Page 80 of Wretched Choices

“The man who raised me was a monster, and he raised me to be just like him. He made me kill a man, a traitor, at eight years old.” I swallow the shocked gasp in my throat and cover my mouth with my hand. In our world, it is not unusual to teach children how to be tough or prepare them for this life. Most start when they are teenagers. But at eight years old, it is brutal.

“Since I was five, he let others beat me, teaching me how to be tough. He would say I needed to be strong if I wanted to take his place. I had to be able to handle beatings or whatever his men had planned for me that day. What I didn’t understand was that he wanted to create another version of himself that could take over. My father was married to Falcones's daughter. He was the capo back then, now he’s almost eighty years ago. He fled toAmerica and gained power here. My father married his daughter to gain his position. He was the son of immigrants who wanted a better life. His parents worked hard, but he wanted more from life, so he married the girl.” He laughs bitterly. “Not much different from him, am I? I did force you into this marriage.” I walk toward him near the window and just stand there. I can’t say he’s wrong. He didn’t force me per se, but he coerced me into it.

“He lived with his wife until her last breath, but as any mafiosi, he had mistresses and he changed them a lot. His wife couldn’t have children, and from what I heard, years later, he was desperate to have an heir. He blamed her. He was a misogynistic bastard with narcissist tendencies who used her as his punch bag.” He takes a deep breath and sneaks a look at me. “But the worst part is, she just let him until he found a new shiny toy to play with. My mother.” His eyes gaze through the window, and the painful expression on his face is more than sadness. It’s guilt.

But guilt for what? There are so many questions in my head, and no matter how badly I want to ask him, I don’t. I need to be there for him in any way he feels comfortable with.

“I never met her. I was raised by our housekeeper and paraded around by my father as his heir. He wanted me to learn about the business from a very young age, and to keep me silent. I was lucky I had Gabriel and his family. His father was just a foot soldier for my father. Since the moment I met Gabriel, he had my back, and I had his.”

“It was years later, after I finished college and wanted to please my father and make him proud that I uncovered terrible lies.” He shifts, the motion making his hair fall over his eyes, but he doesn’t move it aside. “I was looking for a guy who stole money from my father’s business at the time and stumbled across an old lady. She was maybe around eighty or ninety. When she saw me, she said I was the devil’s son and started to pray. There wassomething in her eyes that made me stay and ask her questions. My gut was telling me there was more, and my gut had never betrayed me. When she looked at my eyes, she said I have my mother’s eyes. I was confused about how she knew her. My father told me she killed herself because she didn’t want me. Question after question led me toward the answers I needed, one that changed all I believed in and all I wanted to be. That day I found who my father really was and who he was raising me to be. A predator. A rapist.” His voice shakes. “He took my mother from her home when she was sixteen and brought her to his mansion, where he lived with his wife. He raped and beat my mother daily until she was pregnant with me. He then kept using her body, raping her every night until he was disgusted with her belly. His wife cut her wrists the same night I was born. I was torn from my mother, and my father ordered one of the guards to take her and kill her, but the man took pity on her and ran away with her.

“I searched for answers, and I found them. I promised myself and him the day I killed him that I would never be like him, and I would never give him the pleasure of giving him what he wanted. That his name would die with me.”

By the time he finished, I was speechless. I couldn’t see in front of me from the blur in my eyes. His guilt is now understandable. I press the heels of my hands to my eyes to clear them before I turn to him; he needs to hear what I have to say before he blames himself for everything.

I take his hand so he can concentrate on me. He flinches when I touch him, but I keep my hold firm. “You are not your father. You didn’t do a thing I didn’t willingly let you do. I let you have my body and use me for your pleasure. I let you fight your demons using my body, and I don’t regret it. Do you understand me, Salvatore? You are not like him.”

“And how do you know that?” he snaps. “I changed myself the last couple of years, but there are things I did that you don’t know about me, about what I was and what I did.”

I raise my voice a little. “Then tell me!”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because you may hate me, or worse, leave.”

I look at him, confused. The plan was to leave him after five years and he agreed. Ignoring that fact, I keep arguing. “And maybe I will not. You don’t know that.”

He stays quiet as he looks at me. I can see the struggle in his eyes, so I decide for both of us. I rise on my tiptoes and kiss him quickly.

“We can talk about this another day. You need to get in the shower and clean yourself. And so do I.”

I leave him standing by the window and enter the bathroom. No matter how much I want him to follow me into the bathroom like he usually does, this time, he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter that the bathroom has a double shower, he waits until I finish.

As I stand by my closet, I feel the pain in my chest vanish as soon as he stands behind me and wraps his hands around me, kissing my wet hair and whispering. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

I’m still wondering what he meant after he leaves.

thirty-two

Salvatore

I did the thing I feared the most. Became something I promised I would never become.

My father.

I exit the bedroom with a promise to Isabella that I will do better. I just need to work on what is better. I need to get the target off my back and keep on the lane I was before.

Making amends, making things better for the family, turning illegal family businesses into legal ones for the next generations and ending the dark times led by my father and his previous leaders.

When I enter the room where Marco has set his equipment, all the men in the room stop doing what they were doing and look at me then at each other before they look back at me. I curse under my breath because I know next what is coming are questions and discussions where I’m not their boss but their brother and their friend.

Gabriel looks behind me at the door. I closed behind me and then at me, his jaw ticking.

Gabriel is the controlled one. He uses his fists in the ring. Outside of that ring, there is nothing that will take his control away from him.

Me, I’m in control until the monster that is chasing his demons comes out. I know he is concerned about what I did after I came home, because usually I would have called Ashley to come to my room and she could handle whatever I did to her, and she wouldn’t protest.

---