However, no one is irreplaceable to me. No one.
It's late, and I need to get home to Marnie. It's been a long day of cleaning away filth. All I want is to go home and hold Marnie in my arms, but I doubt she'll go for that. So I'll settle for stroking her belly and having a chat with my unborn child.
Yeah, yeah, big bad boss acting like a soft piece of shit where his kid is concerned. I'm a Mafia Don, that doesn't mean I'm completely heartless when it comes to what and who I love, and I love my child. I'm only human, after all.
“I want a word with you!”
I roll my eyes and stop before I get to my car. I turn around and look at the little woman giving me the evil eye. “Brooke. What can I do for you?”
She slams her hands on her jean-clad hips. “You can start by telling me why you're keeping my sister from me!”
I roll my neck and sigh. “I'm not keeping Marnie from you, Brooke. You spend over an hour on the phone to her last night.”
“That's not the same as seeing her!”
“Stop screaming in the damn parking lot!” I hiss between my teeth. I like Brooke, but I won't have her yelling at me out in the open like this for anyone to see! “Don't be stupid, Brooke.”
She grits her teeth, blows out a breath, and nods. “I just want to see Marnie. It's been two weeks, and each time I call her she fobs me off as to why she can't meet up.”
I take Brooke's shoulders in my hands as Lorenzo watches us. There are always men around me, watching to make sure no one tries to attack. Although Brooke might be a small, pregnant woman, that means nothing in my world. She could be the worlds best assassin even with a baby in her belly. “Marnie hasn't been feeling well lately. The doctor said she had a slight cold, but it meant she's been sleeping a lot. She was laughing on the phone with you last night because she's feeling a lot better, especially with some iron in her blood.”
“Why didn't she just tell me? What are you keeping from me, Draven?”
I shake my head. “Nothing. Trust me; I'm not keeping anything from you. Look, why don't you come to dinner tomorrow night and see for yourself that Marnie is just fine?”
Not that I want Brooke and her biker husband in my home, but I won't have Brooke thinking I'm keeping Marnie a prisoner either.
“Fine. I'll see you tomorrow, and I hope for your sake my sister is happy.” I chuckle to myself as Brooke walks away. The girl is terrified of me, yet she's not scared to tell me like it is when it comes to her sister.
I note Lorenzo’s smirk, and I laugh louder. Women, they're all crazy.
Chapter Nine
Marnie
It's been two weeks since those men kidnapped and tortured me, and I'm finally settling down. I didn't think I'd be okay there for a while. I honestly didn't think I could stay here with Draven. I just wanted to leave and never come back. I'm glad I did stay. Draven has kept to his word, and he treats me with respect. He treats me like I'm his equal rather than just the vessel carrying his child. I like that. I was never Paul's equal in anything. Draven is also always happy to see me when he gets home, and that makes me feel a little better about this whole thing.
We have breakfast together every morning. It seems to have become a nice habit for us. Although, he's not always home in time for dinner, even though I always cook for him. I just put Draven's meal in the microwave ready for him to heat up when he gets home.
Sometimes, it's still there in the morning, meaning he ate while he was out, which is fine by me. I'm not the nagging kind, and I won't get upset because he didn't eat the food I made for him. I learned a long time ago not to let that stuff get to me.
I do worry about him coming home so late, however. Some nights I don't see him because I'm already in bed when he gets here. Take tonight, for instance; he's late, really late. I'm still awake and watching a movie — nothing of any interest. I can't keep my mind on the damn thing. I haven't slept well in weeks, not since those men did what they did to me, and I've been feeling weird all day.
It's nothing but my hormones, but it's had me feeling so down all day. The strange thing is? I just really want Draven to hold me. God, I just want to lay with him, his bed or mine, I don't care. Lying with him is all I want to do though. I want to feel safe in his strong arms around me. Maybe if I did, I'd sleep longer than two hours without waking up. I don't have nightmares as such, but I wake up unable to get back to sleep. I haven't even seen my sister in two weeks. At first, I was avoiding her because of the bruises and the bloodshot eyes. I didn't want her to think badly of Draven. The past few days though, I haven't felt good about myself, and that's caused me to push Brooke away. I hate myself for it.
