Becoming His Wife by Hayley Faiman
Prologue
FIVE YEARS OLD
TIZIANO
Iwatch her.
She’s sitting at her vanity putting her makeup on.
I watch her every morning from the edge of the bed as she does this. But this time something is wrong. My mammina is always sad. I see her cry a lot, but this is different. Today is different. She is not sad, she is not happy—she is not anything.
“Come to me, Tizzy,” she calls out.
Jumping from the bed, my feet land hard on the wooden floor and I smile at the way the tingles move from my feet to my legs. I love that feeling. When the tingles stop, I hurry over to my mammina. She lifts one arm and slides it around my shoulder.
“I am to leave now, ometto.”
She offers nothing else and I tilt my head to the side, full of confusion at her simple words. “When will you come back?” I ask in a demanding tone.
Her lips turn up into a soft smile, but it does not reach her eyes. She looks very sad and I cannot figure out why. Usually when she goes on vacation, she is happy, even overjoyed.
“I will not be coming back,” she breathes.
She releases me and stands to her feet. I watch as she walks over to a suitcase that I hadn’t noticed in the corner. There is a knock on the front door, and I stare at her, unable to look away as she begins to wheel her suitcase out of the room.
When she has disappeared from my sight, that is when my feet move from beneath me and I run toward her. She is at the top of the staircase, getting ready to take a step when I scream her name in panic.
“Mammina,” I cry.
She hesitates, not moving, then looks back over her shoulder at me, and it’s then that I watch as a tear slides down her cheek. Tears fill my own eyes as I watch her. She doesn’t move toward me, she stays frozen in her place.
“Be a good boy for your padre, yes?”
“Si, Mammina, but why are you leaving?”
There is another knock on the door, and she turns her head toward the noise before she shifts back around to look at me. Her lips curve up into a grin and she watches me for a moment, it feels like a long time passes that we both stare at one another in silence.
“All things are not what they seem, Tizzy. It is time for me to go. You’ll be fine with your padre. He loves you very much, but I cannot stay.”
“But why?” I cry out, not understanding what is happening and why my mammina is leaving me.
“It is just my time, ometto. You will discover that all things must come to an end someday.”
Without another word, she turns her back to me and I watch her walk down the stairs toward the front door. When she opens the door, there is a man there. He looks at her, his lips curving up into a grin before he flicks his gaze over her shoulder and his eyes meet mine. His smile widens and he winks as he takes my mother’s suitcase from her.
They walk out of the door, and I never see my mother again.
I stay alone in the house for the remainder of the day. Thankfully, I know how to make peanut butter and crackers, and there are grapes in the fridge, so I’m able to make myself lunch. I spill the juice when I try to pour it out of the jug and spend at least two episodes of Power Rangers cleaning it up.
I decide to watch television and play PlayStation the rest of the day. I don’t know what time it is when my belly starts to rumble for dinner. Looking outside, I notice that it’s dark and I wonder when my padre is going to return.
He doesn’t always come home at night. I hope that he does this night though. It’s scary in here all by myself and even though I have no tears left to cry, I wish that I could. If I did, I would keep crying and crying, because I miss my mammina.
The door opens and my entire body jerks. I hide in the corner of the room, unsure of where to go when I hear my padre’s voice calling out for Mammina. Rushing out from my hiding spot, I hurry to him.
“Mammina left,” I cry.
He stops, looking down at me, and frowns. “Left?”
Nodding, I tell him everything that I know, which isn’t much, just that she left with a man and a suitcase and said she would not be coming back. He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he scoops me up into his arms and holds me close for only a moment, then he sets me down.
“Let me feed you, yeah?”
Licking my lips, I stare at him for another moment. He looks old and very sad, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he guides me into the kitchen, and I watch as he makes me pasta. He does plain noodles with olive oil and garlic just like I like.
“There, mangiare,” he orders.
I watch as he takes his phone out of his pocket, flipping it open, then presses a few buttons before he puts it to his ear.
“She left, with a man. Find her,” he growls. “I’ll deal with her personally when you do.”
He flips the phone closed, then turns to me with a grin. “How about tomorrow we go look at a school you might like, yeah?”
