and out of the dirt at the cemetery, wiping the sweat off her forehead. She placed the spade on the ground beside her body, having paid off the graveyard workers for a quiet afternoon to bury her child by her lonesome. Her face remained flat as she took the box she'd finally received from the Barcelona hospital and placed it in the hole.
She'd chosen a spot right next to her mother's grave.
Rayne had been far along enough in her pregnancy to know that her baby had been a girl. She had known enough that if she had lived, she would have named her after her fallen comrades.
Francesca.
Lilliana.
Taryn.
Maybe a mix of all three.
Rayne sprinkled the first handful of dirt over the box, her tears watering the remnants of a little girl who belonged to her and one other. As she shoved more dirt into the hole, her actions becoming more angry and frivolous with each push, she cried.
She had already proven herself a failure of the mafia.
She had failed at saving the love of her brother's life.
And now she was a failure of a mother—she couldn't even carry to term.
Rayne understood that she was not the only one to blame. That the horrific hands and unjustified kicks to her stomach by her abusers played their hand in her baby's death, but she also knew that she had put herself in that position. She knew she was pregnant when she offered to take Beau's spot. She knew they would try to ruin her once she admitted her pregnancy.
It was her fault.
Everything.
But her daughter was the one paying for it.
"Watch over her for me."
Rayne ran her fingers across her mother's epitaph.
"Watch over her until it's my turn to join you."
She finished burying her daughter, patting the dirt flat, and sticking a white cross at the top until her gravestone was finished. Rayne curled into a ball, stretching over both graves and put her ear to the ground. Silent sobs wracked her body as she drew small hearts and smiley faces—as she laid with her ear so tightly pressed, she pretended that the sound of her pulse was the beat of her child's heart.
Bump bump.
Bump bump.
Bump bump.
Rayne's face scrunched up, feeling a softness under her head and body, smelling the aroma of her fiancé. She must have fallen asleep at the cemetery because, by the time she opened her eyes and collected her surroundings, she realized she was no longer there but in Rueben's bed.