We did have a long chat on the phone last night, and I did laugh with her. It was good to talk, but I don't think she bought my excuse that I haven't met up with her because I've been unwell. I will see her soon. I won't have her thinking Draven is hurting me and forcing me to stay here against my will. Brooke doesn't need to be worrying about me in her condition.
I hear the alarm bleep once as the front door opens. I know who it is because he's the only other person, apart from me, who can get inside the house without having to punch in numbers first. That gives off a different sound when the door opens, and only two other people who have the code are his brother and sister.
No, Draven is home.
“Evening, sweetheart,” He says with the biggest smile on his face the second he walks into the room. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. The sweet smile he gives me when he walks through the door.
I know he's still trying to make up for what happened in the warehouse, but if he's only marrying me for the baby, he's a damn good actor.
My heart is suddenly calmer. It's silly, but I don't feel safe until he's home, even though I know I'm completely safe home alone. No one can get into this Alcatraz-like-home. Okay, it looks nothing like that, but with the security and all. Though, I guess even Alcatraz wasn't all that secure. Whatever. The point is I know without a doubt that I can trust Draven with my life. The moment he realized Stefano had taken me to the warehouse, his work was forgotten, and he came looking for me.
I might well be marrying a Mob Boss of the most dangerous kind – is there any other kind? – but I really do look forward to him coming home so I can see him. Most of the time it's not till morning, but still.
He's fast becoming my best friend, and yes, I think I'm falling for him even more as the days go on. I swore that I wouldn't, I swore that I would never stay with a man who's associates could be more dangerous when it comes to me then his enemies. However, that aside, I know he cares about me. I know he's doing everything he can to prove to me that nothing will ever happen to me again. I have no doubt anymore in my head that we'll be able to raise this baby together and be happy doing it. I know it because I have faith in him.
Do I wonder if he's slept with a woman or two while I've been living here? Sometimes, but then I tell myself that Draven promised, and he doesn't strike me as a man to break promises. His word is his bond and all that. When I look him in the eye, when he’s sitting with me and laughing, I know he hasn't been with anyone else. Something inside of me tells me so. It has me wondering how a man as highly sexed as Draven has been coping without it these past weeks.
I've read a lot of books, fact, and fiction, and watched many movies about men like Draven Vidal. I needed to get some idea of what those men put me through was in any way normal to these people. Mafia Don's have to follow the rules of the famiglia as well as everyone else around them. The council; or elders are the ones really in charge, or at least, they're in charge of making the Don look good in the eyes of the public. They control anyone who comes into his life, and that includes any woman the Don decides to date. Loyalty tests are given to everyone working for the Don, everyone who comes into his life. Those tests are horrendous, much worse than what I was put through.
I was made to believe the men who tortured me worked for a rival family. Those bastards were elders working for
Draven. I was so naïve to it all before that day. I walked into his home and stupidly believed I'd be living a happy and safe life. I don't think I'll ever truly be the same after what happened to me. I also know if I'm going to live this life with Draven, I need to toughen up.
How do I do that after the horror stories I've read?
The Don has the power to literally tear a man apart. He'll have more officials in his back pocket than you can shake a stick at. You will never be safe from him. You cannot hide because someone will find you and drag you back to him quite quickly. The Don will kill you or have you killed in the worst way imaginable. The things I read had me shaking so much, and I was so scared I vomited. I'm not used to this kind of violence. I don't want to know my baby's father has set fire to people, slit throats, shot, gutted, and maimed, and God only knows what else to people.
