Becoming His Wife by Hayley Faiman

Chapter Thirty-One

TIZIANO

With his gun against my back, he guides me over to the family cemetery. My gun was taken by his driver, at the same time my father cocked his and pointed it at my forehead.

I could have taken him, possibly, though I wasn’t too keen to find out if my father was brave enough to pull the trigger before I could get ahold of mine.

So, I decided that I would bide my time.

My father forces me to stand in front of a flat headstone. Looking down, I arch a brow at the name. It’s my mother’s. Emotion fills me, but I refuse to show even an ounce of it. Not to him, not to anyone.

“Killed her and her lover. Him I fed to some pigs at a pig farm a few miles away.”

“But you buried her? How kind of you,” I deadpan.

He doesn’t say anything right away. Instead, he takes a step to the side and turns his head to look over at me. There is a long moment of silence, he doesn’t answer me right away, his gaze focused on my mother’s name.

“I loved her,” he murmurs. “She didn’t want me, but she was mine. Contracted to me, a gift.”

My stomach twists because Maci is exactly that to me as well. What happens when she gets tired of me? When she discovers that she feels nothing but hate for me? What happens when she tries to leave me anyway, even though I own her?

“You’ll be buried next to her, another traitor that bears my last name.”

I could argue with him. I don’t bother. There is no point to it at all. Mainly for the simple fact that I will not be buried here, I will not be buried at all—not anytime soon at least. I continue to stay quiet, waiting to see what he’s going to say or do next.

Then I hear it. The sound of tires crunching against the gravel coming closer causes my spine to straighten.

“Oh good, they’re here,” he announces.

I don’t ask who. Shifting my gaze to his, I watch as my father practically bounces on his toes. He wants me to ask, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction. I already know who it is. He’s going to punish me, or at least try. He won’t succeed, I don’t care how many men he has here as backup. I’ll take them all.

Wordlessly, I turn and start to walk out of the cemetery. I head back to the house. “Inside,” he growls.

I don’t look at the car that is pulling up the drive. There is no reason, it’s just going to piss me off and I need to use my head and not my emotion for this. My father expects me to lose my cool when I see who he’s brought to me. I won’t.

The house is oddly clean and fully furnished, as if someone lives here. Walking farther into the house, I stand in the middle of the living room and turn around to face the front door.

“I keep the house clean, the furniture is the same as my father’s,” he explains.

I didn’t want his explanation, I still don’t. I honestly don’t give a fuck what my father does or doesn’t do at this point. Staring at him, my face void of all emotion, I wait. A few moments later, the front door opens and Maci stumbles inside.

Her eyes meet mine and she opens her mouth. I give her a short shake of my head, hopefully she understands what I want from her. I watch as her eyes widen and she nods her own head once, watching me and not speaking.

“So you’ve brought my wife here, I assume we’ll have the same grave?” I ask, flicking my gaze over to his for just a moment before going back to Maci’s.

My father clears his throat, then chuckles. “I think her body will go to the pigs just like your mother’s whore,” he grunts.

I shrug a shoulder, my gaze never leaving hers. “Okay,” I drawl.

My father growls, but I don’t pay him any attention. Instead, my attention is focused on the oversized lamp on the side table that is just within arm’s distance.

Clearing my throat, I watch and wait for a long moment. I need that lamp. If I can knock him over the head, then I have a better chance of getting his gun and killing my way out of here.

Maci looks terrified standing a few feet away from me, but she isn’t crying and she’s not in a ball on the floor, so I decide that she’s a lot stronger than she realizes. She’s about to prove to me just how strong she is, too.

Shifting my gaze from her, I look over to my father’s driver who is standing with his back to the door. This makes me believe that the men who brought Maci are right outside on the front porch, guarding.

I rock from side to side, moving a step closer to the lamp. My father is too busy to notice me. He’s waving his gun around, ranting about how Maci is a whore, and I’ve betrayed him. He announces that he fucked up with me, he shouldn’t have been so lenient. Shouldn’t have raised me as a prince, and should have molded me into a decent soldier.

I watch him, but it’s easy to see that he is without a doubt, off his goddamn rocker. The driver is the only person that I need to worry about at this point. He’s watching me like a hawk, and I know that he is loyal to my father and nobody else, there is no swaying him, there is only killing him.

“You betrayed me,” my father shouts.

“You put out a hit on me in Italy,” I announce.

He doesn’t say anything right away, he gnashes his teeth together and curses. “You got the whore pregnant. A second betrayal. What would have happened if people found out?” he barks.

I shrug a shoulder. “That the annulment was bullshit?” I ask.

“You would let me be embarrassed like that with the church?”

“I would, because it wasn’t my choice and Maci is not a whore, she’s my wife.”

“Not anymore,” he screams.

The lamp is firmly in my grip. I don’t tell Maci to duck, but I hope to fuck that she will as soon as I make this move. The last thing I need is for her to be caught in the middle of this crossfire.

“She is, Tussio. But you’re not my father anymore. You’ve ruined this and ruined your famiglia.”