School? I’ve never been there, my mammina said she would teach me herself. We spend a little time on school every day, but she is usually busy with appointments and forgets. I can read a little, I know my numbers to one hundred and all of my colors, so I don’t think I’m stupid.
“Okay, but I don’t know much,” I admit.
Padre chuckles. “You do, and you’ll learn even more there.”
We eat our pasta, he helps me shower and tucks me into bed. We never talk about my mammina again. It is probably better that way, considering she never comes back and never tries to contact me again, not even on any of my birthdays.
* * *
FIFTEEN YEARS LATER
TIZIANO
“I’m leaving,”Luisa whispers.
Blinking, I tilt my head to the side, unsure that I’ve heard her correctly. “Excuse me?” I rasp.
She nods her head, then bends down and picks up her duffel bag. “I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”
Those words send a chill down my spine. I hate them.
“What the fuck?” I whisper.
“I don’t love you, Tiziano. I thought that I could, and my father told me to try, but I don’t, and I can’t.”
“Your father told you to try?” I hiss.
She nods her head as she licks her lips. “He thought you would be a good match, but I can’t pretend, not anymore.”
“Your father made you date me, made you spread your legs for me? Your father made you whore for me?” I snap.
She jerks backward as if I’ve physically assaulted her. I don’t move, though. If I do, I’ll beat the shit out of her, and I make it a point to never hit women.
My feet are permanently planted in their place as I watch her, as I wait to hear what else she has to say. Leaning slightly, I shift closer to her and wait.
“Don’t be cruel,” she whispers. “You’re not a cruel man.”
I snort. “You have no fucking idea who I am,” I lie. She does.
She knows more about me than anyone else on this earth. She’s the only person that I have completely opened up to. She’s the woman that I thought I would marry and start a family with. She’s the woman that I love.
“Goodbye,” she breathes.
“I get no real answers then?” I ask.
She shakes her head once. “It doesn’t matter.”
She turns from me and walks away. I want nothing more than to reach out, wrap my fingers around her throat and end her right here and now. It would be easy and nobody would bat an eyelash if I did, either.
I don’t.
Instead, I let her go.
I watch her walk out the door, just like I watched my mother do the same fucking thing fifteen years ago.
Motionless and weak.
MACI
The hand wrapsaround my mouth and I scream into the palm. “Quiet,” a male voice hisses.
I stop fighting because it’s useless. He is twice my size at least. I will never fight him off. When he drags me away, throws me in the back of a van, and slams the doors, that’s when I tremble. I don’t know what’s going on and I’m scared to death.
The front door of the van opens, he climbs inside before he closes it and I expect him to take off and drive like a bat out of hell, but he doesn’t. Instead, he looks over his shoulder and his eyes find mine.
“You’re a pretty little thing. I’m going to try my damnedest to keep you safe, but I don’t have much pull here.”
I shake my head, my eyes finding his, and I send a silent plea to him to take me back to the hell that I know rather than the one that I don’t. It’s met with silence and a slow shake of his head. He doesn’t even have to verbally answer me, I already know the answer, even if I wish that it weren’t true.
“Just tell me why,” I softly demand.
His lips curve up into a grin. “Your daddy fucked with the Savage Beast MC.” He chuckles. “And he lost.”
Wordlessly he drives me to a crappy building and throws me into the basement where I stay for weeks. I stay quiet, I refuse to give in to them, any of them. Locked in a dark basement with three other women who are just as quiet and terrified as I am.
The man told me that they were the Savage Beasts, but he was wrong. All their jackets read Donkey Punchers and I don’t know what any of this means. They taunt me, but thankfully none of them touch me.
Weeks later, the man who kidnapped me appears again and his gaze meets mine before his lips curve up into a grin.
“You ready to get out?”
“And go where?” I ask on a whisper.
“Time to pay the piper, you’re going to the Beasts now.”
I’m dragged to the middle of the woods where I’m thrown to another group of men. I don’t understand anything that’s going on. And nobody seems to want to explain it all to me as I’m being passed from club to club.
There is one thing that I know for certain, my life no longer belongs to me—not that it ever really did—now belongs to whatever man controls me and I’ve never been more terrified.
