“When she met Marcel Bellisario. He was ten years older, rich, handsome, sophisticated. I was just barely seventeen when he swept me off my feet, promised me the world.” She laughed softly. It was either that or cry, and she’d already spilled far too many tears because of Marcel. “We were married three months after meeting. I was so naive, so desperate for love, I didn’t see him for what he was—such an ugly, ugly person.”
Vaughn’s fingers curled into a fist. “Did he hit you?”
He was trying not to show any anger, but she could hear it in his carefully modulated tone. She covered his fist with her hand. “Not in the beginning. The first year of our marriage, he treated me like a queen, but halfway through the second year, I got pregnant and things started to change. It was slow at first—so slow I didn’t realize it was happening. An open hand slap, a shove. I brushed it off as stress because his father was putting a lot of pressure on him to take over the family business.”
Vaughn uncurled his fist and laced his fingers through hers. “Did you know what that business was?”
“Yeah.” She lifted a shoulder. “Honestly, I didn’t care. Family’s important to the Bellisarios, and I was happy I finally had a family that always took care of their own. The fact they were thieves and killers didn’t even blip on my radar. If anything, I thought being a mobster’s wife was glamorous and exciting. I was so young…”
She paused, gathered her strength. She’d never told anyone the whole story before, and the recounting of it now hurt more than she ever imagined it would.
“Go on,” Vaughn said. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay. And she was afraid that as soon as he heard what had really happened, he’d see the part of her she had to keep hidden. The part she knew couldn’t survive in the light of day.
But she needed to tell him. Even if it would signal the beginning of the end.
“I was five months pregnant the first time Marcel really attacked me,” she said. “After we found out it was a girl, we went home and he just…flew into a rage. He kicked me around, threw me down the stairs.” Her gut clenched, the memory still as fresh as ever. “I lost the baby. He told everyone my dog had attacked me and I fell. And they believed him. He even had my dog Sadie euthanized while I was in the hospital. I was so blind to who he really was, I never realized how much he hated my dog or how much he didn’t want the baby until he got rid of them both with one beating. It only got worse from there. The second time I got pregnant, he was happy until he found out it was another girl. Then he put me in the ICU and told everyone I had been in a car accident. I don’t think as many people believed him that time, but he paid them to keep their mouths shut, and they did.”
“Bastards,” Vaughn said.
Although her stomach hurt with the memory, she had to smile at the venom in his tone. If he was able, she had no doubt he’d track down every single person who had ignored the abuse and let them know exactly what he thought of them.
Her knight in not-so-white armor.
“After I healed,” she continued, “I took precautions to make sure I didn’t get pregnant again. He wasn’t keen on birth control, and I knew he’d beat me if he found me with it, but I had to—” Her voice caught, and it took several seconds before she could swallow down the lump in her throat. Vaughn didn’t say anything, but his lips dropped to her shoulder in a show of quiet reassurance she appreciated.
“I couldn’t lose another baby,” she continued finally, her voice raw from the years of suppressed pain now clawing at her throat. She never let herself think about her daughters. Never. It hurt too damn much. “I died a little with each of my girls. I was afraid if I went through it a third time—if Marcel didn’t kill me with a beating, losing another baby would. So I started hiding money away, intending to use it to have my tubes tied.”
“Why not use the money for a divorce?” Vaughn asked softly against her temple.
“The thought never crossed my mind. Divorce isn’t something the Bellisarios do, so I hid my birth control pills and counted down the days until Marcel went out of town and I could have the surgery. Except the night before he was supposed to leave, he found my pills. Oh, he was so angry. Accused me of being a frigid bitch who refused to give him a male heir. He started hitting me, and I was sure—I knew he wasn’t going to stop until he killed me. We were in the bedroom, on the floor, and he was on top of me, choking me. He kept a gun under the bed. I got a hold of it, pointed it at his head. I didn’t want to kill him. Just wanted to scare him, but it was like he didn’t even see it. He kept his hands around my throat, and he was squeezing so hard. My vision started going gray…so I pulled the trigger.”