Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 34406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
Could it be possible to find love with him?
****
Giovanni considered himself the luckiest son of a bitch alive right at that moment. Holding his wife in his arms, finally feeling her close.
The past few months had been nothing but pure torture of watching her, being close but never allowed to touch. He didn’t know how he was able to cope.
All eyes were on them, and what he wanted to do was to take her away from their gawking. They didn’t have a right to look, or to even be in her presence. None of them knew what this woman had gone through, but he knew. At eighteen years old, she was betrothed to Leonardo, the son of the Rossi empire, the Boss of the Rossi mafia. He was a soon-to-be leader with a bad temper and wayward dick.
Poor Valentina had been taken.
Rossi had contacted Giovanni to find her, to save her, and to bring her back for his son. Giovanni had done that. It had taken him three days to locate her. She’d been hidden in a small, crumbling ranch house, chained up, and her back cut up so bad from being whipped. They had also tried to hit her stomach and her thighs.
She was still a virgin. No one had stolen that from her, but they’d cut her beautiful long raven hair, and the wounds they’d inflicted had become infected.
They had pissed on her as well, some kind of sick and twisted game.
The three men who’d been at the ranch had died at his hand, and after rescuing her, taking her to the hospital, and hearing about her fight to survive, he’d gone and killed every single person associated with the men who’d taken her.
She’d been taken because of drug money. Rossi had refused to pay for a shipment, and as a consequence, they had taken someone of importance to him. Valentina paid the price.
When he heard Leonardo had canceled the wedding and taken back his wedding band, Giovanni had been furious. He overheard the asshole saying he didn’t want a defective wife, and the doctors had said the scars would be there permanently.
Leonardo wanted arm candy. A trophy.
Rossi had caused this, but they had turned their back on her.
He kept an eye on the idle gossip. Listening to what people were saying about the Berlusconi family, he hated it. For the past three years, he’d kept an eye on her. Watched her from afar. Seen her suffer in silence.
As with all things in their world, she didn’t have anyone to turn to. No one to hear her. Even her screams had been confined to another wing of her home, with just a couple of guards to listen. She had been tossed aside like trash.
Rossi gave him this rare opportunity to choose his bride. Giovanni had shown his loyalty and dedication for nearly twenty years. At forty years old, he’d been in Rossi’s constant service.
It hadn’t taken long after his family had been killed for him to earn the reputation as The Butcher. The title served him well, and as a young man, it had been apt. He hadn’t handled his torture well back then.
The cuts hadn’t been clean, nor the bruising lasting.
Over the years, he’d learned how to perfect his craft, and as such, he was far more skilled, but still, The Butcher remained, and he relished the title.
He liked that Valentina wasn’t tense in his arms. The sweet smile she offered up to him was more than he could have asked for.
Since he’d picked her, he’d not had the opportunity to be alone with her. Their traditions had to remain in place. As did her virginity—until tonight.
He wanted to fuck her. To fill her full of his cum and get her pregnant with his child.
When it came to Valentina, even before she was taken, he’d been enraptured by her. She was a beautiful woman. Curves in all the right places, especially on her thighs as well as her ass. She could take a nice, hard fuck. Her body had been designed for him, and he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her. To bring new memories to chase the darkness away.
“I saw you looking at Leonardo,” he said, hating the bastard’s name on his lips.
“I wasn’t,” she said.
“You don’t have to lie. In fact, that is what I would like in our marriage. Complete and total honesty.”
She tilted her head slightly to the side. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not … heard of.”
He chuckled. “I know, right? I am a glutton for punishment.” He leaned in close and pressed his nose against her hair, inhaling her sweet strawberry scent.
His mouth watered.
After rescuing her and taking a chance to visit her in the hospital, he’d leaned in close and promised he would protect her. It was why he stayed close to home, never going too far, handling business where he could be close to her.