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Prologue
Recently, my father died. He was a hardened criminal and duplicitous liar. He was also a known wise guy, that was part of something larger and more evil than any of us realized. After he died, I took it upon myself to legitimize and then sell the family business so that I and the rest of my siblings could move on.
But little did I know, before his death he’d started the ball rolling on giving me the same kind of gift he’d given my older brother. When news of this gift arrived on my doorstep, my already chaotic world was turned on its axis.
I had just gotten home from my brother’s wedding and I had a to-do list longer than my arm. I told my brother I could handle most of it on my own; I had it under control. I had a few key guys to help me here. He could go, enjoy time with his new bride far away from home, away from secrets and lies and deceit.
He’d been my idol and my best friend all my life and shouldering a lot for the last several years. I wanted to ease his burden.
In our family, he was the heir and I was the spare, so I probably also wanted to prove that I was just as capable as he was.
So after the death of our father Tom Ferrano, my brother Tommy and his new bride Tia were giving a go at starting a fresh life overseas, away from secrets that needed to be kept. My brother decided he needed to be out of sight for a while for a couple reasons.
I, however, was to be back home doing the “laundry” so we could sell off the empire that my father had spent thirty years building. It was for the best. The empire extended to so many dark and dank areas it was better off for all of us to just start fresh. The kind of businesses he was in, though, made it so that we couldn’t just make a clean break. This was why I was cleaning things up first.
Before my father died, he arranged for my brother to get married, gifted him a girl. After I saw the impact of that girl on my brother’s life, I joked with Pop that I wanted a mail-order bride for my upcoming birthday, joked about it with emotions about my now sister-in-law that I should not ever have been feeling.
My father joked back that he was already shopping around and would find me a perfect fit. At least I’d thought he’d been joking.
But when I got home from my brother’s wedding, I found out that before Pop died, he had gotten that ball rolling. He’d gotten things rolling in a way that could not be stopped and that was going to be a problem. A messy problem.
See, Pop was deeply involved in a human trafficking ring, one of the many involvements he’d neglected to tell me and my brother about as he prepared us to take over the family business. We never knew that what he’d had in mind for us was just the top skim off a cesspool of filth he’d been too happy to be wading in. We had suspicions but we had no clue just how filthy it truly was.
Pop and I had a conversation when talking about Tommy and Tia and how my brother went from being the non-marrying kind to devoting himself 100% to the girl my father had arranged for him to have. Pop wouldn’t tell me his motives behind the choice at that point but it all unfolded over the subsequent weeks. A few months before my birthday he had asked me what I wanted in a bride.
“What’s on your wish list, son?” Pop asked.
“Beautiful. Redhead. But she has to want what I want from life. She has to have an insatiable sexual appetite but want kids and a picket fence, too.”
“How about if she’s all those things because she does exactly what you tell her to do? How about if she’s been schooled in all the ways to please a man in and out of the bedroom?”
“That’s too good to be true, Pop. Too bad such a woman does not exist.” I’d laughed and our conversation got cut short.
I’d always wanted a wife and kids. I wanted the picket fence and enough kids to start my own soccer team. But when I caught my fiancée cheating on me with the DJ we’d hired for our wedding my heart went cold and what my sister dubbed my ‘man whore years’ began.
After seeing Tommy’s life change because of falling in love I decided that maybe it was time to open my mind up to the possibilities of connecting with someone again beyond a one-night stand. But when I got home from my brother’s wedding, ready to start the massive job of cleaning up the family business so that I could move on with my life and think about finding my own happily ever after I found out that Pop had already ordered my mail order bride. And I couldn’t cancel that order.
Pop’s involvement in a human slavery ring was deep. We knew the trade existed and we knew he knew people in that trade. Tommy had seen a little more of the inside of it than I had. But neither of us knew that he had partnered with them, that he had an in that meant he could get me the woman on my wish list.
She’s waiting for me to pick her up near Bangkok. She’s been told she has been sold and is going back to North America. She’s about to turn twenty-three, she’s a beautiful redhead, and she’s been in captivity for two years. There’s no way I can accept this gift, keep a woman who was bought for me. I need to pick her up and set her free. Don’t I?
Life isn’t always what you think it’ll be. Sometimes it falls short and sometimes you get more than you ever dreamed was possible, even if it doesn’t play out the way you expected.
Life throws curveballs and when you sit and dream about an obstacle being in the way of your happiness and that obstacle finally gets moved it’s not always smooth sailing like you thought it’d be.
One night just a few days after we got married, my husband had my throat in a crushing hold during the throes of a nightmare and I almost didn’t make it out of it. After a huge argument, Tommy agreed to therapy, and I don’t know yet if it’s helping or not. Right now, it almost seems like it’s making it worse because he’s facing facts and hard truths about himself. It’s making him go from aloof and quiet one minute to broody and growly the next. I hope the old adage of “it gets worse before it gets better” is true because that’ll mean it will eventually get better.
I also hope I’ve seen the worst already.
I’ve tried to reassure him that he had no choice but to shoot his father.
Tom Sr. wanted a showdown. He wanted to punish his son for his perceived betrayal and Tom probably would’ve killed me and maybe would’ve killed him, too.
But I know Tommy feels guilt even if he won’t admit it. He has nightmares that he won’t talk about. Sometimes I can calm him down with a cuddle when he’s moaning in his sleep and he won’t even wake up. Sometimes he gets out of bed after jackknifing straight up, sweaty and hyperventilating, and then he doesn’t want to be touched. Sometimes he just disappears to the roof terrace to beat on the heavy bag in the middle of the night or swim a dozen laps. And sometimes he wakes up and takes me…devours me, fucks me hard and rough and like his life depends on it.
Sometimes, when he’s really aloof or broody and I can’t figure out how to help him through it, I push and pick fights with him until he pushes back and his pushing back usually means that his control snaps and that means extra rough sex. Afterwards, he’s always a bit more himself. Sometimes it lasts a few hours, sometimes a few days.
Tom Sr.’s funeral was hard. Lisa was in rough shape and then she found out a week after Tom died that she was pregnant.
