Brave In Violence ( A Mafia Romance Book Three)

Chapter One

Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're       doing.
             ~Emma Donoghue~

                               Ele

There was a loud crash from the living room, followed by Freddie's angry scream and a painful screech from my son, Luca. Instinctively, I ran to him, knowing fully well Freddie might have hit him or was about to. Typically, Luca and I avoided him at all costs, leaving him to his destruction but now my son was in the same room with a man who could kill him or maim him on a whim and get away with it.

Our lives were one of misery, and as much as I loved Luca, I hated that I had brought him into this mess, yet I couldn't trade him for anything, not even for a better life; he was my son, my beautiful kind son. Since the day he was born, I have protected him from Freddie, but it was becoming harder to restrict him to one area as he grew older.

Freddie was home earlier than usual, the slurring in his voice a sign that he was high as always; I thought as I ran from the kitchen, my heart beating loudly, my feet lurching in trepidation, anticipating a beating, but it was better for me than Luca. I could take it, live with it, and survive it; it's what I have been doing for more than a decade.

"I told you to stay out of my sight, didn't I?" Freddie asked angrily; he was standing over Luca on wobbly feet; the stench of his breath and body filled the room, the coat he was wearing too big for his slender shoulders.  The floor was almost covered in small shattered glasses from the smashed Tv and water jug. Luca nodded, his tiny body buddled under the table with tears brimming in his eyes.

He looked so small and pitiful I could have cried, but my eyes had no more tears; they were like a dried well. I hated to see him like that. My son was living a life chosen for me by my parents—a life I wouldn't have chosen for him if there had been a choice.

I had wanted to break the cycle, tried for more than half a decade of my marriage to fake barrenness, religiously, and secretly taking contraceptives. Still, Freddie had other ideas, hence Luca's birth.

It happened unexpectedly, a selfish moment on my part yet one that I called a miracle. It's ironic, really, that I could term a sinful moment a blessing, but It remains one of the best few minutes of my life. It was a day straight out of a fairytale book—a world where they told of kings, queens, princes, and princesses. In these stories, the good always won over the bad; love prevailed; in her beautiful white dress, the princess always ended up with a handsome prince. It was a reflection of how I had viewed the world when I was a little girl.

I remember the joy I felt when Luciano read me the Cinderella story or when he read Little Red Riding Hood in our hiding place near the lake that bonded our homes when I was five years old. I was happy once, and I still remember exactly how I felt then—no amount of torture could take away those moments. But now, I was permanently living in an endless nightmare with the devil.

Maybe it was bad luck, or perhaps it was out of a financial situation, or perhaps it was what the universe called destiny. However, whichever it was doesn't really matter because it brought me to a different world. A world my mother never prepared me for and one that my father planned in my cradle.

A world where evil men resided comfortably in their wickedness, where morality was just another word. A world where God, even while mentioned more times than necessary, seemed to be absent.

It was also the first time I was away from home. Living with a man whose line of good and evil seemed blurred. A wealthy man who thought his wealth brought with it a list of privileges, one of which included forcefully taking me. Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to say rape out loud because it would break me, and I was holding up by a very slim thread. Anything could cut it off, and all my pieces would be splattered across the wall.