Page 80 of Enigma: The Final Chapter
“Why did you come back? Why didn’t you just stay with her?” I sob as the first lot of tears splash on my cheeks.
The pain of seeing everything I'm losing up close is too much for me to bear. My heart feels like it’s being torn in half, my head hurts, and my body is aching to be claimed by him.
“Because you're mine, Isabelle.” He's so close, his warm breaths dry my tears. “You'remine.” He crowds himself closer, leaving nothing between us, making us become one. “And I am yours.”
Chapter 32
Isaac
Thirty-six hours earlier…
Can you imagine having everything you’ve ever believed suddenly stripped away from you? Every decision, every mistake, every choice I’ve ever made was altered when Isabelle whispered that Ophelia was alive.
At first, I assumed I must not have heard her right, that I must have misunderstood what she said. It was only when she continued speaking did the reality of the situation dawn on me. I placed her onto her feet and took a step backward, so I could gauge the veracity of her bold statement, unable to fathom a response to the truth in her eyes.
Every decision I made from the day Ophelia died ran through my head—my empire, my decision to make myself sterile, my inability to express my feelings to Isabelle. It all filtered through my mind on repeat. Its raucous cycle only stopped when Isabelle said Ophelia had a child, a boy whom she guessed to be around six—the age my child with Ophelia would have been if she weren’t involved in her accident.
Blinded by shocked anger, I packed a bag, eager to seek answers to the questions hampering my astuteness. The cloud consuming my mind lifted for the briefest second when I caught sight of the devastation marring Isabelle’s beautiful face. Even knowing I was hurting her, my hesitation about leaving only lasted a second. Nothing would have stopped me that night. I needed answers, and Ophelia was the only one who could give them to me.
The flight to the other side of the country was tedious and uneventful. Even exhausted from not sleeping the previous two nights without Isabelle and fighting in the charity match, my ability to sleep still lacked. My brain wouldn’t stop replaying the lead-up to Ophelia’s death in my head over and over again.
By the time my private jet arrived in Tiburon, it was a little after seven in the morning, and the battery on my cell was sitting at twenty-three percent. In my haste to pack, I failed to grab a charging cable. Once Hunter advised the location he’d given Isabelle the previous day, I shut down my phone to conserve its charge.
My extreme speed in my rental car had me arriving at the family-owned pharmacy just before eight. Not surprisingly, the front glass doors were deadbolted, and the sign displayed that the pharmacy wouldn’t be opening until ten o’clock. I yanked my cell phone out of my pocket and fired it up, planning to call Hunter. I wanted to get the private home address of the pharmacy owners, too impatient to wait another two hours.
My lengthened steps to the rental car halted when my skin prickled with an awareness that I was being watched. When I lifted my gaze, the air was vehemently removed from my body. There standing before me was Ophelia. The first girl I ever loved.
As my heart thwacked against my chest, I scanned every detail of her face. She had the same turned-up nose, but her eyes were lighter than I remembered, her hair wavier, and the color of her skin a hue darker. But even with the small changes in her appearance, there was no way she could deny she was Ophelia.
“Isaac.”
She rushed toward me to throw her arms around my neck. When her familiar wild strawberry scent engulfed my nostrils, it was like the last six years had never happened. I was once again a college boy enjoying the thrill of the chase. Ophelia was the first girl to refuse my advances. It took me months of wooing before she agreed to go out with me.
I pulled her away from me to stare at her. My mind was spiraling, unable to grasp reality. I had wanted her to be alive for years, so when she stood in front of me, as beautiful as the day I first laid my eyes on her, I was speechless.
With a broad grin, she enclosed her hand over mine and guided us down the concrete sidewalk of the pharmacy. My brow arched when she took a left at the end of the path to follow it to a white cottage attached to the brick building. The inside of the house was basic but clean. The walls in the living area were white wood panels, and there was an open, brick fireplace in the middle.
Ophelia shrugged off her jacket before moving into the compact kitchen. As my eyes tracked her, they caught sight of a collection of photos on top of the fireplace. Pacing over, I picked up a photo of Ophelia with a small boy and a man with dark brown hair. My eyes scanned the young boy’s face, seeking any similarities to me. He had his mother’s light brown eyes, but no identifiable features of mine. Although my brother is proof you can never rely on appearance to clarify paternity.
My brows furrowed when Ophelia questioned, “Are you still friends with Cormack?” like we were long-lost friends reacquainting after an extended period of absence, instead of her rising from the ashes.
I placed the frame onto the mantle, then joined her in the kitchen. Her plump lips slumped when I failed to answer her question, but she hid it by gesturing for me to sit in one of the chairs around her four-seater dining table. I remained standing.
Her hand tremored when she gave me a mug full of double-strength coffee, surprising me that she still remembered how I liked my brew. She sat in the chair closest to me while sipping on a mug of tea. I placed my untouched coffee onto the kitchen counter, too shocked that she was sitting in front of me, uninjured, unharmed, perfectly fine to drink.
Several uncomfortable minutes later, her large gulp was easily audible in the awkward silence. After placing her half-empty mug onto the chipped tabletop, her eyes lifted to mine. They were definitely lighter than I’d recalled.
“I was so angry after your fight with CJ that I made a stupid decision.”
I remained quiet, still perplexed and silently brooding.
“An FBI agent named Tobias had been undercover in our family for a few years. We’d discussed the possibility of him getting me out of that industry numerous times, but since there was no real threat to my safety, and I was an adult, we never had any reason to act on it. Until the night of the fight.”
My heart was beating wildly, but my composure didn’t allude to it.
“My father was furious. Not just because you beat his number one fighter and still refused to fight under him, but because I disgraced the family.”
My jaw muscle tensed as memories of that night ran through my head.