He shakes his head, moving from side to side erratically. His hair is flying around, there is spittle coming from his mouth and he watches me wild-eyed.

“You did this, you were willing to give your entire famiglia away, throw it away, and sell out the men and their futures.”

I can’t help it, I chuckle because his words are ridiculous. “You have not a single fucking clue what my original contract entailed with Gavino, none. What you’ve done is jump to conclusions and ruined all of those things yourself.”

Then, without a warning, without even thinking. I lift the lamp in my hand and swing it across the side of my father’s head. I go down with him, ducking so that the driver can’t shoot me.

Grabbing my father’s gun from his hand, I look behind me and notice that Maci is crouched down as well. Giving her a small smile, I jerk my chin before lifting my hand and pointing it at the driver.

He has his gun in his grip and directed at me, but I don’t hesitate. I pull the trigger, then I wait for the door to open. Just like I predicted, the front door flies open. I don’t even take the time to truly aim. I pull the trigger, emptying it in the men who are still in the doorway.

“Are there any more?” I demand, looking down at Maci.

She has tears streaming down her cheeks and she shakes her head fiercely. “Just the two,” she breathes.

Leaving her in the living room with the three dead bodies, I walk into the kitchen and grab a chair, dragging it back into the living room. Picking my father’s fat fucking body up, I throw him in the chair, then grab some rope from the coat closet and tie him up.

MACI

“Tiziano?”I ask as he finishes tying his father in a kitchen chair.

He looks over at me, and I don’t know why, but I expected him to look different, crueler, after just killing three people in front of me, but he doesn’t. He looks the same, maybe even better—relieved.

“I want him to know it’s me who ends him,” he announces.

“Does it matter?” I ask.

He arches a brow and jerks his chin, he’s a bit breathless from tying up his father. “It does. To me it does. He wanted to kill you and feed you to the pigs. He killed my mother, and he was going to bury me next to her. I want him to know that I’m going to kill him. It’s going to be me.”

“Then what?”

He watches me for a long moment, he’s probably waiting for his father to wake up, but I want to know what happens next. There is something that has to happen with his body, he can’t just leave him here.

“Then I feed him to the goddamn pigs and we go home to live happily fucking ever after.”

“Will we?” I ask, keeping my voice soft.

He looks down at my belly, then shifts his gaze to meet mine. “We absolutely will,” he states.

He is completely and one-hundred-percent convinced and I want that. I want that so badly, but I’m afraid happily ever after doesn’t truly exist. Not really. I just want to live and do so without being in fear for my life, my baby’s, or his.

I don’t say any of that though. What I do is tremble where I stand. The adrenaline is wearing off and as I look around the room, I see three men lying in puddles of their own blood.

I whimper and pinch my eyes closed. Then I start to go down, but I don’t get far before Tiziano wraps his arms around me and holds on to me, keeping me from falling.

“Shh,” he whispers as he guides me over to the sofa and slowly sets me down. “You’re going to be okay, zuccherino.”

I focus on him, my gaze unable to look anywhere else. I am focused on him, nowhere else and nobody else. There is just him. Only him.

“I’m scared,” I admit. “Terrified.”

“Trust me, Maci. I will take care of you, take care of our baby. I will provide a beautiful life and nothing is going to get in our way, not ever again.”

He reaches out, wrapping his fingers around the back of my neck and when his lips touch mine, everything melts away.

There is nothing else that matters, nothing else around us.

There is just him and me, our baby, and the way his tongue feels inside of my mouth, taking me, owning me—consuming me like only he can.

I sigh into his mouth, just as I hear a throat clear. Tiziano breaks the kiss, chuckling against my lips before he stands and turns his back to me. I lick my lips, touching them with my fingers and feeling their warmth. I want whatever this is to be done and over so that I can leave here.

“I see you’ve killed three of my men, what’s next?” Tussio demands.

Tiziano watches him, but doesn’t say a word. I watch as he takes his phone out of his pocket and shifts his gaze down to the screen.

“Vino, I’m going to send you a pin to my location. I need a cleanup crew that I know you said you couldn’t provide, and would love it if you could come by, maybe bring Arlo and Salvatore.”

He’s quiet for a moment and I can hear Gavino shouting on the other end of the phone. I can’t understand him at all, but I know that he has to be wondering what is going on, considering I was taken from Salvatore’s side.

“She’s here with me. I have Tussio alive, the rest are not,” Tiziano states. “I’ll wait for you.”

He ends the call, then turns from me. “Go into the kitchen, zuccherino. I don’t want you in here with the mess.”

“Tiziano,” I murmur.

I’m not sure that I want to be in the kitchen. I’m not sure that I want to be away from him at all. I think that I may want to stay right here, where I can see him, where I can see these bodies and where I know without a doubt that none of them are alive and that they won’t try to attack us again.

I’m downright terrified of what is going to happen next. I just want to go to sleep and wake up, I want this nightmare to be over. All of it. The weeks without him, the annulment, the kidnapping, and these deaths. I just want it over.