Chapter 8

My eyes looked up to her but she was caught in my story, leaning forward, her hands clenching the blankets. Looking back down, I continued.

“Her father basically locked her down in their residence until our wedding which was six months away. Two months later, she showed up on this very doorstep covered in bruises and crying. She begged me to let me stay, that her father’s men were brutal and she didn’t feel safe.”

My eyes caught hers. “Unlike you, she was lying. I wasn’t the idiot that she thought I was. I loved her, but the lovesick puppy ended the first time I found out she cheated on me. She was having an affair with the son of her father’s second in command; Ernesto Gutierrez.”

“The infamous sniper? The rumor is he’s cruel, brutal, corrupt and dangerous. He’s never missed but he’s willing to sell his loyalty for a high enough price.”

“At the time, it was his father who had the reputation as the best sniper and gunman in the cartel. Though, Ernesto already earned the titles of cruel and brutal. The day she came to me was the day she found out she was with child; his child. Throughout her weeks that she stayed, she tried to get me to have sex with her. Hiding her pregnancy and symptoms while she did it.”

Rosaria’s fists clenched more. “She was trying to make it so that it would be called into question that it was your child.”

I nodded solemnly. “Yes, she was. But I had already known. Known that the bruises and marks on her body were from Ernesto and her fucking before she came over. After two months, she started to show. A small bump that could be hidden under clothes but she was still trying to get me to have sex. She wasn’t noticing that her body was changing outwardly as well.”

“So, I called a meeting. My father, my brothers, her father, her brothers, Ernesto, and his father. I laid out the information, the facts before them. I’d even had the child she carried tested for DNA matching me which came out negative. I provided photos and a timeline. She tried to use me to save her from Ernesto but I wouldn’t raise another man’s child.”

The room got quiet for a moment. “What happened after?” Rosaria’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Ernesto claimed what was rightfully his. Everyone was angry at her, at how she had thrown away the agreement and the peace that our marriage would have secured. She begged her father not to let her go, but she was already Ernesto’s. They married that weekend. After that, no one saw her again. My father worked with her father and Ernesto over the years but she was never mentioned again, though I do know he now has eight children. Whether of not all by the same mother I don’t know but I’d wager not.”

“And you?”

My eyes snapped up hers. I’d heard apologies, I’d heard ‘suck it up’ or ‘it was a long time ago, move on’. Never had someone asked how I was after everything blew up. I kept my eyes locked with hers. Her brown hair falling over her shoulders and cupping her face, still lost in my story.

“I spiraled. I loved her, even after all she had done. Losing her was like piece of my heart was torn out, or my soul. My father was torn. He was happy I’d finally become the uncaring and perfect killer he’d always wanted me to be. At the same time, he did care about his children and about their happiness.

My siblings had pretty much secured all that was needed with their marriages. My younger sister and I had a bit more freedom to marry for love. Only, I never found love. I never wanted to feel my heart being torn again. Eventually, when the pain finally dulled and I could look back to see how shitty she actually was, it was too late. I was so set in my ways, business focused, married to my job and free to help my brothers whenever they called, I stopped looking. My father never asked, my brothers never asked, and so I just never did.”

“Then why agree to a marriage now? Especially to me?”

My head cocked to the side. I didn’t like how she worded the last question. “It’s not that I agree. I asked my Vor if I could speak with you in regards to the option. It would benefit the both of us though. You would come under our protection, my protection. You would have a home free of abuse and free from your family. What my family gets out of it is finally sticking it Carlo and making him bend the knee now that we would be connected by marriage. It would be a spit in his face and halt any ideas he has to attack us.”

Shaking her head, she looked down. “My father doesn’t care about me. He wouldn’t give a shit if I was married to you or not. If it was one of my sisters maybe…” Rosaria trailed off.

“It would matter. Maybe not specifically between you and him but how the other families view us.”

I could see the wheels turning in her head again. Her hand coming up and allowing her chin to rest on it. “To my family, blood means next to nothing other than being sold to the highest bidder. But to the other families in the cartels and bratvas, it means more. If he were to turn against me…”

“…no one would back him. Right. He would be out on his own and on his own, your father would be destroyed.”

She was quiet for a spell. Much like my brother as he processed the idea. I was surprised my age hadn’t come up. Though, her saying her father sold her sisters to the highest bidder, our age gap might be not the worst she’s come across.

“But what do you get out of it?”

I’d been studying how you face moved as she took in and processed the details that I didn’t register her question. “What?”

“What do you get out of this arrangement?”

Sitting up from my lean, my back was straight as a rod. “I’m…not sure what you mean.”

She almost scoffed. “Yes, your brothers, your bratva, get to stick it to my father. But I wouldn’t be marrying your family. I would be marrying you. You are saying you will provide me a home and protection but what do you get out of this deal?”

Her question made all the thoughts in my head disintegrate. Again, Rosaria was asking about me. Something very few people asked.

“I…”

I couldn’t voice anything because I knew if I said that I would agree because it benefited my brother she would just ask again. Suddenly, the sheets were thrown off the bed and Rosaria started to get up. I was up, ready to push her back into bed, knowing that at least one of her ankles were broken. But in the same motion as getting up, the oversized shirt she was wearing came off and I froze mid-stride.

I’d seen some of the fresh damage that had been done, but in the morning light that was streaming through the windows, I could take her in fully. She was standing before me now completely naked outside of a pair of underwear and a few bandages still on her skin. It was horrifying. I’d tortured enough people to know that all the scars littering her body would have broken even the strongest man, broken me.

There was a large red mark that came up over the right side of her neck, over her shoulder and kissing her collarbone. However, the rest of the front of her body was covering in scars that ranged from small, thin and white to a gnarled one that ran from just below her left breast down across to her right hip. There wasn’t a piece of skin that you could see that was larger than a quarter that didn’t have a scar.

Then she turned around. The back of her was far worse. The burn went down her back but only to about her shoulder blade. But even that mark has scars all over it. Whip marks, blade cuts, multiple bullet holes. Hell, you could see where her skin had been pulled and she was hung by it. I wanted to throw up. Not from how it looked but the sheer about of pain she had been through. The fact that she was only nineteen blared in the back of my head. All this, in such a short amount of years.

“Marek, you would be married to me, a…monstrosity of scars. Broken, beaten, battered, abused. Fuck, I’ve got scars in my vagina for Christ’s sake. If you’re not getting anything out of it other than you’re doing your family a favor…” She pulled her shirt back down and turned around. “…don’t bother.”