CHAPTER 125: BROKEN TRUST

I was hiding away in my bedroom one evening, when suddenly someone knocked a little too loudly on my door. My instincts told me that it was Raphael standing on the opposite side of the door. At first, I thought I could pretend I couldn’t hear him, but that only resulted in him banging harder and faster on my bedroom door.

"I know that you’re in there!" Raphael yelled from the other side of the door.

I had no choice but to open the door for him. Raphael looked beside himself as he stood right in front of me. Before I could open my mouth to ask him what he wanted, he pushed past me into my bedroom. I hesitantly closed the door behind me as I turned to face him. I had never seen Raphael look so upset, and I began to wonder what it was that was bothering him so much.

"What on earth is wrong with you?" Raphael asked me, his voice sharp as he stood with his hands on his hips in the middle of my bedroom. His presence was commanding, but that only made me stand my ground.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," I replied.

"Don’t play pretend with me. You know very well that you’ve been dodging me for days, both at work and also at home. What is going on?" He repeated his question again, and I could tell that his patience was wearing thin. I turned away from him as I wrapped my arms protectively around myself.

"I haven’t been avoiding you, you’re just imagining things," I replied.

"You know as well as I do that that is absolute bullshit, Abigail," he said through clenched teeth.

His eyes were wild with anger in a way I had never seen before. I knew that I had been avoiding him, but I wasn’t ready to admit it, and that was probably because I barely understood why I was doing something like that myself. I exhaled slowly as I forced myself to stay calm.

"I’m sorry if it appeared that I’ve been avoiding you. Honestly, I just needed some time to think," I replied softly.

"Think about what, exactly?" he asked challengingly.

I fidgeted as I hesitated to answer him. My chest felt tighter under the intensity of his gaze.

"About you. About the truth and everything," I replied honestly.

"Do you mean you were thinking about me, or more about my family and our family business?" Raphael asked as his expression darkened even further. I could tell that he could read me like an open book, and there was no point in denying it.

"Yes, I’ve been thinking about pretty much everything," I replied with a nod of my head.

"Is that how it is? I kept telling you that the truth wouldn’t benefit you or anyone. Now that you know the truth, you don’t know how to react in front of me anymore - is that it?" he asked sarcastically before letting out a sharp laugh and shaking his head in dismay.

I bit down hard on my lower lip as I tried to find the right words.

"You know that it’s not that simple," I replied.

I wasn’t sure if Raphael understood what the truth meant for me and for my mother. Our future and our lives were basically hanging by a thread if we ever got ourselves involved with the mafia. Truthfully, it was probably too late because we had already gotten ourselves involved, and now I wasn’t even sure how we were supposed to find our way out.

"Maybe you’re the one that’s overcomplicating things," Raphael replied as he reached a hand towards me.

Involuntarily, I flinched and shied away from his touch. Almost immediately after I reacted like that, I knew that something between us had changed. More than anything, I felt guilty for the look of hurt that I saw flash on Raphael’s face after observing my reaction.

"It’s not like that," I quickly said before I realized that I could never explain how I truly felt to him.

"Is this how it’s going to be?" Raphael asked, sounding more sad than I could ever find comfortable.

I wanted to come out and tell him that everything had changed because now our relationship seemed even more impossible than before. It was bad enough that he was my stepbrother and that we had to keep our relationship a secret, but now he was also part of a mafia family. The pain that I felt in my chest threatened to tear me apart. I felt so frustrated that, soon enough, all of the complicated feelings that bubbled up in my chest channeled out in the form of anger.

"How do you expect me to act, Raphael? You’re the one acting like nothing has changed! You’re acting like I’m still ignorant and that I don’t know anything about the truth! What about me? How am I supposed to just pretend that nothing happened and that everything is normal when it’s not?" I yelled back as my voice rose uncontrollably.

"I am not pretending to be anything, Gail. This is who I am. I’m the same person that you met the first time we met. I’ve always been this person. I’ve always been me," Raphael replied as he took a step closer.

In a way, I knew that Raphael was right. Since the first passionate night that we met, Raphael had always been himself. I was the one that was foolish enough to believe that he was anything close to normal.

"But that’s exactly the problem! I didn’t know anything back then, and you wouldn’t tell me anything. But now I do know the truth, so I don’t know how I’m supposed to trust you," I replied honestly.

A heavy silence fell between us like a curtain that wouldn’t be drawn. It felt like an invisible wall had grown between us.

I had gone and said something that I couldn’t take back. By the time I realized it, it was too late for me to change anything - because I had told him that the trust between us had been broken.