War

Chapter Fourteen

A/N - IM ALIVE so sorry this took so long 🫶🏾

TW: this chapter contains a scene of sexual assault (towards the end)

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Aniyah
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Our honeymoon had passed quicker than expected, and while Marco and I had spent most of the week relaxing in our villa, I knew the change of scenery was well needed. Especially for my husband, who had never been on a holiday before.

If I hadn't before, I'd been finding his company even more special now; and although I was constantly reminding myself that we hadn't married for love, I couldn't help but feel some sort of connection between us. With Marco being so reserved and holding his cards to his chest at all times, it was hard to tell if he reciprocated the feelings.

It was our last night in Jamaica and we'd vacated a little further than the villa this evening, and I'd managed to persuade Marco to sit on the beach.

Uptight, suit-wearing Marco, was sitting on the sand in shorts and a t-shirt.

The sight looked foreign to me, and I hadn't even known the guy for two months yet.

And to make the view even more shocking, he was wearing sunglasses and sipping a straw inside of a coconut; I'd managed to sneak a picture of him while he was looking in the opposite direction towards the sea. Proof, or it didn't happen.

"How did you meet Rio, Reign and Ivan?", I found myself asking, desperate to learn more about the man sitting beside me. He faced me, his green eyes hidden by the shades, a small smirk tugging at his lips.

"Rio since we were fourteen, we went to school together", he sipped some coconut water and gazed into the distance momentarily, "then we dropped out of school together, when we were fourteen".

"You haven't been to school since you were fourteen?", I raised my eyebrows to which he hummed, "you were allowed to do that?".

"It was encouraged, we were both encouraged", he replied, leaning back on one hand, "his father was involved in the same lifestyle as mine..as yours, I suppose we stuck together from then". I smiled as I tried to picture a fourteen year old Marco, wondering how different he was then to how he was now, Rio too.

"And the others?", I asked, bringing one leg up and looping my arms around my knee, savouring every second of him opening up to me, sharing things about him.

"Ivan was the son of one of my father's most trusted men- his father and mother's remains were found in their burned down home shortly after his nineteenth birthday", he seemed completely unfazed as he recalled the story, but I supposed I would be too if I'd been exposed to and carried out as much violence as he did, "Ivan was the culprit, for reasons still unknown to this day- my father wanted him dead, I stood up to him and claimed I wanted Ivan to work alongside me instead". Sure Ivan was reserved, had the whole grumpy aura going for him, and seemed to hate social interaction, but burning his parents alive? I hadn't seen that coming.

"How did your father react? To you standing up to him like that?", to my surprise Marco's lips lifted into a smirk, his eyes still hidden by the sunglasses perched on his nose.