Page 53 of Captive Mafia Wife

But the plants and flowers weren’t enough to get her through.

When your family has money and a name to uphold, your troubled mother suddenly has an undiagnosed, underlying heart defect and dies in her sleep.

And as for you?

Apparently, you’ve shown “great talent” in the languages and now, out from under your mother’s wing, want to commit your (ten-year-old) self to education.

Fucked up?

Yes. Even at ten, I knew this was not a healthy family dynamic, though I knew nothing different.

Marriage, a wife, and children to carry on our name we so brutally kept clean; I want it all. Like I told her at Harrods, I want the smiling family in the magazine ads.

Thus, an arranged marriage to a beautiful, brilliant, strong woman who happens to love the taste of my whiskey, one who will make the perfect mafia wife and adoring mother, suits me perfectly.

Attachment, love…I’m afraid my capacity for those frivolous things died on that tree.

I think Freya’s aware of that fact.

I was stunned when she kept the ring on her finger.

I’ve never been a giddy little kid on Christmas morning, but I think the way I feel right now, staring at the ring on her perfect finger as we lounge here in bed, has to come close to the feeling of seeing that Father Christmas loaded with your tree with gifts.

Ma chérie, my fiancée.

The most precious gift she’s given me for Christmas was letting me touch her in a place where she is most vulnerable. I’ve never had someone trust me that deeply with their body. It was an intense moment, and I knew it was the perfect time to give her the ring.

I had it made months ago.

Now, lying here, our breathing slowing, her wearing the ring I’ve envisioned on her so many times, I feel as if it’s the right time to ask her about her past pain. I grab her hand, intertwining our fingers as we stare at thering.

“It’s beautiful,” she says. “Thank you.”

“It looks like you.” We lie quietly, and finally, I say, “You don’t have to tell me. But what happened?”

“There was a teacher at our school on the island,” she starts. “The only male teacher we’d ever had. He was handsome. I had a schoolgirl crush, and in the way a fourteen-year-old girl does, I flirted with him. After class, I hung around his desk, rolling up my skirt and wearing lipstick. Just innocent stuff to get his attention.”

She stops a moment and gives a hard swallow. I place my hand over hers, feeling her warmth and the coolness of the new ring. “You don’t have to finish.”

“I want to.” She brushes a tear away. “You shared with me, and I’d like to share with you.”

“Thank you.” I lift her hand to my lips, kissing it once before setting it back down.

She takes a shuddering breath and gives me a tight smile in her bravery. “Anyway, one day, he started to react to my attention. First,” she looks away, “he would just reach down during class, discreetly snapping my bra strap through my shirt.” A flush rises in her cheeks. “Sometimes…the other girls saw. They turned on me, calling me—ugly names. It was horrible. Humiliating.”

I want to kill him. And if I ever cross paths with this man, I will. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She keeps going: “Then…things progressed. He had me stay after school. He told me to come sit on his lap. But nothing sexual.” She shakes her head, shiny hair gliding over her shoulders. “Just sitting.

“A few weeks later, he started to slide his hand down the front of my shirt, cupping my breast. He said…he said he liked—ugh, this is so gross…”

“You don’t have to say it.”

“It’s okay. I’ve never told anyone. It’s just hard. But it’s a relief too.” She gazes up, looking for strength. “He said he liked the feel of mine because they were so small, still growing.”

My stomach turns. I want to throw up and commit murder all at once. How dare he do that to her? And how many others has he gone on to abuse?

I swallow down my anger, focusing on her. “Did he do anything else? Touch you anywhere else?”

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