Page 1 of The Marriage Debt

1

LILA

It's cold in here, raining outside. My wool dress is still damp from being near the graveside, in the rain. There is a lot of activity around me, but I sit in a daze. The same hollow, empty-inside feeling I've lived with for four days now.

I loved him, right?

At least I keep telling myself that. I've been telling myself that for six years every time I got the urge to leave.

I don't have to leave anymore.

"We'll all miss him so much," a passing stranger says to me. She wears a mourner's hat, veil folded over the front shielding her eyes and their crows' feet. I don't know her, but no doubt she knew Anton, probably related.

I force a smile, nod at her condolences, and pray she moves on. Accepting mourners is worse than staring at that open coffin and the horrific way the undertaker fixed his face. Didn't even look like him. Lev asked me who he was, where his daddy is…

"I want to go home now," he whines, stretched out across two uncomfortably cushioned chairs next to me. With one leg draped over the back of them, one dangling from the front of the seat, his head lies on my lap as I smooth his dark hair out of his eyes. Eyes that stare up at me pleading for this to be over. He hates it here.

Almost as much as I hate it here.

"Soon, baby," I soothe, and I let the relief wash through my body again. Six years of torment. Six years of bruises and screaming. Six years of fear, of panic and dread. I'm free now, though—unshackled from a life I threw myself into when I was too young to know what I was doing, and I'm still too young to know what the actual fuck I'm doing.

"Your mother sends her condolences," Rafe says, nodding at me as he sets a bouquet of flowers on a stand next to the picture of my dead husband. His face is drawn. I barely acknowledge his words, just a tight nod. I don't know him, really, just that he works for Anton's brother. Anton's men are mostly gone now too, dead right alongside him in that sickening bloodbath.

Good riddance.

"When can we go?" Lev whines again, kicking his feet.

Rafe walks away, a stern expression on his face as I decide to scoop Lev up. We've spent an adequate amount of time lying around pretending we're mourning the dead. Grief is the farthest thing from what I feel. Mother would say it's come full circle, that I've paid the dues for my bad choices. I'm surprised she isn’t here to rub it in, to tell me what a horrible mother I am and how lucky I am Anton is gone now, that I get a second chance to try for a new life.

I was eighteen and stupid. Fuck her for being the bitch she's always been and turning her back on me when I needed her most.

"Let's go," I whisper, pressing a kiss to his forehead as I cradle him and hoist him up. My hands hook under his bottom, his arms wrap around my neck, and he drapes his head over my shoulder. He's heavier than I remember, but five-year-olds don't stop to think how growing up will affect the way their mother can care for them.

"Is Daddy sad, Mommy?" he asks softly. It's a question he asks me sometimes, when Anton doesn't come home.

"No, baby, he's not sad anymore. He'll never be sad again." He'll never be anything again. Three bullets to the chest and one to the head mean he will never be anything but dead. I'm just glad I wasn't there, that I didn't have to see it.

"Is he coming home? Will he shout at us?"

I hate that as I carry my son toward the doors at the back of the church's reception hall, he's thinking of Anton’s anger and violent streak. He never laid a hand on our son—I never let him—but the bruises on my body, mostly covered by this hideous mourning gown, are still fresh, still tender as I weave through the crowd hoping no one stops me.

"He's not going to shout anymore, baby," I soothe, hoping Anton's memory fades from Lev's little mind seamlessly, that my son isn’t tormented by night terrors and anxieties during the day anymore.

My feet carry us both out the door of the hall, away from the suffocating reach of voices. I'm tired. Exhaustion on my face probably resembles the grief I'm supposed to exhibit. Mom would tell me I’m going to get wrinkles from the horrible lines on my face, and it makes me want to scowl harder.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Rossi." The low rumble of a man's voice stops me in my tracks. Another mourner come to pay his respects before I run off, probably. I stop, sighing that I've missed my chance to escape, and turn with Lev in my arms to face the man.

He has a deep scar across his cheek unmasked by makeup or stubble. His eyes brew storms hell-bent on intimidating me. He's not here to pay respects or honor the dead. The teardrop below his right eye reveals his real purpose—to threaten me.

"That's Ms. Varo now, thank you." I'm only twenty-four, and any other woman my age would cower before a man like this. Seven years ago, I'd have pissed myself, been shaking, probably thrown up all over him.

But here, surrounded by Anton's family and men he called family despite not being blood, I stand firm. I've dealt with these types enough times to know how to handle them. Never back down. Never break eye contact, and never—not even for a second—let them see you're afraid.

"Ms. Varo," he says, reaching his hand out to me. In it he holds a business card, black card stock, white letters. I can't see the name, but I don’t have to understand what he's doing here. This isn't a social call, and of all the despicable places to threaten someone…

"You should be ashamed of yourself, showing your face around here." I've never seen him before, but his ink betrays him. Anton is dead because of him and his men. "You have no right."

I should be shaking his hand, thanking him. He broke a tie I was powerless to free myself and my son from, and all over a bit of money. I'd have given my very blood to get Lev away from Anton safely, but I knew no matter where I sent him Anton would've found him, and I'd be dead now. My son would be motherless.

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