Page 1 of To Have and to Hold

Chapter 1

Violet

You’resupposedtodreamabout your wedding day. Of white dresses, extravagant food and decorations, smiling faces, celebrating faces, faces looking back at you with love. But I only dreamed of shooting my fiancé dead. Of the bullet that would slide into his eye like butter and explode his brains all over the vintage lace dress my mother had forced onto me.

The damn thing was too small. And it itched.

You’re supposed to dream about your wedding day. But mine was hell.

My skin scratched, the fabric clawing into every bump and curve of my body like it knew as well as I did I didn’t belong in it. My fingers curled at my sides as my mother smoothed out my hair and straightened my necklace, the ever present frown planted deep on her face.

Her hatred of me, of life, had battled its way through her Botox regime to show in the corners of her eyes and the lines fromher nose to her lips. I ducked my face down, needing to look away. She made me feel bad,thinkbad. Despite the years of being suppressed, of being told to be subservient and meek, in my head? I couldn’t do it. My mind was a vicious thing, leaning into the dark whenever possible. I wasn’t light and empty, not a vessel like she was. Like I wished.

I fought back tears as I reached up to loosen the collar around my throat and she yanked my hand away with sharp nails in my wrist.

“No,” she spat.

I gulped and pursed my lips, not wanting her to see a lick of emotion. It wasn’t proper. This tradition, this life, this pathway chosen for me, it was just unacceptable to be anything but demure, accepting.Remember, there’s always worse to come.Those were the words of my childhood, my entire life. Things would always get worse.

This dress. This church. This wedding. Tradition amongst my fiancé's family – the rulers of a cult, a church, as they called themselves, something I was told so little about despite being forced into it. All of it. I was a pawn, a tool in my father’s game to garner a connection with a man, an organization, he deemed valuable, powerful. They’d had the decency to wait until I was eighteen, but only so it would be legal and binding in both countries. One thing the church had going for it was the abhorrence of abusing children.

His young daughter, kept virginal and pure, ready to offer up in marriage to secure the deal of a lifetime. A way in.

As I stood and waited with all the patience I’d been taught to possess, Mother continued scrutinizing my face, muttering insults under her breath. In my mind, I was yanking my high heeled pumps off my foot and jamming one into her eye. But outwardly? Sweet. Demure.

Deep breaths. Two in, flooding my lungs until they burned. Two out, pushing the air from my body until my sinuses ached.

Mother’s eyes flickered up to the wall clock above the door, and her mouth pursed. “Five minutes, Violet,” she said, stepping away from me with a nod. I passed her inspection. I wanted to rip her lips from her face and shove them down her throat. But I cleared her high standards, so at least there was that.

She scoffed when I gulped back a sob. “You need to look perfect for the family photographs, so don’t start crying now. The make-up artist is occupied with your sisters.” She tipped her head to the corner of the room, where both my sisters were busy getting dolled up. They were both younger than me, both looked so child-like and dazed. Beautiful, too. They were the only thing that made me glad I was in this position. I was broken enough inside to get through it. I don’t think they were. Not yet.

My lips crushed together to fight the scowl I knew would get me a stamp on the foot or a pin under my nail, and I braced. In this tiny room of the church, my world was caving in. Despite all the training I had endured, how many times I’d had it drilled into my head I was to save this family, to marry the strange man twenty-four years older than me who already had three dead ex-wives and an aura even the devil would shudder at. My heart pounded in my chest, betraying the terror raging through my body. They’d trained the submission into me, but not the fear out of me. That still festered. My feet itched to run. My heart raced like it would be enough to get us far from here. But instead… my sisters.

“Of course, mum,” I replied. “I’m fine.”

I wasn’t fine. Couldn’t be further from it. I was across the Atlantic from home, having spent my eighteenth birthday traveling to my doom. Sleep was a tricky beast to come by, nightmares playing in my liminal state whenever my eyes dared to shut.

A British and American merger of the depraved, or what I’d been told of it, anyway. I didn’t even know for sure what my family was involved in, what this church was – no one told me anything, just little of what my role would be so I didn't mess up. As a daughter, they always kept me away, squirreled up in my Rapunzel’s tower to stay virginal and meek. Just what an old man like Rafael Delucci wanted. And what my father was happy to give for power.

The flight had been awkward. Even in our private jet, I’d been uncomfortable. My parents, my two older brothers and my two younger sisters, plus a myriad of staff and security, had filled the space, none of them giving me any attention. I was only the bride, after all. Since this path had been chosen for me, they’d kept me separated, held at a distance in case I overheard any family secrets or experienced even a modicum of warmth.

They wanted into this group, thiscult, and would do anything, even sacrifice, to get it. I was their sacrifice, their lamb, slaughter through marriage and deprivation.

I didn’t even know my siblings, not really. My brothers spent most of their time traveling, and my sisters were being groomed for their own horrors, kept apart from the rest of us even as babies. Everyone in this family had to be useful, and what lay between the legs of his daughters was our best asset.

On the morning of my birthday, only yesterday, my mother had handed me a box with white lingerie inside instead of cake or balloons. When I asked why she chose it, she said she didn’t, Rafael had, sending it special as our impending nuptials approached. I wore it now, under the stiff lace of my dress, shuddering at the scratchy, tiny scrap of silk that the handwritten note had told me he was excited to see painted red.

I shuddered at the memory and wondered what would happen if I didn’t bleed for him? If my hymen had broken years ago while trampolining or riding a horse… I’d slipped a pin into theside of my bra, just in case. My mother handed it to me with an approving nod. Maybe I wouldn’t use it to puncture my thigh to create the necessary blood. Maybe I would stab him. Shove it so deep inside his cock he’d never be able to get an erection again…

Mother knew, like I did, how important virginal blood was to this transaction, this ritual of evil. She didn't believe it, clear from the pin she'd watched me hide in case I needed to fake it. But it wasn't for my own wellbeing, it was so they didn't have to go through this show again. The effort, she'd said, was enormous, and they deserved their reward.

“Chop to it then, Violet, the wedding starts in an hour and you willnotbe fashionably late,” Mum’s bitter voice said. I just nodded and turned for the door, a guard waiting to take me where I needed to be.

Afterthephotos,mymother guided me to a different location, leaving me on my own at the top of the church tower, by the large, dusty bell. It was strange, but she’s insisted it was the done thing for Rafael and all his now-dead wives. She told me to contemplate my day, and to wait for my jailer. We were on private property, this church only for members, only for the generations of women who'd suffered at the hands of the generations of men. Again, they told me nothing of the history, the significance. But I listened when I could, and my parents had been chatting about the ceremony while I pretended to sleep on the plane.

I didn’t relax, remained stiff, awkward, until, just a few moments later, someone began making their way up the creaking steps.

“Is there really no one else they trust to stay with me for five minutes? I can’t even sit by myself?” I asked my brother as he ascended the stairs, recognizing him right away from the curl of his brown hair. He had a distinctive whorl, and as the only bright spot in my family, I’d memorized most of him when I could.

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