Something Draven said to Tony made me realize that even the elders weren't in charge with the Vidal Family. Draven is in charge through and through, and he is a man you do not mess with. Tony told Draven that day, the day I stood outside his study here at the house, that Carlos and Louis got what they deserved. Two elders who had no right to take it upon themselves to torture me when Draven has specifically told them that I was off limits. Not just to them but everyone. Draven has warned them what would happen if they went against him. I like that Draven is making sure that I'm safe, but the thoughts of him torturing people is making me ill.
I've one or two nightmares since reading up on the Mafia. I wake, shaking, and I try not to scream out and wake Draven. I don't want him to think he's marrying a weak woman, especially when I'm not having nightmares about what happened to me. I never want to be any kind of embarrassment to Draven, and I was scared that I'd been seen as such if anyone found out about the nightmares. Draven is a powerful man, and appearance is everything. His wife cannot make him look stupid. I have to be impeccable at everything, but I still have so much to learn about what it takes to be the wife of a Mafia King. Lessons Maria and Avery can no doubt teach me.
Maybe I should have told Draven how scared I still am. I know in my heart that he'd talk it through with me, and he'd make me feel safe and secure. I'm embarrassed that he heard me screaming in terror last night. I felt stupid when he came into the room, shushing me gently, and telling me everything is okay now. He didn't touch me. I couldn't have him touch me right then. I was shaking, and I couldn't get the feeling of those bugs and snakes, even Paul off of my skin. It wasn't even that I was dreaming about, but that's what I could feel when I woke up, and it was all so confusing.
Draven sat beside me on my bed, and he spoke to me about our baby and all the amazing things we'll be able to teach him or her. Tears fell from my eyes as I asked him if I'd ever see my child if it should be a boy. I know me saying that again must have been driving him crazy. Draven had already told me that he'd never do that to me, but everything I'd read told me otherwise. The elders would take my son and raise him how they saw fit. I would not be able to see him until his sixteen birthday. He'd know I was his mother, but he wouldn't know me at all. My son would not be able to feel or even show fear, compassion, even love because it would make him weak.
I allowed Draven to take my hand as he told me Helen's full story. Helen begged Vinny, Draven's uncle, the Don before him to allow her to keep her little boy. Helen literally got on her knees in front of him and begged. She wanted to raise her little boy herself, as any mother would. She promised she wouldn't stand in the way of any lessons Vinny wanted Draven to learn, but she would never allow Draven to be taken from her. Helen wanted Draven to know love, to learn how to give love. She believed a man could be strong and powerful even with compassion inside of him. It didn't mean he wouldn't know how to do his duty.
I smiled as Draven told me that his mother raised him by her hand, and even though she knew the man he would become one day, she taught him to love those who would love him the most in life. His family. I closed my eyes and let the truth of his words fill me because I knew finally that he meant what he said. My son wouldn't be going anywhere without me.
I told Draven a little of why I was so afraid when he came into the room. It wasn't just because of what I'd seen in those dreams. It was due to the fact that when I had nightmares as a child, horrible nightmares, I would scream out in fear, not able to shake away the feeling. My mother would come into the room I shared with Brooke, who herself would be trying to calm me, and my mother would drag me out of my bed and shake the life out of me. She'd beat me, even drag me to the basement and tie me up in there, leaving me down there until the next evening. She said it would toughen me up.
My mother could be cruel, but only to me. Molly Webster never bonded with me, or so she used to tell me. I don't know what it was, but I was everything she never wanted. I was just a little girl, and I didn't understand how she could be so cruel to me. Even at a very young age, I knew I had to protect my sister, no matter what. However, Mother never physically hurt Brooke to my knowledge. Our father may have been vile to both of us, but our mother seemed to love Brooke in her own way.
Draven asked if that's all my nightmare was about. I told him the truth. My nightmare was a bundle of so many things that I couldn't be sure if I'd even dreamt any of it. Paul and his abuse, my father and his, the kidnap and torture, and then how I saw more men dragging me into a dark room where they tied me to a dripping pipe and left me down there. I was tortured in so many ways that I could literally feel it in my dreams. They threw bugs on me, ones that bite, rats that also bit me. They threw water filled with piss and shit all over me. They asked me questions about Draven; they wanted information about him. They wanted me to tell them what I knew.
