Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 31205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 156(@200wpm)___ 125(@250wpm)___ 104(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 156(@200wpm)___ 125(@250wpm)___ 104(@300wpm)
“Training?”
“Vanessa, you don’t get to be the man I am today without training.”
“At five years old?”
He nodded.
“My first kill was at eight years old. My mentor was killed when I was fifteen. His past caught up with him, and he’d gotten too old and too slow.”
“So, at fifteen, you were all alone?”
“Yeah, but I can promise you, I was the scariest fifteen-year-old around. I got by. My Pop, which is what he told me to call him, had taught me everything—how to shoot, how to hunt, how to kill, how to survive. He warned me there would come a time I would have to do this alone. I wouldn’t have him or anyone else. He wasn’t wrong.”
He was surprised he was sharing this with Vanessa.
His past was a secret. No one knew who he was, as his Pop had kept it that way. He’d told him to not go hunting for ghosts of the past, and he hadn’t. He didn’t need to know who the people were who left him at the orphanage. He’d made a life for himself.
“I couldn’t imagine being that young and having to do all of those things,” Vanessa said. “Did you hate it?”
“No,” he said. “I loved it. What you’ve got to understand is that I was a young boy who had come from nothing, who was nothing. I had been told time and time again that I needed to change if I wanted a family. I wasn’t good enough for the orphanage, the foster people, to anyone but Pop. He didn’t treat me cruelly. Don’t think for a second I had a bad life, because I didn’t, Vanessa. Was the training hard? Yes. Did he put me in difficult situations? Yes. Would I change any of it? No. I like who I am, and as for today, I was gathering information on the people surrounding your father to see who else is aware of what he did to you,” Diago said.
“I thought the men who were responsible had been killed,” she said.
“They had been, but I need to make sure no one else was hoping to profit off your treatment.”
“This is insane, who would profit from something like that?” she asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.” She put her knife and fork down.
“You want a family?” he asked.
This made her jerk, which she tried to hide but sitting up just a little taller in her seat. “Uh, I’m not sure.”
“Then that is something we can always talk about at a later date,” he said.
He never intended to have children, but staring at Vanessa, he had a feeling she did. As the days passed, he knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do for this woman. She had become his whole freaking world.
Chapter Nine
One Month Later
Vanessa had gotten her cycle and they sat in the sitting room, the television playing some kind of movie, but she’d not been paying much attention. Her menstrual cycle hadn’t been a welcome sight.
She didn’t know if she waned to be pregnant or not.
Life with Diago had been interesting so far. They rarely went out, but when they did, she couldn’t help feeling that nervous excitement through her body. Three weeks ago, they had a mafia party that Diago felt the need to attend. At the time, she didn’t know why he wanted to, and it was only after that he told her. Her family—her father, mother, and two brothers—were present.
Diago had insisted she wear a rather revealing dress. After her kidnapping, and scar, as well as her increased weight gain, her family had done everything to keep her hidden. Larger dresses, her hair styled to cover her scar, telling her to keep silent, and not to draw attention to herself.
Susan was once again called, and she didn’t think she’d be able to leave the house in the dress Diago had chosen for her. The dress covered her breasts, it was decent in that regard, but it barely covered anything else. So, the skirt was nice and long, and she’d started to realize that Diago loved to see her legs. He preferred the skirts she wore that had long slits in the side, exposing some of her leg and thigh.
Again, she didn’t mind. The top part of the dress wrapped around her waist, giving peeks of flesh, and then crossed over her breasts, wrapping around her neck. She couldn’t wear a bra and had to rely solely on the fabric of the dress not slipping. Susan had also been told to pin her hair off her face, minimal makeup, and she’d also had to wear a pair of heels.
When Diago had to go to work, she spent her time practicing how to walk in the heels. She hadn’t tripped yet, but she still didn’t look delicate or even elegant walking in heels. She had no idea how some women made it look so graceful, as she felt more like an elephant stomping around. It was disconcerting to say the least.