The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba(8)

“I wondered what you looked like roused from your bed,” Berriz muses.

My cheeks heat, a little gasp escaping my lips.

“Lovely,” he croons. “You’re so lovely. We will be friends, won’t we? It would be a mistake to make an enemy of me. I am a powerful man, and no one is in a better position to grant your father his freedom. Why, without my help he might be sent to Ceuta or Chafarinas, and then who would you have to blame?”

For an instant, relief fills me at the news that my father is still alive. But the words falling from Berriz’s lips bring a new wave of horror. The Spanish penal colony off the north coast of Africa is well-known for its harsh conditions. Disease is rampant, hunger prevalent, and the officials treat the prisoners there worse than animals.

“Really, Evangelina. You can’t ask me for information about your father, can’t expect my assistance, and think I want nothing in return.”

I feared we would come to this moment, and now that it’s here, I don’t know how to manage it—how to manage him. I resort to the entreaties that have thus far served me well with the Spanish soldiers I’ve been forced to beg for mercy. Although, I doubt Berriz has a better nature.

“Please. My father is all we have left. He is a good man. He’s a soldier like you. He was doing what he thought was right, fighting for his country, for his friends. Please spare him.”

Berriz laughs cruelly. “Why are you wasting my time with such nonsense? Do you think I went to all the trouble to dress myself in this uniform, in a manner befitting a royal reception, to be lectured by a Cuban rebel? You know why I’m here and what I want. It’s time we stop this dance and clarify things between us.”

Even if I wasn’t engaged to Emilio, I could never care for a man who has treated me and my family so abominably. There is no romance to be had between jailer and prisoner, not when Berriz holds my life in his hands with such callous indifference.

“I don’t know what you speak of, sir.” My voice shakes, but I struggle to get the words out, to convince him that he cannot do this, that he doesn’t wish to act in such a dishonorable fashion. “I don’t know what you want. I’m only interested in saving my father. I—”

Before I even realize it, Berriz rises from the chair and catches me by the wrist, his big hand encircling my fragile bones. He could break every single one of them with only the slightest effort.

“I love you,” he proclaims.

I shudder.

There is no love in his voice, only zeal in his eyes. How do you dissuade a man who believes he is entitled to what you’ve already told him he cannot have? How do you reason with such a man?

Berriz tugs on my hand, pulling my fingers to his lips.

The feel of his flesh against mine makes my skin crawl.

I struggle past the wave of nausea, his breath hot against my skin, his mouth—

My gaze darts around the room as I search for something to use against him, praying someone will come to my aid. Is Carmen sleeping? The door to her room was closed when I returned to the house after dining with Emilio this evening and I assumed she was already asleep. I open my mouth to call to her, but fear of endangering her, too, stops me.

The door is my best hope of escape, but Berriz moves so quickly, our strength unmatched, the odds of escaping slim.

I jerk my hand from his grasp, panic filling me.

Anger flashes in his eyes. “You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Evangelina. I love you more than anything in the world.”

What does such a man know of love? What does he know of me? Perhaps he wants me because he cannot have me, but that is not love. Love is something infinitely kinder than this.

He’s so close now, crowding my space, and try as I might to escape him, there’s no room for me to move. He is everywhere, surrounding me, invading me.

“You’re responsible for what happens to your father. Don’t forget that.” He grips my shoulders, his fingers digging into my skin, shaking me like a broken doll, my head thrown back, the pain from his hands nearly unbearable. “I love you, Evangelina.”

He says it over and over again, as though that explains why he’s here and attempting this horrible thing, as though his perverted version of “love” forgives all manner of sins.

I hate him.

Sobs escape my lips, but he keeps shaking me, his actions growing rougher with each moment that passes.

Please, someone help me.

Berriz is so big, too strong, and the zeal in his eyes has become explosive, his feelings and wants lashing out at me in an uncontrollable madness. The civilized veneer he adopted when he put on his fine dress uniform has disappeared completely.

He is little more than an animal now, a predator in the jungle.

I scream, the sound ripped from the depths of my soul, a primal terror filling me.

Berriz loosens his grip on me, momentarily startled by the noise, by me, and I wrench myself away from him, running toward my bedroom.

My mind is empty save one word running through it over and over again:

Escape.

I throw open the door to my room, another scream torn from me, but he’s too fast, at my heels. Berriz catches me by the arm.

It is over. I am doomed.

And then, as if God himself has heard my prayers and answered them—

Suddenly, men pour through my bedroom window, the outer door to our house, shouts and oaths filling the room, the men charging us and separating me from Berriz.