AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PROLOGUE
WILLOW
Warning: This scene mentions miscarriage. The details are vague, but the content may be upsetting for readers previously affected by the loss of a child.
* * *
The steady beep of the hospital machines quieted a long time ago, replaced with silence thick enough to choke a grown man. I cling to the lifeless hand of my dead husband feeling grief, excitement, despair, and hope.
Just beyond the window, I can feel their eyes on me. A dozen grown men in wrinkled suits are waiting for my next move.
I rub my thumb along the cool patch of skin beneath Ricardo’s pinky. Just a few millimeters to the side is the ruby ring that I bought him for our fifth wedding anniversary last year. How many of the men outside the door have bent over to kiss this ring?
My stomach churns and I place a comforting hand over the life growing inside of me. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell Ricardo about the baby. I was waiting for an opportune time as if becoming a parent ever comes at a good time. “It’s okay, sweet babe,” I whisper, “we don’t need him.”
For the last two years, Ricardo has put our lives on the lines for his wars and skirmishes. A silly little fight with another family turned into a full-scale war. The bean in my belly is not my first since this all began. An errant car bomb set for my husband was attached to my vehicle by a clumsy soldier. If it wasn’t for my bodyguard noticing the strange tick as the vehicle tried to turn over, we wouldn’t have had enough time to escape the car. As it turned out, the blast did enough damage. We were flung to the ground and I narrowly escaped with my life. The baby I carried and the bodyguard that warned me weren’t quite as lucky.
“You’ve destroyed us, Ricky.” I clench his hand a little tighter knowing that he can’t feel my touch. “I’m supposed to walk out of this room and convince a group of hungry sharks not to rip me apart. I didn’t sign up for this. Ineverwanted this.”
Some of those words are untrue. When I met Ricardo Parodi six and a half years ago, I knew that he didn’t run an average business. I saw the scrapes and bruises he showed up with and I knew what they meant. People whispered to me on the streets, ‘Stay away from Ricky now, you hear. He’ll only get you into trouble.’ But somewhere deep inside of me was the rebel child I’d never gotten to be. I wanted to dance with the devil and he was the closest person I could find.
I didn’t know at seventeen years old that I was treading dangerous waters. I thought having a thirty-year-old boyfriend was sexy. He waited until the day I turned eighteen to ask for my hand in marriage. I was too stupid, too silly and vain, to say no.
My stomach feels like someone is grabbing my uterus and tightening their fist around it, like my monthly cramps but only worse. “I loved you, Ricardo, and I hated you. I hope you burn in hell.”
My vision blurs for a few seconds and I release my grip in order to steady myself. Hands on my husband’s bedside, I talk myself through a few deep breaths.Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out. I can do this.
I get to my feet and I struggle against the wave of dizziness that tries to take me under.Step by step, Willow,I say to myself.Put one foot in front of the other.
The men outside the door shuffle when they see me start to move. I take in the ruffle of their suits, nearly all of them shot through with wrinkles after being in the hospital for eighteen hours. Concern weighs heavily no matter where I look.
For a brief moment, I’m shielded from their eyes as I stand in front of the door. The window doesn’t give anyone a good angle to look at me and I revel in my loneliness for a second. I am strong. I am a Parodi. I may have married into this family, but I will be its next leader. I won’t allow these men to toss me aside like a rag doll.
Ricardo’s last words haunt me as I wrap my fingers around the doorknob. “Don’t let the Giovanni family take over.” He might have thought I was one of his men, but I’d ushered them all into the hall as the doctors tried to perform a miracle. Until his dying day, Ricardo Parodi cared about his family.
I open the door and unveil myself before the men. The concern in a few eyes is replaced with hard, unfeeling hatred. “Ricardo has passed,” I iterate to them what they already know. The doctor will have shared this information an hour ago when they announced his time of death. “But this family will not fall. If we have to take back our territory and our money one fight at a time, we will. Ricardo believed in the strength of his blood. He was divined by the God above. Will you continue to fight for the man you followed into war?”
I’ve heard Ricardo practice speeches like this a thousand times. He stood in front of the full-length mirror in our bedroom not wearing a stitch of clothing. With his prick lolling about and his belly protruding in an unsavory sort of way, he spoke to the mirror like he was chatting with his men. I have learned from the best.
“You’re going to lead us?” Fredo asks with a snort. “You are a woman. You are weak.”
I’m lightheaded if anything. “Your insolence will be your end. Keep talking.” The threatening timber of my voice comes from a place of fear. If I let the men in my husband’s family run over me, I will become nothing. I will be no one.
Fredo’s smile wavers. When it looks like he isn’t going to say anything else, I take a tentative step forward.
“Alessandro Giovanni is responsible for my husband’s death. Will you cower in fear of his shadow or stand with me and take back our power?” My gut churns and it feels like my stomach flips over.
A cheer comes from the men and I know that their loyalty is mine. It is the last sound I hear before someone says, “Oh, my god, you’re bleeding.”
I look at the floor and sure enough, droplets of blood dot the vinyl. I place a hand over my belly one last time and whisper to the baby inside, “It’s okay, sweet babe.”
Ricardo has taken everything from me. He took my virginity on our wedding night. He took my sense of security when he started this war. He took my safety when he had the audacity to die. And now he’s taken two of my children.
“Get a doctor,” I say a little louder before I crumple to the floor. Ricardo will never take anything from me again. From now on, I am the one in charge.
1
WILLOW
