“You look very … handsome,” she said.
Her mother had told her to constantly congratulate him on how he looked. He was handsome in a scary kind of way. That was wrong. She always felt that he had this edge about him that no one else had, not even Leonardo Rossi, her ex-fiancé.
“And you look stunning, just as I knew you would. The perfect bride.”
She wanted to ask him why he’d picked her. This man had been given the rare choice of picking any woman for himself, and yet, he picked her. Why? She still didn’t get it.
The scars on her back were very real, as well as the few across her stomach and thighs. For a long time, she had lived in fear. There were some nights where she still experienced the nightmares. They never went away.
She’d wanted to go talk to someone, a therapist, anyone who would be willing to listen, but her father had declined. There was no way she was talking about family business with anyone.
This wasn’t about family business. To her, it was to deal with the fact she was kidnapped and tortured by strange men who had wanted to know every single little detail of her life. It had just been too much for her to handle. She had wanted it to all stop.
Rather than talk to someone, she had guards placed outside her doors. Extra protection. The nightmares continued for several months, until finally, it seemed that they abated. Valentina only hoped they didn’t start back tonight, her wedding night.
Her mother had told her she was to give herself to Giovanni willingly. She wasn’t to fight. As a wife, it was her duty to serve her husband, and that she shouldn’t worry as he’d find other women. Whores and mistresses to deal with his basic urges, and then she’d be left alone, only having to deal with him when he wanted children or to have more.
The life her mother painted for her filled her with fear. What fun was there to be had in that kind of life? None. There was nothing good about it.
The very thought of it filled her with regret.
Staring up into her husband’s face, Valentina didn’t want a loveless marriage, or to resent him or fear him. She’d lived in fear for too long, but this man, known as The Butcher, how could it be possible to have a good marriage full of love? She didn’t love him, nor did she know him.
Could it be possible to find love with him?
****
Giovanni considered himself the luckiest son of a bitch alive right at that moment. Holding his wife in his arms, finally feeling her close.
The past few months had been nothing but pure torture of watching her, being close but never allowed to touch. He didn’t know how he was able to cope.
All eyes were on them, and what he wanted to do was to take her away from their gawking. They didn’t have a right to look, or to even be in her presence. None of them knew what this woman had gone through, but he knew. At eighteen years old, she was betrothed to Leonardo, the son of the Rossi empire, the Boss of the Rossi mafia. He was a soon-to-be leader with a bad temper and wayward dick.
Poor Valentina had been taken.
Rossi had contacted Giovanni to find her, to save her, and to bring her back for his son. Giovanni had done that. It had taken him three days to locate her. She’d been hidden in a small, crumbling ranch house, chained up, and her back cut up so bad from being whipped. They had also tried to hit her stomach and her thighs.
She was still a virgin. No one had stolen that from her, but they’d cut her beautiful long raven hair, and the wounds they’d inflicted had become infected.
They had pissed on her as well, some kind of sick and twisted game.
The three men who’d been at the ranch had died at his hand, and after rescuing her, taking her to the hospital, and hearing about her fight to survive, he’d gone and killed every single person associated with the men who’d taken her.
She’d been taken because of drug money. Rossi had refused to pay for a shipment, and as a consequence, they had taken someone of importance to him. Valentina paid the price.
When he heard Leonardo had canceled the wedding and taken back his wedding band, Giovanni had been furious. He overheard the asshole saying he didn’t want a defective wife, and the doctors had said the scars would be there permanently.
Leonardo wanted arm candy. A trophy.
Rossi had caused this, but they had turned their back on her.
He kept an eye on the idle gossip. Listening to what people were saying about the Berlusconi family, he hated it. For the past three years, he’d kept an eye on her. Watched her from afar. Seen her suffer in silence.
As with all things in their world, she didn’t have anyone to turn to. No one to hear her. Even her screams had been confined to another wing of her home, with just a couple of guards to listen. She had been tossed aside like trash.
Rossi gave him this rare opportunity to choose his bride. Giovanni had shown his loyalty and dedication for nearly twenty years. At forty years old, he’d been in Rossi’s constant service.
It hadn’t taken long after his family had been killed for him to earn the reputation as The Butcher. The title served him well, and as a young man, it had been apt. He hadn’t handled his torture well back then.