Arranged Mafia Marriage

Karma

“Michael!” I scream as his head disappears under the water, “Oh, my god, Michael!” I spring up, ready to dive into the water, but Luca catches me around my waist.

“Let me go,” I yell. “Michael! No! I have to go to him.”

“If you jump into the water now, you know what he’s going to do to you, right? He’ll not only imprison you, he’s going to kill you, and then you’ll never be able to see your sister again.”

Summer. My breath hitches. Summer. I need to get out of here so I can return to her. It’s what I want, right? It’s why I had first stabbed Michael, then run away from him when he’d been occupied with fixing food in the kitchen. Michael… I swallow. What if he doesn’t survive though? I stop struggling and Luca releases me. He focuses on steering the motorboat.

I stare back at the receding jetty as the boat pulls away. The wind whips my hair into my face and I shove it back.

“He needs help.” I turn to Luca, “Please, call someone. We can’t leave him alone.”

He hesitates and I clutch at his sleeve, “Please Luca, please, he’s your brother.”

“It’s too damn dangerous,” he says through gritted teeth. “It’ll place me squarely at the scene of the crime.”

“If you don’t call someone and have them help, then if he does recover, he’ll never forgive you.”

“He’ll never forgive me anyway.” Luca twists his lips, “Asshole will kill me… That is, if he does survive.”

“He will survive,” I say fiercely. “He has to. Please, Luca, please call somebody and have them send help. You know I am right in asking this.”

He stares at me a second longer, then swears aloud. “Steer the boat, will you?” He jerks his chin toward the steering wheel. He steps back and I slide into the space in front of the steering wheel.

I grab it, and when he’s sure that I have a firm grip, he releases his hold on it.

He pulls a phone out of his pocket, and presses a few buttons, before holding it to his ear. “Seb?” He snaps, “There’s been an accident, at the island. Michael needs help.”

He listens for a second, as the other man speaks, before interrupting, “I know because I was there, and now I am not. You’d better send someone before it’s too late.”

He disconnects, then tosses the phone overboard, before turning to me, “This call was a big mistake.”

“It wasn’t,” I insist. “I don’t want him to die, and neither do you.”

He laughs, the sound bitter, “Asshole wouldn’t die that easily. He’s probably clambering onto the beach as we speak and walking toward the house.”

“I hope so.” I swallow as he crosses over to me and takes the wheel again. I shift to the side, sink down onto the seat next to him. “I didn’t mean to…hurt him,” I murmur. “I only did it out of instinct. I didn’t mean for him to…” I can’t say the word aloud. He’s not going to die. He cannot die and yet, I can’t take my gaze off of the island that’s growing smaller by the second. What am I hoping to see? Michael emerging from the water and walking onto the shore? Michael standing there and watching me as I leave him? Michael with his dark gaze, his chiseled features, those massive shoulders, his wide chest… Michael with his edgy, dark scent that I will forever carry with me. Michael. Michael. Michael. A sob bubbles up and I don’t stop the tears that run down my cheeks.

“I wish I could go back,” I wrap my arms around myself. “I wish I could make sure that he’s okay.” I am mumbling to myself but Luca hears me.

“He has a harder head than you can imagine.” He speaks in a loud enough voice that I can hear him above the sound of the breeze, “Look, I know it’s unfortunate that you had to do what you did, but at least, you are free of him now.”

“Am I?” I swallow, “He’s going to come after me.”

He has to come after me. He has to live. He has to survive what I did to him. Surely, he can’t have drowned. I didn’t hit him that hard, did I?

“You’re right,” Luca concedes, “it’s the first thing he’s going to do once he’s back on his feet. You likely bought us a little time though.”

I keep my gaze focused on the island until it recedes from sight. My heart stutters, a cold sensation stabbing at my chest. You’ll see him again. You have to… I shake my head. What is wrong with me? I had spent the entire time I was on the island trying to get away from him. And now that I have managed to escape, I can’t stop thinking about him.

