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“Mum met Neil on a dating app. Ironically, it was me who suggested she sign up. She had never had a relationship since dad and I felt bad for her. She always worked so hard and when she wasn’t working, she was with me or sorting the house. I just wanted her to find a man to bring a little joy into her life.” Her tone was laced with sadness and regret, and it made my heart ache. “Everything was great to start with. Neil was nice to mum. Wined and dined her. Took her on weekends away. He had a good job and was also widowed with one child, so they had things in common. It was only after him and Henry moved in that things started to change. Neil became lazy. He expected mum to do everything for him. Cook his dinner, keep on top of the housework constantly even though she still had two jobs. He used to pick fights over the smallest things. If there was a plate left in the sink for more than an hour or if something in the house broke. It would be her fault. They argued like cats and dogs but he would always apologise quickly and make it up to her with a fancy dinner reservation or be overly affectionate. I told her to leave him, but she refused. I think a part of her just thought having him around was better than the loneliness of having no one. Soon the fire in her burned out and she became indifferent to the way he treated her. She just put up with it. She stopped fighting back.”
I reached for her hand and gave it a supportive squeeze as I started to rub circles on her skin to soothe her. It was for my benefit as well as hers. This was hard for me to listen to. I didn’t like the idea of anything bad happening to her but I knew I was about to hear it all. And I needed to. I wanted to know. So that when I found that fucker, he would pay duly.
“So, Henry was like his dad?” I asked, trying to understand if their behaviours were the same but she shook her head.
“No. Neil was an arse. But he wasn’t violent, and he wasn’t possessive or controlling. He just expected things from my mum that he had no right to and made her feel like shit when she didn’t deliver. Henry was different. The whole situation was different.”
I waited for her to continue and saw her inhale deeply before she released a shuddering breath.
“After the night he came into my room and tried to…have sex with me. He became so fervently angry. It was as if a switch flicked on in him and all he could feel was rage. Every second of every day. At first, I thought he was just mad that I rejected him, and he would cool off eventually, but when he started doing things to torment me, I knew there was something wrong. He would use any opportunity we were alone to try and intimidate me. Scare me. He would corner me in rooms. Purposefully, throw or bang things next to my head to make me jump. I would wake up and find him sitting in my room in the dark in the middle of the night. That’s when I fitted a lock on my door. That pissed him off more. He would cut up my clothes if he thought they were too revealing. He started to follow me everywhere. I would be out with my friends in a café or park and he would walk past glaring at me. He would sit outside my friend Millie’s house in his car when I was round there for dinner and knock on the door offering me a lift home. He was suffocating me. But the worst was his words. The things he would say. In one breath he would tell me I was worthless or a whore and the next he would be calling me beautiful and that I was his. He spread rumours about me throughout the village so no boys would want to come near me. He threatened any men who looked my way. He used to start fights with men who spoke about me to him and then would come home and tell me it was my fault that he had beaten them to a pulp.”
My breathing was becoming laboured as I tried to control the lava of fury that was spreading through my veins. For two years, this had been her life before he even murdered her boyfriend. Fuck I don’t think I have ever wanted to kill someone more in my entire life.
She turned back to me on my side. “I know what you are thinking. Why didn’t I tell anyone? Why didn’t I get help?”
I shook my head. “No. I wasn’t thinking that at all.”
“I tried. I spoke to my mum. But she was dealing with her own despair. Even though Henry was making my life hell, he had never been physically violent towards me. It got progressively worse when I turned eighteen and started dating Nate but I knew I would be gone soon. I knew I would be at university, miles away and the distance would make him forget about me. That he’d lose interest. And then that night happened. The night he murdered Nate.”
“Come here,” I whispered as I pulled her into my body and wrapped my arm around her small frame. She rested her head on my shoulder and I exhaled loudly. “I know that was hard for you to talk about. But I want you to know that even though I am possessive and protective of you, I will never be him, Liv. I will never cause you any harm or make you feel like you're not the most amazing person in the world to me.”
She raised her head to look into my eyes and smiled. “I know. You are nothing like him. You are the only thing in my life that makes me feel safe. I love you so much Gio.”
I leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I love you bambola.”
“Shall we make a deal?” she said with a secret smile.
“I’m listening.”
“I will stay with you for two hours every day while you rest and we will use that time to talk. To learn everything there is to know about each other. No more secrets.”
The rage that I had felt just minutes ago, had simmered down as I gazed into her eyes.
“Deal.”
She leaned down and kissed me. A slow, sensual and fucking delicious kiss. I would never get enough of her lips. When she pulled back, I frowned, wanting more.
“But maybe a little of that time could be spent helping me to relax in other ways?” I smirked, raising one eyebrow suggestively.
The desire swarmed in her eyes as she bit her lip seductively.
“You mean… something like this?”
She moved her way down my body, kissing my abs below my bandaged chest as she went, and I moaned as she unzipped my trousers. I lifted my head to watch her pull out my cock and hold the base of it with her little hand as she held my gaze.
“Hmmm,” I hummed as she licked from the bottom to my tip and flicked her tongue over the top. I was growing instantly hard just at that action. When she took me into her talented mouth, I dropped my head back and groaned in appreciation. “Fuck. Yes, exactly like that.”
Stand By Your Man
Olivia
Waking up for the first time in the Buccini mansion felt oddly normal. Like I was always meant to be here. Feeling the weight of Gio’s muscular arm draped over my waist and his scent swarming my senses was the nicest way I had ever woken up in my life. Turning around carefully so as not to wake him, I gazed up at his sleeping face and smiled.
No wonder this man could get away with murder with a face and body as gorgeous as his. There I go again. Thinking about him being a murderer. I sighed deeply as I took in his distinguished features. I was starting to train my brain to see his way of life differently. He was born into this role, and he had never known anything different. He told me that he did what he had to do to survive and to protect his family. That was always what drove him. When I think about it like that, I can understand it. Would I kill to survive? Yes. Would I kill to protect those I loved? Without a doubt. So how did that make me any worse than him?
Not many people can say that they have witnessed a murder in their lifetime. Yet I can. I watched the life drain out of Nate’s eyes. I saw the pain, horror and fear in them. And I watched it almost happen to Gio too. So even though I couldn’t pretend to understand what Gio did for a living, I had experienced it first-hand. It was a dog-eat-dog world he lived in and it seemed to be them or us. I was just going to have to accept that death and revenge were always going to be a part of my life now. Perhaps it was always meant to be. Perhaps it was my destiny. Because no matter how I felt about Gio’s darkness, my love for him and his family was far greater.
I ran my hand over his bandage lightly and pulled at the corner to check his stitches. It healed quickly. Good. He was going to have physio for a few weeks, which he wasn’t very pleased about, but I would force him. After yesterday, I realised I had a way to get him to do just about anything I wanted. I grinned mischievously as I thought back to how I turned him into putty in my mouth as I gave him what he described as the best head of his life.
