Stolen Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle
Marcelo
Tess’s perfect little round ass pressed into my cock is what wakes me up in the morning.
My eyes fly open and I push myself up into a seated position while I fight to remember exactly where I am and what happened yesterday. It was a hell of a long day, starting with me killing the baker and ending up with the doctor coming to check on Tess.
Shock, she said. I don’t know much about shock and I sure as hell don’t know everything about Tess, but she seems stronger than that to me. I think it’s more that she’s retreated into herself for a little bit so that she can try to get a handle on what’s really going on in her life.
My cock is hard and ready for her but I shift away, looking down at her face. She’s still fast asleep, her mouth open slightly, her eyes barely fluttering in her sleep. My God, she’s fucking gorgeous. I want to do everything in my power to keep her safe and happy and that means that I need to figure out what the fuck happened yesterday.
Because she’s stronger than that, I know she is. Time alone in that empty bedroom shouldn’t have broken her, but it did. I need to know why, so I can put all of her broken pieces back together.
Slowly, so I don’t wake her, I slip from the covers and shower. Taking care of myself in the shower isn’t the same as having her on her knees in front of me, but it’ll have to do for now, at least until she’s better.
Downstairs, I make breakfast and put it on a tray for her, pausing when I see the fish in his bowl. The movers left the food in the garage and after grabbing it I put the bowl and the container of fish food on the tray as well. I may not know all of the things that make Tess happy, but I have a pretty good feeling that she’ll want to see her little friend.
She still hasn’t moved when I get back up to the room, so I set the tray down on the bedside table and grab a piece of toast, taking a huge bite while I look at her. Tess is flawless on the outside. Everything about her is perfect. Now I know that she’s damaged on the inside I want to see what it is and fix it.
“Who hurt you, Tess?” I ask, and her eyes fly open.
She sits, her eyes overly bright, her breath coming in little gasps. When she sees me standing over her, her eyes focus on me, but she can’t seem to get control of her breathing.
“Woah,” I say, sitting down next to her and wrapping my arm around her shoulder. She doesn’t pull away from me when I tug her closer to me. “Tess, you’re safe. It’s okay. What’s going on, darling?”
I feel her body stiffen and then she relaxes just a tiny little bit, turning so that her face is pressed up into the side of my neck. Her skin is clammy and I rub her back, wanting to do everything that I can to help her calm down.
“Tess, talk to me. What’s going on?” I keep rubbing her back while I speak, hoping that’s what she needs to finally calm down and open up to me. She gives a little shiver and pulls away from me so that she can turn and look up into my face. I let her, even though I hate the thought of having her anywhere but pressed right up next to my body all the time.
“That room,” she says, her voice tight and dry. She stops, clears her throat, and then takes the glass of juice I offer her. After a couple of sips she hands me the glass back and tries again. “That room. I’ve been in there before.”
What is she talking about? “No, darling, you can’t have been,” I tell her. “I promise you, you’ve never been in my house before. That room is new to you.”
She shakes her head even before I finish speaking. “You don’t understand,” she says, her voice a little bit stronger now. “I’ve been in that room before. I lived there.”
The doctor was right. My sweet Tess has lost it and that thought makes me unbearably sad. I don’t want to think about this gorgeous woman losing her mind. I don’t move my arm from around her.
“Tess—” I say, keeping my voice as level as possible, but she cuts me off.
“Okay, it wasn’t that exact room. But I’ve been in one like it before. I lived in it. My foster family kept me there.” She pulls away from me and drops her head into her hands like she honestly can’t handle any more words.
“Your foster family kept you in a room with just a mattress?” The question is so insane that I can’t believe I’m asking it. “They made you live like that?”
She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t need to. Her body language is enough for me to know that not only is she telling the truth, she’s also horrified that she just admitted it to me.
Her shoulders slump forward and she wraps her arms around her stomach like she’s trying to protect herself. Reaching out, I take her chin in my hand and turn her face towards mine. Her mouth is set in a firm line and her eyes are tightly closed, like she’s doing her best to keep from being forced to see the world.
“Tess, does anyone know besides me?” Anger is washing over me but I do my best to keep it in check. The last thing that she needs right now is to see me lose my cool. Even though I want to go find that foster family right now and put them in the ground, I have to be here for her, and I have to try to stay calm.
She shrugs. “I don’t think so.”
“How did you get out of there? Did you tell anyone that that’s what was going on? Surely your case worker—”
“My case worker sucked,” she snaps, finally lifting her head and opening her eyes to look right at me. “She had so many files to work on and most of them were little kids, so the older ones didn’t get a lot of her time. I think that she knew, but she was too busy running around trying to keep little kids out of houses where the dads would molest them at night.”
A terrible thought crosses my mind. She’ll hate me for wanting to know, but I have to ask. She might not even answer me, but at least I’ll have tried.
“Did your foster father abuse you?”
She stares into the middle distance and doesn’t answer me, but I don’t need her to. I see it in her eyes. Tess looks so sad right now, like she’s seen all of the horrible things in the world that people do to each other. Then she turns and stares right at me, letting me really see into her.
I’ve never felt like I could see someone’s soul before, but I feel that way now. Tess puts on a strong front, but only because she doesn’t feel she has a choice in the matter. She can either let people think that she’s strong and then hope that they won’t mess with her or she can deal with more people taking advantage of her.
“I’ll kill him.” It’s literally the only thing that I can think of right now. “Tess, you tell me who he is and I’ll destroy him. I promise you that he won’t be able to hurt you or anyone else ever again. A bastard like him doesn’t deserve to live.”
She shakes her head, looking sad. “You don’t understand, Marcelo,” she says, her voice slow and low. “I can’t stop him.”
“But I can.” Never in my life have I wanted to protect someone as badly as I want to protect Tess right now. “You might not be able to, Kitten, but there’s nothing stopping me from taking this man and destroying him. I’ll make sure that he never hurts anyone else, do you understand? You’ll be safe, Tess.”
“He’s already won.” Three small words, but they sound so painful when they slip from her lips. I stare at her, unsure of what she means.
“I don’t understand. Won? And who the hell is this guy that he could have someone like you running scared, Kitten?”
There isn’t anyone in this world that I’m honestly afraid of. But someone has my sweet Tess running scared, and that makes me want to find out who he is and destroy him.
If Tess refuses to tell me then I’m just going to have to figure it out on my own.