I remember in my dream how I wouldn't tell them anything. The only thing I told them was that I'd never met Draven Vidal because, in my dream, they were his enemies, not men who worked for him. This was no loyalty test; this was pure torture. They electrocuted me and said I was a liar. Then my dream morphed into my a strange woman cutting off each one of my fingers before taking my baby for her own. I don't know what woke me up exactly, but I remember this searing pain tearing through the side of my body.
Draven told me that after everything I've been through over the years, it's no wonder my mind was mashed with it all. He told me that I have to try and put it out of my head. I'm safe now, and no one can hurt me anymore. He also told me that he'd arrange for me to see a counselor, someone who would come to the house and help me talk about everything. I can't deny that the idea of ridding myself of the past would be great right now. I'm going to be a mother in a few short months, Draven's wife in even less time if we get this whole Paul thing sorted. I have to try and accept the life I'm now living. I will do that. I'll put behind me all that has passed, and I will be the best mother and wife I can be.
Don't hide it inside of you, Marnie. Take help if it's needed. There is no shame in that.
As I look at Draven now, removing his jacket while smiling at me, I realize that I'm not just falling for him, I have fallen for him. Oh god, I didn't mean for it happen, and I'm not entirely sure it's not just because I'm grateful to him for everything he's doing for me. He was amazing at my doctors’ appointment a couple of days ago. Draven asked all the right questions, and he really impressed me with how dedicated he is to this baby. It just solidified in my heart and mind that this baby is the most important thing in the world to him — even more than his precious Crime Family.
God, I think I'm falling a little bit more in love with him as the seconds go by, and not just because of how great he's been or how handsome he is. He's so strong and handsome, and everything I have ever wanted. Everything I almost had once upon a time, but I won't compare him to someone else, that wouldn't be right in any sense of the word.
Anyone would think I have Stockholm Syndrome the way I talk about Draven. Who knows, maybe I do a little, but would it really be that bad if I'm ultimately happy?
I never imagined Draven would be like this. I thought he'd be
shrewd and vile to everyone including me. He's as sharp as most businessmen are, but he's never been vile to me in any way. I'm happy to have been proven wrong because he is such a good person inside and out. If Draven is really determined to marry me so that our baby can have a family like the one I never had, the kind neither of us ever had, then why shouldn't I allow myself to fall in love with the man I'm going to spend the rest of my life with?
And it will be for the rest of my life. Maria told me that you don't marry the boss and leave. Ever. These people are Catholic and do not believe in divorce. The Famiglia has strict rules on marriage. Once you are married, there is no way out but death. That's why Maria wanted me to be sure this is what I really want. She loves her brother, but she wouldn't want me to be miserable. I can't say Draven, and I will never argue, that's the most unrealistic thing, anyone, even in a normal marriage could say. We're human, and we'll argue just as anyone else would. Maybe I have got some form of Stockholm Syndrome. I told Maria that I'm perfectly happy to spend my life with her brother and that I had no doubts. It's seemed to settle her.
Everything Maria said made me wonder how Helen managed to divorce Draven and Maria's father. I asked, but Maria didn't have a clue, although she did tell me how Helen leaving him didn't last long. Her father didn't want his second wife; he wanted Helen back. Maria didn't go into it with me, but obviously, Joseph got Helen back, or Maria wouldn't be here.
Then it made me wonder how Draven's first wife managed to divorce him. Maria told me that Draven wasn't the boss then, and even though his wife wasn't meant to leave, she did. Died not long after, and I think we all know it wasn't an accident.
That made me realize there would never be any way out if I did this. It should have scared me, right? It didn't. It turned me on thinking about Draven wanting me to stay so badly he wouldn't let me go. Not the fact he might have killed his ex-wife that would be insane, but the keeping me with him thing.