Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 165(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 165(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
She doesn’t want to die, but no one would ever want her. All of her life she’d been told she wasn’t good enough. She knows it is pointless, but she has to try.
Draven Esposito is a dangerous man. Many say he was born in hell and is the devil himself. He saw Maria many months ago. A young woman who tried to become nothing more than a piece of furniture. He cannot let her die. So he marries the young woman. Maria is now his.
There are secrets he cannot tell. Maria knows to be married to Draven will not be easy. The man is scary, but the most shocking thing of all, she doesn’t feel afraid when she's with him. He has never harmed her, but he has warned her, she cannot get pregnant. If she does, he will not be part of that baby’s life.
What will happen when Maria figures out his secret? Will she be able to show him that he can trust her, or will he finally kill her?
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Prologue
Draven Esposito didn’t want to be here. He wasn’t interested in looking for a wife, or to help anyone out. When The Boss ordered him to make an appearance, he had no choice but to do what he’d been told. So here he was, sitting in a strip club, an exclusive one, for a one-time event.
He knew what tonight was all about. A young woman named Maria.
He picked up his glass of scotch and took a sip. Her family could no longer be called. She now had no last name, as anyone with that last name was banished, or put six feet under. The decisions that Maria’s father made had put her in a rather tough position, but from what The Boss had told him, Maria had stopped the deaths of several capos, as well as the big man himself. If it hadn’t been for Maria, her father’s plot to take over the mafia would have succeeded.
It was the only reason Maria was given this chance. She had to be taken and married tonight. There was no second chance. No other night. If none of the men in this room wanted her, she was going to have a bullet put through her head.
The choices were not great.
Draven was here as a potential bidder. He didn’t want a woman. The only women he was interested in were the ones that left when he finished with them. He had no interest in having a wife, especially one so young. She was only twenty-one years old.
When he asked why this Maria was so young and unmarried, The Boss had told him she was a curvy woman and not considered quite as beautiful as her older sister. Only, the older sister had been very keen on becoming her father’s puppet, so she was dead, along with Maria’s older brother.
There was no one left. Just Maria.
He’d not seen a picture of her. According to The Boss, he had seen her in person a few times, but Draven couldn’t recall at first who she was.
Glancing around the strip club, he saw thirty men waiting. Not all of them were capos. Some were soldiers, and there were associates as well. Did The Boss not believe someone was going to buy her?
He finished off his scotch, and just as he had, the lights went down and the stage lit up.
Draven turned his attention to the stage as an older woman, the one who ran the strip club, dragged the younger woman up the stage. The moment he saw her, Draven recognized her, but he knew instantly why she’d not been married off. Most men within the mafia didn’t appreciate a woman with thick curves, and this woman, even beneath the oversized t-shirt and pants, was fuller than most women within their circles.
He’d tried to forget the woman he’d seen, only from a short distance at parties, a few months ago. In their world, he knew there was no chance of him ever being able to have the woman he wanted. Now, he couldn’t look away.
She let out a scream as the older woman suddenly tore the clothes right off her body, leaving her standing there in nothing more than a pair of panties and a bra.
Her blonde hair covered her face, but that didn’t last for long as the older woman grabbed it in her fist and revealed Maria to him.
Draven did recognize her.
It was a party he’d gone to over six months ago at her parents’ house. Maria had been there, dressed all in black, looking like she wanted the walls to swallow her whole. Where most of the men in their world wanted a slim woman, Draven wanted the opposite. He liked his women curvy. There was nothing appealing about a woman whimpering because he was too big, too strong, and she couldn’t take all of him.
Staring at her now, he wanted her.
Even though Maria had come to The Boss to save him and the capos, in extracting and saving her, they hadn’t been kind. He saw the bruise lining the left side of her face. All the mottled bruises that covered that beautiful face. He wasn’t impressed. In fact, he was mightily pissed off.
She’d done what she could to save The Boss and the family, and yet here she was, after being abused and treated like dirt, being sold to anyone who would take her. There was no money being exchanged. Someone had to be willing to marry her, to give her a new name.
Her humiliation wasn’t over because as Draven watched, not a single man put his hand up. Not one.
Maria didn’t shed a single tear, but he watched, and he sensed this air of acceptance. She had known she wasn’t going to be taken. There had been no choice in the matter. Watching her now, he had a feeling she wanted death rather than this. He didn’t want to be intrigued by this woman, and yet as she stood there, staring out into the club, he saw this acceptance, almost like she was at peace with the decision of dying.