Chapter 1
Avidya
I am Avidya Mariah Ray, soon to be Melendez. I am eighteen years old and I’ve already been dealt one heck of a hand in life. Truthfully, I wouldn’t be here today if things were different. I probably wouldn't even be alive. Ishouldn’tbe alive. My own parents wanted me gone by any means necessary, it seemed. It didn’t seem like they really cared about my wellbeing. Only about who I was connected to.
Someone wanted me dead for their own personal gain. There isn’t a reason why, at least that I know of. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand it, either. I don’t know if I really want to try to understand it, given the choice. I don’t think it made any difference towards whatever the outcome is going to be. Does it?
I haven’t met my real parents; I’m not sure if I really ever want to. I was given away by my mother at a very young age, along with my half-brother who I just recently discovered. Who knew that I had a family that possibly cared about me out there?
My ‘adoptive’ parents aren’t the best, either. Not when the mother figure was behind my kidnapping. She even had said she was behind it, even if what she wanted hadn’t gone as planned.
It’s not every day that someone is taken in the dead of night, having her best friend killed right beside her. Yet, I was one of those few that got the lovely chance to live through that and more. I could have easily been killed in cold blood right along with Becca.
What more could I possibly go through?
After being taken, thinking I was going to meet a painful death, I was given to a man that changed my life in a way I had never dreamed was possible. This same man that was powerful, strong, and deadly. A man that was mafia born.
He proclaimed toownme in every way possible.
He nearly has in five months.
He was everything I least expected to ever want.
My husband-to-be is a man of power, because of that, many people fear him. Many, many people, but not me. I don’t fear him. I love him with all my heart, his flaws and all. He is mine as much as I am his. He saved me, not only the night I wasgiftedto him but many other times.
Looking back, I can see his reasons for doing what he has so far. He has given me space. Space that may not have been needed with knowing what I do now. I wonder if he just didn’t know what to do with me, how to treat me? I am, after all, so different from any woman he’s had before. Different inside and out.
I’m not like other girls my age. Maybe that is what makes me so appealing to not just him, but everyone. I’m not fake or dolled up with a bunch of makeup to hide my flaws. I let my flaws be seen from the outside in. I have nothing to hide. Heck, I don’t know how to hide, as I’m an open book.
Zachariah is certainly different from anyone I’ve known, inside and out.
With this man, I have not only gained what I never thought I’d be able to have, but I’ve also been given the family I never thought I’d get. It wasn’t all that long ago I found out that everything I once knew was all a lie. I have yet to figure out all the details, and I probably won’t anytime soon. All that mattered was who I was, which is what I’m working on.
Zachariah wanted me to keep a journal, something he mentioned before that car crash. I can’t ignore his wishes, nor my soon-to-be-family’s wishes either.
So instead of meditation, given the circumstances, I am writing a daily journal entry. So far, I have made it through without any panic attacks. So that’s good, right? Meditation, the one time I had tried, was not a success.
It’s all about trial and error while we figure out what we have in this life. Yeah, I’m not too happy to write about all my fears, doubts, and worries, but I am doing it.
For Zachariah alone. He’s the only one that can ever know the true me. The only one that deserves to know.
I know he’ll read my words. What better way for him to understand my thoughts? Maybe by these words, he’ll see just how strong of a person I am inside. I can handle a lot more than even I expected.
I have nothing to hide from him. I want him to know me inside and out, just as I want to know him.
Even his Dom side, if he’ll show me, that is.
~oOo~
Twenty-eight days. It had been twenty-eight long days of pure Hell as I woke once again in tears from my never-ending nightmare. I kept reliving the horrific car crash, always waking up in tears. Sometimes it was early morning. Sometimes it was in the middle of the night. No matter what time, I woke the same way to the feeling of total loss of control over everything.
God, what more could happen?
It never failed. I could never go back to sleep. The nightmare was always the same. I could feel the impact as my body was forced from one side of the car to the other. The sounds echoed inside my head without pause. The bending metal and shattering windows were as loud inside my head as if I’d lived through the crash over and over.
It was a nightmare from Hell.
I’d wake up, covered in sweat trickling down my forehead and back. My palms damp with perspiration.
