Chapter 9

*** Rosaria’s POV ***

I stood in front of him, watching his face. It was ridiculous, what I had just done, but it wasn’t the worst. Whenever the men stripped me to fuck me, their faces contorted in disgust. ‘Well, at least, I don’t have to look at you to fuck you.’ That was their usual line. There wasn’t anything I could do at this point about how it looked and I was far past having shame about it.

Marek was beautiful. Not handsome, beautiful. The same beauty I’d admired in fathers third wife, his second or third cousin. By then, most of us kids were already born. She actually had two children, Giovanni and Brianna, twins. They were killed and I had a serious feeling that Enzo did it. My father stopped having children after she died but the whores were on constant circulation.

His brothers I’d seen had various fullness of beards but Marek was clean shaven. He was larger than his brothers. Not fatter, but had broader shoulders, larger build, and taller. His head was shaved up the sides but left long up top. This was the first time it wasn’t slicked back, but instead tussled to one side.

I’d noticed the bandages and bruises on his hands when he walked it. He’d also looked a little stiff when he was walking, sitting and getting up. I wondered if he had been in a fight. Even so, the black buttoned shirt with the black slacks combo made him look dangerous. Not a single one of his facial expressions or his eyes showed any sort of threat aimed at me. At my father when I spoke of him, or my family in general, sure, but never towards me. Hostility I was used to, kindness I was not.

It had been too quiet for too long as he stared at me. Even with my shirt back on I felt naked. I felt a flush come over me and I started to ramble. “My father…outside the times he was drunk or was mad or found out I’d been raped or had a bad day…he would…” My eyes narrowed. “No, too recent. Basically after I was deemed unsellable, I became his pet. Even so far as sitting on my knees during his meetings like a dog. Most of the time I’d take notes for him. He involved me in every aspect of the mafia to use me one way or another. Most of these scars are from the torture sessions.”

I took a deep breath. “He would take me down when he needed to torture someone. Usually for information but not always. It always ended up with that person dying either from their wounds or a bullet, no matter the promises he made. After he was done, he would take me and sit me in the same chair. Blood, urine, shit still on or around me. He would tell me I could never break like them. Then he would do the same exact torture that made those men sing like canaries. It was always the exact thing, never more, never less. I’d have to endure it as he asked me questions about any of his current wives, which of his men fucked me, who my sisters were fucking. Things like that. But I had to endure. Because if I didn’t, I’d join the dead. I was only a pet.”

“After he was done, he was always out of breath, like it excited him. That he could control me, break me down, but I never broke. He’d stalk towards me and rape me right there. My blood, the previous victims fluids. Didn’t matter. He found joy and excitement in it.”

It was terrible, what my father had done and continued to do to me. I knew that but I’d stopped running years ago. Back then I had a heart and he used it against me. Killing those I loved and cared deeply about. Part of me felt responsible for Marek’s cousins death. I’d run but no punishment came. I thought my father was bored of me at last. Four days later, she was hanging from the rafters, dead.

Marek still hasn’t moved. I continued to wait, pressing my lips tight so I didn’t spew anything else out. His fingers twitched for a moment and I watched them slowly come up to his shirt. They moved and the first button in his shirt opened, then the second. I was glued as I watched him reveal his chest. Fuck me if the gods hadn’t chiseled this man themselves. I wondered if he really was thirty-nine. This was not the body of a thirty-nine year old. As he got lower, I noticed the slight bruising along his ribs, further solidifying my theory that he got in a fight.

As he pulled his shirt out of his pants, he rolled his shoulders to remove it entirely. I wanted to gulp. This Russian god before me had just looked at my mangled body. The heavens should smite me now. He had hair that trailed down his chest and continued even down past his abs disappearing into his belted slacks. Many men came and went in my life but not a single one looked like Marek. Not a single one lit a fire in me like Marek.

He turned and I traced the insane muscle definition in his back with my eyes. His voice, a deep but smooth sound with a slight Russian accent, shook me out of my stupor.

“You and I have something in common.”

It was then I saw the lines; whip lines. I had quite a few myself. His skin was not as dark as mine and they were almost silver on his skin. Before I realized it, I stepped forward and ran my fingers along one of the larger ones. His body seized up, shoulders thrown back and his spine curved away from me. Still, he didn’t move away completely. Tentatively, I reached up again and traced a few more of them.

“My father felt compassion for others was a weakness. We should only care about our family, not anyone else. So, at times when I defied him, this would be my punishment.”

“They’re beautiful.” It slipped out before I could catch it.

Marek turned around, his eyes wide, clearly shocked at my words. I swallowed under his intense scrutiny. However, if he was looking for me to take my words back, he would be disappointed. As much as I didn’t mean to say it out loud, didn’t mean it wasn’t true. ‘Tell the truth, dear. If you can’t tell the truth, don’t say anything at all.’ I think it was my fathers second wife, or maybe his sixth, that said that to me. Who they were hadn’t stuck but that saying had and I did my best to live by it.

“Scars do not bother me, búsinka. Not even yours. Though, I feel an unbridled anger towards your father. I’m just sorry that someone as young as you has so many.”

I was floored. Why was Marek so different from everyone who I’d interacted with before? After him saying what the third option was, I realized where the initial lines of questioning was going. He wanted to make sure I understood that his bratva was not like our mafia. That family mattered to him and they would not be abused. It wasn’t just because he said so but because all the facts I’d collected on them over the years confirmed it.

“There is still nothing I offer you personally.”

He still hadn’t told me why he was willing to do it. There was no way someone would willingly give up their freedom to be tied to someone like me. Not without reason and outside what he felt was his duty to his Don.

He blinked at me a couple times before he stepped back a bit and plopped down on the couch. Marek staying shirtless was not helping me try and figure out why the hell marriage to me seemed like a viable option. I wanted to touch his skin again. Feel just how hard the muscles that were so well defined. I was a hot mess right now.

“Maybe I finally can admit to myself that I’m lonely. That having a companion doesn’t quite seem nearly as bad as an idea as it once did. Not all agreements end in love but at the very least, I’d like a friend who didn’t take orders from me on a daily basis.”

The snort I let out was unladylike and I’d tried to hold it back but I realized it was worth it. Not once had Marek smiled but in this moment, there was a ghost of it. Like his face was trying to remember what it was like to do that again.

When he told the story of his ex-fiancé, I tried to imagine a young and in-love Marek as he tried to woo a beautiful Columbian girl, but I couldn’t picture it. The man standing before me now was too strong of a personality that I couldn’t imagine him as anything else.