His Enemy's Daughter

Chapter 2

I caught sight of a familiar silhouette — tall, broad, carrying that quiet fierceness that seemed to command the very air around him.

“Uncle Rafael!” I said, a smile breaking across my face as he stepped into view.

The car door shut behind him with a soft, deliberate sigh, the sound almost too elegant. I couldn’t help but wonder what brought him here this time. Business, perhaps. Something important… or something he wouldn’t talk about until much later.

I almost sprinted down the steps because he was here.

“You don’t have to run, dear,” Mrs Baines said. She was by the kitchen door when I came down.

“I know,” I said, breathless, “but he’s Rafael.” That name always felt like a promise of trouble dipped in charm. He was my favorite uncle for a reason — the one who smelled like recklessness and fun and told stories that made the grown-ups forget to be polished.

"Oh dear I know" She chuckled. "Check the office, I think they are there" she nodded to the corridor to my dad's study.

The foyer filled with that hushed kind of noise that meant adults were talking about things that had nothing to do with me — and then I heard a voice that made the air prick: my father’s, low and measured. And Rafael’s, over a topic that made my ears perk without permission. I took cover near a flower pot by the office entrance.

“…teach her some defense,” Rafael was saying. “Not for show. For actual skill.”

My feet stopped midway up the near the entrance.

“You think she’ll listen?” my father asked. There was that crease in his forehead I knew well, the one he made before decisions. I could picture him now: hands clasped, jaw working the way it did when he measured risk like a sheet of accounts. “She’s… Isla.”

“She listens,” Rafael said, soft but unyielding. “She just doesn’t like being told what to do.”

That earned a small smile from me. He knows me too well.

“Who would teach her?” my father asked.

“Someone who understands… practicalities. Not just kicks for photo-ops.”

My brows went up. Photo-ops? My mouth twitched into a grin. I should have stayed behind the plant, but hearing defense and teaching and practicalities made something in me spark. I marched out from my botanical cover like a guilty fairy summoned to confession.

“Hi!” I announced, overly bright and entirely unrepentant. “I brought éclairs and a masterpiece. Also, I’m totally in favor of taekwondo. Black belt by graduation, maybe? Do you offer crash courses?”

Both men looked at me — my father with that same measuring look, Rafael with amusement doing a slow lap around his face.

"Oh I didn't know you were back, welcome" My father recovered his neutral expression and tried to change topic. Of course he knew I was back, Marco reported back to him when we reached and that I was in my room.

Rafael’s eyebrows climbed. “Taekwondo would be an interesting choice,” he said, brushing off the attempt to end the conversation “You’d learn discipline.”

“Discipline is optional,” I said, rolling my eyes. “But seriously, I was just joking about taekwondo. I — ” I hesitated.

“But if you really want me to learn defense, I want to. I’ll learn fast. Look — college is around the corner. I won’t have Marco glued to my hip forever. People go to universities. I’ll have classes and friends and late-night walks and questionable dorm food. It makes more sense I know how to keep myself safe than have a small army follow me everywhere.”

My father didn’t answer right away. He studied me the way someone reads a balance sheet — looking for leaks, for assets, for liabilities. His jaw softened a fraction. “You’re practical,” he said at last. “That’s new.”

“Shh,” Rafael said, crossing the room to accept the box of éclairs like a man who had never met chocolate he didn’t want to interrogate.

My father rubbed the bridge of his nose. He made the face he makes when he’s thinking about drastic consequences. “I’ll think about it,” he said finally, which, in our house, meant something. When he said he’d think about it, he meant he’d call three people, run a background check, and then probably say yes because he dislikes being proven wrong by circumstance.

“You’re right,” he admitted, as if conceding to logic wounded him less than conceding to habit. “If you’re going to college, you need more than a guard. You need skills to protect and defend yourself”

I did a victory shimmy that would have embarrassed me if I hadn’t been a child in front of good chocolate. Rafael laughed and offered me an éclair like a trophy. I accepted it solemnly and committed to the sugar.

“Dinner?, We can celebrate my future black belt and Rafael’s homecoming.”

We ate in the dining room where the curtains were heavy and the art on the walls had been paid to look like storms. We all sat, as the table was being set. Mrs. Baines then brought my favourite dessert.

The conversation was the kind of dinner talk that started polite and then smuggled in the real things. Uncle Rafael asked about my drawings — I presented the framed sketch with the solemnity of a student handing in an essay —

“You want… independence,” my father said slowly.

“Yes,” I said, heart a little too loud. “In measured, sensible amounts. And self-defense. And maybe a tiny apartment with questionable plumbing.”

He laughed, a sound that always kind of surprised me because it was rare and warm. “You sound like you’ve made a list.”

“I did,” I confessed. “Taekwondo is now on it, followed by ‘stop calling my friends suspicious’ and third, ‘learn to cook something that isn’t takeout.’”

Rafael leaned forward, more serious now. “If we’re talking defense, we do it properly. Not just kicks, practical, hands-on. You’ll need to learn about boundaries, situational awareness"

My father’s eyes flicked to me, something soft and fierce mixing like paint. “We’ll begin with a trainer. We’ll monitor progress. And Marco will keep doing his job.”

“Good,” I said, because the world felt slightly rearranged into something I could handle. “Now the important question: are éclairs required for training sessions?”

Rafael raised his fork. “Absolutely. They’re vital for motivation.”

We laughed then, and the sound settled the space between us. For the first time in a long while the house felt less like a well-staged photograph and more like a place people lived in. When dessert plates were cleared and the lights dimmed to polite conversation, Rafael clapped his hands once.

“I’ll stay the week,” he announced. “We’ll start proper training after you pick an instructor.”

My stomach did that small hopeful flip again. “Deal,” I said, and meant everything I said.

As I went to bed that night, sketchbook under my arm, I thought of the photograph of my mother and father — of the life that had been both promised and lost. I thought of my father’s approval, oddly tender when geared toward practicality. I thought of Rafael’s grin and Marco’s quiet watchfulness. Mostly I thought about how, for the first time, the idea of freedom.