His words enrage me. I fight against the chains again, but it is no use. River is a skilled assassin. He would not do anything halfway. And most especially not with the likes of me.
“I did what was best for her,” I snarl. “I was wrong. I was wrong to listen to you. To use her for my revenge. She does not deserve to be tortured anymore. She deserves to live in peace.”
River stops. His face is serious now. So serious I know that he is not fucking with me this time.
“How can she ever live in peace when she carries your child?”
My limbs grow heavy, and my heartbeat sluggish.There is an ache in the back of my throat. A chill in my spine.
My child?
Isabella carries my child. I need to get to her. I was wrong. So wrong. She believes I am dead. That I have abandoned her. My Bella.
It is pure agony to imagine her, swollen with my baby. Crying in her bed with nothing more than her vile father to comfort her.
“I must go to her,” I tell River. “Let me go.”
“Sorry,” he says again. “But I was making a point before if you’d let me get back to it. This information will only serve to hasten my purpose for you now. And perhaps make you more willing to help.”
I thrash against the chains again until I am bloody, screaming out my loathing for him. He waits until I am calm before he explains.
"I am doing you a favor," he insists. "I know you will see this in time."
"You need not worry about your girl," I tell him. "Because I will kill you myself."
"Think of her father," River says. "Of what he did to you, Javi. Are you really ready to let that go?"
I do not answer him. But I can feel the vein in my throat, throbbing. The desire is still there.The desire to kill Ray. I don't know if I can let it go. River knows this. And he is using my own methods on me, quite effectively.
The agency may train us in the art of psychological warfare, but they cannot make us immune to our own methods.
"You only ever had two options, Javi," he says. "In the worst-case scenario, Isabella would have been poisoned by her father. He would have turned her back against you if he hasn't already."
"No," I argue.
"You are a skilled manipulator," River acknowledges. "I will give you this, Jav. But Ray is even more skilled than you or me. It is how he fooled you before. How do you think his own daughter will respond to his tactics?"
I shake my head and try to deny it. I don’t want to accept that it could be true. I don't want to believe it. River knows that everyone I have ever cared for has betrayed me, and he is exploiting that in the same way I exploited Isabella's fears.
"Trauma bonding," River continues, "is a powerful weapon. But the bond must remain for that relationship and dependency to flourish. You know as well as I do that Ray would not allow that to happen."
"No," I say again. "Isabella is not like us. She can forgive. She can..."
"That's the lie we all want to believe," River cuts me off. "Just as my girl's feelings were real too. Until the agency got a hold of her. Until they turned her into a killer. Just as our friendship was real, even as I lied to you, Javi. Even as I betrayed you like all the others before you."
"Bella is not that way," I insist.
But even I am starting to doubt myself. I am uncertain if she hates me now, just as I predicted. It was her hope for survival. She had only convinced herself that she cared for me to survive the circumstances of her situation.
"I don't think I need to remind you of the second scenario," River goes on. "But let's be hypothetical for a moment. Say that your Bella is as strong as you insist she is. Say that despite the odds and well documented psychological evidence to the contrary, her feelings for you endured in your absence. Would those feelings sustain even when you murdered her beloved father?"
I do not answer him because I already know the answer. The answer is no. Bella could not love me if I killed Ray. She could not forgive me for that.
"It is bound to happen," River says. "You know it, Jav. I know it. Let's not lie to ourselves anymore, okay? You would have to kill him. It's the only way."
"No," I argue.
"It's not so bad. You have accomplished what you set out to do. You have destroyed Ray by destroying his daughter. And now he must live with those consequences."