The Wife Breaker by Isabella Starling

Chapter 15

RAIN

Twenty years ago

Nana is my entire world.

I can’t imagine a life without my grandmother. Since I was a little girl, she’s been taking care of me, making sure I have a happy life. I barely remember my parents - they died when I was a little girl, and since then I’ve been on the run with Nana.

I remember her explaining to me I wasn’t like other children.

That I needed to be protected, hidden away. That just by living my life, I risked having it taken away from me.

At first, it was hard to accept. I rebelled against it, eager to live a normal life like everyone else. I remember the first time I learned just how wrong I was so well.

Nana and I had just moved to a small seaside village. I spent hours upon hours on the beach, watching fishermen pull up their nets and unload their precious cargo. I fed stray cats that hung out by the pier and picked exotic looking flowers that grew all around us.

One day, I was sitting in the sand, toying with a kitten, when I felt a cold sensation of somebody watching me.

I raised my eyes, meeting the gaze of a man clad in dark clothing despite the oppressive heat of the afternoon.

“Hello,” I said thoughtfully.

“Hello,” he replied with a smirk. “Is that your kitten?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I just feed him.”

“So can I take him, then?”

“Why?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. The man looked different from the weather-beaten fishermen I was used to speaking with. His hair was slicked back and his clothes were all black.

“I want to take care of him,” the man said. “You can come with me. To make sure he’s safe.”

I picked up the kitten in my arms, contemplating my decision.

Nana surely wouldn’t like me talking to a stranger, but I was worried about the kitten and I wanted to make sure he went to a suitable home.

“Okay,” I mumbled. “You can take him, but I want to make sure he’s going to be okay. Can I come see where you’ll take him.”

“Of course.”

The man flashed me his perfect smile, pointing to a waiting car.

“Come with me.”

I followed him to the car and was already climbing in when one fisherman came after us.

“Rain, where is your Nana?” he asked me, glaring at the man with me.

“She went to the market,” I said.

“She wouldn’t like you leaving with this man.”

“And how is that any of your fucking business?” the stranger snarled, sending fear through my body.

The kitten struggled in my arms, and when he desperately scratched me to get away, I let go, watching helplessly as he ran into the shrubbery.

“Come on.”

The man tugged on my arm to get me to leave with him.

“But the kitten,” I cried out as he tried to force me into his car. “He ran off!”

Ignoring me, the man kept pushing me into the car when the fisherman attacked him. I screamed as they fought, but then the driver of the car exited and a single gunshot rang through the air of the island.

We all stood still for a second, and then my feet acted of their own accord as I took off running. I didn’t even know where I was going. All I could hear was somebody screaming my name - the man whom I’d never introduced myself to.

In my heart, I knew something was wrong. This man had an ulterior motive, and he was determined to catch me. I’d never ran so fast.

My feet barely hit the ground as I reached the market, eyes scanning the crowd for Nana. I spotted her in line for the peaches and ran to her, shivering and shaking, with tears streaming down my face.

When she saw me, Nana dropped her wicker basket on the ground. The people at the market seemed to take notice, and silently, they all left their stations and gathered around us in a protective circle.

“Did they hurt you?” Nana demanded as she enveloped me in a hug.

“No, but a man tried to take me,” I whispered, sniffling at the memory. “Was he a dangerous man, Nana?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “He was a terrible man, Rain.”

“You need to leave,” one woman I knew who worked a market stall told Nana. “Now.”

Nana nodded and dusted off my dress before addressing me.

“Rain, don’t be scared, but we need to leave this place.”

“Why? For how long?”

Nana’s lips thinned as she muttered, “Forever.”

“Why?” I cried out.

“So I can keep you safe.”

I didn’t get the chance to argue again. We heard a car screeching as it arrived at the market and the surrounding people gathered around it, banging their fists on the hood.

The lady who had spoken to us led us away. We slid into a thin alleyway, practically running to a compact car. She ushered us inside and sped out of her parking spot.

“What about our things?” I asked Nana. “Are we just going to leave everything behind?”

“We have to,” she replied in a clipped tone before addressing the woman driving. “Do you know where to take us?”

“No, tell me.”

Nana rattled off instructions to the woman. For the rest of the ride, I sat on my grandmother’s lap in the backseat. Every once in a while, when we passed a busy street, she told me to hide, and I sank onto the floor of the car. I’d never been so afraid before.

“I knew they’d come for you,” Nana whispered in the shell of my ear. “From now on, I’ll be more careful.”

It took hours to get to our destination, and by the time we pulled up to it, I was cramping from sitting in the car so long and desperate for the bathroom.

The market woman, Nana and I got out and silently watched the stone cottage standing abandoned in the middle of a bright wheat field.

“You’ll be safe here?” the woman asked thoughtfully. “The nearest village is an hour’s walk away.”

Nana nodded with a solemn expression.

“Thank you for helping us.”

