The King Killer | Mafia dark romance | ✔️

14. Home sweet home

Valentina

With my forehead tucked onto the windscreen, I watched it fog. The sunlight, barely strong and barely visible tainted the sky with orange hues. It all faded into a lush green canopy when the car raced into the road that led us outside the Moralez mansion. My prison.

Sure, I wasn't held in a room or tied and gagged. It was what the place made me feel. I was a prisoner of my own thoughts, actions and behavior. Constantly keeping the mask on, I forgot how to breathe. How to live.

I realized the appearance of a crack in my porcelain mask. Unraveled for a moment, I forgot my mission was to take out the head of this family. The moments since our marriage till my deal to work with the demon, he managed to affect my concentration.

Playing nice wasn't my forte, playing submissive wasn't either. Yet, the deal I struck with him had me at a disadvantage. An heir was a reason for celebration in many families but not for me. It was my ruse of keeping Antonio where I wanted him to be - away.

Though I had no intention of honoring it, I wanted him to believe so while I ensured, I had a strong foothold in the business. But in the power play, I compromised on my esteem, letting them get to my head that I was up for grabs. Me and my body.

How was I so blinded by revenge to not understand, what mattered most to me? Revenge sure, but not by compromising my body, myself.

Valentina Ramirez was neither a whore, nor a womb.

While I raced down the revenge path, it took two considerate men to enlighten me. Had it not been for Gabriela and Agustin, I would have been readying to sacrifice whatever it took for revenge. To get an upper hand, I would have done anything. But the night that was yesterday, opened my eyes. Two men, for whom I was an open invitation, conveyed I had it all wrong. That my revenge was taking a toll on me. I was losing myself.

Ashamed, I wanted to end this ruse and go home. I wanted to feel normal again. Not scared, nor playing games and definitely not trying to look for opportunities to kill the man I was married to.

I wanted to be me. Even if for a second.

The driver punched the gas, cruising inside the long driveway.

Home. The shrubs on both sides, small bushels ran parallel to us. I reminisced over the times I ran in the garden, barefoot. Mom used to read to me in there. I used to watch her and dad happy, laughing. Barely remembering the age, the silhouette of the barefoot me running all over the freshly moaned grass danced across my eyes.

Mom's laugh still oscillated in the air as we pulled under the parking dome. Over a while, her laughter diminished, till one day when it stopped. Completely.

I watch the sprinkler drench the sunlit grass. The once moaned green lawn now remains dry with long brown husks, waving with the wind. No amount of water can irrigate the garden back to life and greenery. It symbolized our current state of being. The Ramirez were now as dry and broken as the husk stems outside, dragging on our survival each second of the day.

Stepping into the cooler entrance, my vision danced around. The first time since a couple of weeks of marriage, I stood in my own home. My feet move without any control towards the open area -the place where dad spent most of his time after mom's departure.

I wasn't surprised to see him still sitting there, eying the barren land upfront. My heel clacked on the tile flooring, turning his attention to me. His face curved a smile and his hands clutched both sides of his creaking chair's armrest, pulling up.