This is for the best. I am leaving him behind and going to find my way back to my own life, to my home… That’s what I want, right? Home… I swallow. Why does it feel like I left my home behind? That house on the island that belongs to Michael…isn’t home. Not my home. It’s his place. I am… His? No, no, no. I rub my fingers across the ring on my left hand. That…is his… The mark of his possession with which he branded me. Just as he imprinted his touch into every cell of my body, engraved his name into my soul, stamped the sensation of his thickness in between my legs. I squeeze my thighs together.

Shit, this is not the time to think about how brutally he had taken me that last time. How he had eaten me out, before positioning me on my hands and knees, then gripped my hips, holding me immobile as he had thrust into me from behind. Oh, my god, he had…taken me, owned me with the sureness of his movements. He had consumed me, imprinted himself into the most intimate parts of me. He had changed how I perceive myself… He had reached deep into the recesses of my soul and forced me to confront who I am. A woman whose tastes are extreme, someone who needs to be challenged, and subdued, someone whose spirit can only be matched by the lord of the underworld himself. A beauty who needs her beast, her master’s hand upon her head as he calms her, his fingers around her neck as he chokes her, his tongue inside her soaking wet channel as he licks into her and-“Bloody hell,” I swear aloud and Luca glances sideways at me.

“You okay?”

I chuckle. “What do you think? I may have murdered my husband, who I only married a few days ago, after he kidnapped me, by the way,” I squeeze my fingers together, “so no, I am not okay.”

I stare forward, into the wind that slaps my face. My eyes sting and a pressure knocks at the backs of my eyes. Shit, I’ve made a complete mess of this. Not only had I fallen for my kidnapper, aka my husband, but now I can’t stop thinking that it was a mistake I managed to escape from him. What the hell am I going to do about this? I turn to Luca, “I need to call my sister as soon as possible.”

“I am afraid that may not be a good idea.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means if you call her, you’ll only be putting her in danger.”

“What danger?”

“As you said, he’s going to come after you. No doubt about it… Unless…” He raises a shoulder, “Unless he didn’t make it out of the water.”

“He made it out of the water,” I snap. “He is alive, dammit.”

“Either way, it’s best we lay low until we know for sure.”

“Shit,” I squeeze my eyes shut, “I’m so screwed if he’s alive.”

“And if he’s dead-”

“No,” I open my eyes and turn to him, “don’t you dare say that.”

He blows out a breath, “As you wish. My saying it or not is not going to change the reality though.”This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

“I am aware,” I mutter, as I scan the shoreline that’s coming up. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“To a safe house in Bagheria.”

“Bagheria?” I turn to him, “Where’s that?”

“It’s the town to the east of Palermo.”

“Shouldn’t we, maybe, try to move further away from Palermo? I assume he is well known in town and must have contacts around the city. Besides, doesn’t he know about all of your safe houses?”

“Not this one.” He shoots me a sideways glance, “You’re no pushover, are you?”

Only when it comes to him. Oh, Michael, what have I done? If you don’t make it out alive I… I’ll never forgive myself. My chest hurts and I rub at the space above my left breast.

“You okay?”

I shake my head. “Not really,” I mutter. A trembling seizes me and I wrap my arms around myself. If he were here, he’d fold those massive arms around me, he’d pull me into his chest, tuck my head under his chin, and rub my back… Right before turning me over his knee and spanking me for what I did.

Luca shrugs off his coat, and hands it over to me. I glance at it and shake my head. It feels wrong. I shouldn’t be wearing another man’s jacket. If Michael saw it, he’d kill Luca… Or maybe not. Luca is his brother, after all. Although, after this incident… Yeah, not sure how Michael will treat Luca after this… And shit, why are my thoughts back on him?

“Take it.” Luca, places it around my shoulders, “You don’t want to catch a cold. Michael would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

He stiffens as if realizing what he’s just said. “Not that you’d want to have anything to do with him, now that you’ve escaped him.”

Right. I stare at the shore as Luca continues to steer the boat. Half an hour later we reach a jetty that juts out from the approaching beach. As soon as we draw up next to the wooden platform, he cuts the engine again. Then walks around to the far end of the boat-the end from where I’d raised the oar and brought it down on his forehead.