“Of course,” the woman nodded eagerly. “You know it is our duty to help the Castellamare girls.”

Nana nodded, her fingers trembling as she leaned down to speak to me.

“Go inside the cottage, Rain. Check if there’s any food.”

I nodded, heading inside. But my curiosity got the better of me, and instead of searching the dusty cottage, I watched Nana speaking to the woman through the window.

I could only hear snippets of the conversation, but I saw Nana pull out a gun from behind her back.

I never knew my grandmother had a gun, and the sight of it sent chills down my spine.

She raised it to the other woman’s head. The woman paled, begging for her life. But Nana didn’t even let her finish. She simply fired a bullet into her forehead, and the woman’s now lifeless body tumbled to the ground while I shrieked.

Quickly, Nana turned around and rushed toward me, enveloping me in her once comforting gaze as I sobbed from what I’d just seen. My first dead body... but it certainly wouldn’t be my last.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Nana whispered in my ear. “She’s the only person who knew where we were... They could’ve tortured her, and she’d given up our location. She was innocent, but she had to die.”

I cried not understanding why this had to happen. The whole time, I just kept repeating one paltry word, trying to make sense of everything that had just happened.

Why?

The cottage was cool and Nana put me to work cleaning it until we had a place to sleep in the same bed. As I huddled against her, she stroked my hair. I didn’t know whether I could trust her anymore, but I didn’t have a choice.

“Tell me a bedtime story,” I whispered, eager to hold on to the remains of my childhood.

“Once upon a time,” Nana started thoughtfully. “There was a village filled with the most beautiful girls in the world. Every few years, the villagers were forced to send the most beautiful of them all to a cruel fate.”

I cuddled closer to her, engrossed in her story and for a moment, forgetting about the day’s cruel events and the dead body Nana had burned along with the car while I cleaned the cottage.

“There was an organization that kept the village safe,” she went on. “But in exchange for that, an old debt had to be paid. And so, for centuries, the prettiest girls had to leave their home to fulfill their cruel fate. One of them was your mother.”

At the sound of this, my head snapped to Nana’s in wonder. Without pausing, she continued speaking.

“Your mother left a few weeks after her eighteenth birthday. She was to marry an influential young man who would take care of everything, including me, for the rest of our lives. But unfortunately... your beautiful mother fell in love with somebody else.”

“Who?”

“Your father.”

My heart pounded at this revelation. Plenty of times, I’d begged Nana to tell me more about my parents, but she always dodged the question. Now I was finally getting the answers I craved so badly... Except I wasn’t sure whether I was ready for them.

“He worked for the man she was supposed to marry. They fall in love and your mother - my daughter - realized she was pregnant. They ran off. Months later, you were born.”

“What happened then?”

“Your parents came to live with me in Castellamare,” she went on, softly stroking my hair. “But before you were even three years old, they were killed in a car accident.”

“Was it really an accident, Nana?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered softly, her smile trembling. “But after that, I took care of you like you were my own. I knew one day they’d come for you. And I suppose that day was today.”

“What’s going to happen now?”

“We’ll stay here, and you’ll hide from everyone,” she sighed. “That’s all we can do to keep you safe. Do you understand now why I had to kill that innocent woman?”

“So she wouldn’t give away our location,” I whispered.

“That’s right. They would stop at nothing to get it out of her.”

“Do we have to stay here... forever?”

“No,” she shook her head. “Because you are also a Castellamare girl, you are protected, Rain. But I’m afraid it comes with some... conditions.”

“Like what?”

“Just like your mother, you will have to marry someone once you turn eighteen. The boy has been picked. He is a little older than you. His name is Heath Gunn.”

“But why can’t we go there now?”

“It’s too dangerous for you. We have to hide. The man who tried to take you today... did you recognize him?”

I shook my head.

“I’ve never seen him before.”

“Did he look like this?”

She pulled a wrinkled photo from the pocket of her dress. I recognized my mother in it, and my father standing to the side. But my mother was with another man in the photo. A handsome, muscular man with a twisted smile.

“Not really,” I muttered. “Maybe a little...”

“You’re probably just confused,” Nana said softly. “A lot has happened today. But the man who tried to take you, I don’t know him. Because you’re a Castellamare girl, though, there are plenty of men who want to have you.”

“Why is Castellamare so special?”

“It’s an old wives’ tale that Castellamare girls are the most beautiful, obedient and meek wives,” Nana murmured. “And they give birth to strong heirs. But most of it is superstition. Something that has been around for centuries. Marrying a Castellamare girl opens a lot of doors, Rain. And because you are one... we can’t trust anyone right now.”

“Not even... Heath?”

I tried his name out for size on my lips.

“No, not yet,” Nana said. “Or the man in the picture.”

My fingertips traced over the image of my mother and the cruel-looking man standing between her and my father.

“Who is he?”

Nana sighed before saying, “His name is Xavier Gunn, Rain. And you should be very, very afraid of him.”