Page 77 of Stolen Vows

“No, Daddy.Please don’t hurt me.”

Alessio lights his cigarette.

“Damn, she’s pathetic.I was looking forward to a bit of a fight.Where’s the fire her mother had?”he asks.

My blood curdles.

“My mother is a traitor, just like Mario,” I force myself to say.

Pietro laughs with manic glee and unbuttons the top of his shirt before leaning over me and bracing a hand on the back of my chair.

“You’re so pathetic you believe that shit about your mother leaving you,” he snarls.

I flinch when he leans down and grabs my chin.The twisted amusement in his eyes fills me with ice.

“Your motheradoredyou.She loved you.She would rather have died than leave you,” he hisses.

I clamp my jaw shut and breathe through my nose as he squeezes my face so hard my teeth hurt and tears gather on my lashes.

“So I killed her.”

I freeze, certain I misheard him.He scoffs and runs the flat of his blade down my cheek.

“She wanted to steal you away from me and never come back.I had to kill her.”

He sounds proud, like he’s gloating over some lofty achievement.My brain trips over itself, denying his words, but horror rips through me.

The screams.My nightmares.His footsteps in the hall.

I slept soundly in my bed while my father murdered my mother in the hallway.She died a brutal, violent death mere feet away from me, but I believed she’d abandoned me.

She loved me so much she sacrificed her life trying to get me away from my father.

He always had a violent side, but Mario kept him in check.The night he came home announcing Mario a traitor was probably the night my mother knew she had to rescue me.

With the horrible truth drowning me, I see the past in high definition.

I didn’t have words for the changes in my mother’s behavior, but children sense the moods of those around them, and there were definite changes.She jumped at loud, sudden noises and constantly watched the doors for my father, but not with devotion.She feared him.

Her long sleeves and flowy skirts weren’t to cover her from the sun but to hide her bruises.

My father beat my mother, so she started planning our escape.He caught her and murdered her.

My father murdered my mother and then lied and made me believe my mother had abandoned me.

Red hazes my vision.

Chapter 20

Mario Luciano

No human being can defendthemselves against nine men, but for the sake of my wife, I will.

Noah will come.He’ll bring more fighters.

Valentina’s mad dash through the traffic marks the end of our standoff.Six men lunge toward me while three scramble after my wife.

I refuse to pull out my pistol until she’s safely on the other side of the road.