Broken Together by K. S. Ruff Page A

food aside. I couldn’t
swallow around the lump in my throat. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t know why.
    “You
don’t like the sardines?” Rafael looked angry, sad, and frustrated all at the
same time.
    “We
need to leave.” A million alarms were going off inside my head.
    He
eyed the half-eaten food. Slowly, he nodded. Rafael called our waiter over. He
offered an apology and some assurances about the quality of the food before settling
our bill.
    A
second vocalist approached the microphone as we began to leave. She didn’t sing
until we stepped outside. Still, her melodic lament clung to me.
    Rafael
strode from the restaurant. I tried to keep up. “What’s going on?”
    He
didn’t answer until we turned down an abandoned street. I glanced down at my
feet. I was wearing comfortable shoes, but those tiny mosaic tiles kept poking
through the soles. As beautiful as the sidewalks were, they were proving
painful to walk on, and it appeared we’d be walking the entire way home.
    Rafael
slowed. “Do you remember the case I told you about when you discovered that
book on my nightstand?”
    I
slipped my hand through the crook of his arm. “The one involving the
international pedophile ring?”
    He
nodded. “That case involves a number of prominent and powerful individuals.”
    “You
speak as if the case is still active,” I interjected.
    “It
is.” A tiny bit of tension eased from his face. “Hundreds of children from the
Casa Pia Orphanage were victimized by this pedophile ring for more than forty
years. Because the individuals involved were extremely wealthy and wielded a
great deal of power, government officials and law enforcement officers turned a
blind eye to the rumors that had been circulating for decades. Victims were
intimidated, evidence was lost, and people were paid to sweep these claims
under the rug.”
    “That’s
awful,” I breathed.
    “We
identified over one hundred boys and girls who were violently abused; some were
deaf and mute. That only includes the more recent victims… well, the ones who
were willing to come forward. I’m sure there were more. Thousands of charges
were filed against a handful of individuals. Most of these individuals have
already gone to trial. Others have proven more elusive.”
    My
eyebrows knit with confusion. “How did you get involved with this case when you
were working in VIP protection?”
    Rafael
sighed. “I was assigned to protect a former Portuguese ambassador. I was on
duty when a child was brought to his flat. I assumed he was adopting the child.
You have to spend some time living with the child you’ve applied to adopt in
Portugal before the adoption is finalized, so I didn’t think too much about it.
The only thing that gave me pause was the man’s age. He was older, in his
sixties, and the boy was only nine.” His voice broke on the boy’s age.
    I
stepped in front of him so I could study his face. His eyes were steeped in
pain. “Are you okay?”
    Rafael
shook his head. “I was protecting this man while he abused that little boy. I
ignored the child’s cries. I thought he was being rebellious, that he didn’t
want to be adopted. I just assumed he was missing his friends at the
orphanage.”
    I
grasped Rafael’s hands.
    Tears
welled in his eyes. “I intervened the second night. The boy’s screams were
just… more than I could bear. The ambassador didn’t hear me when I entered the
apartment. He was…” Rafael’s eyes slammed closed. “He was raping that little
boy while whipping him with a belt.”
    I
pressed my dampened cheek to his chest. “I’m so sorry, Rafael. That’s
horrifying.”
    “I
lost it. I couldn’t believe I’d allowed such a monstrous thing to happen on my
watch. I beat the ambassador until he was unconscious and left him lying there
with his pants tangled around his legs. I didn’t dare take the boy back to the
orphanage. I knew there had to be some staff members at the orphanage who’d
been bribed, who’d