Chapter One

Chapter one. 

Six months ago. 

Nala. 

I woke up from my sleep from the loud noises in my room. I slowly opened my eyes and I saw my father storm into my room angrily and he started throwing my clothes on the bed. 

Completely in shock, I immediately sat up wondering what was going on when he grabbed my arm roughly pulling me off the bed. He dislocated my arm in the process and I shrieked in pain as tears started running down my eyes. I looked up at him in pain trying to see if his face gave away anything about what was happening but his face was expressionless and a little irritated. 

"You are leaving today Nala." he finally said tossing my already in pain body on the ground as he pulled out my suit case. 

"Pack up all your stuff and come to the dining room in the next twenty minutes. And you better hurry up." he said before he stormed out of the room. 

He is usually grumpy and always uses any opportunity to mishandle me but this was different. It was a lot more than his usual disgust by me. 

Where could I be possibly going? I asked myself while holding my dislocated arm. I was barely allowed to go outside of the compound, let alone go to the market or to town. I was always home bound, my job was to do the cleaning. I was never even allowed to go to school. 

I sat back up still holding my arm as pain once again coursed through my body. This wasn’t the first time I had been hurt, or he had hurt me. And it was definitely not the last either. I needed to do as he had said before he came back in and it would turn ugly. My father had no patience, especially when it came to me. 

My name is Nala Liam, the daughter of Liam. For a while our family used to be among the most feared mafia families in the south. My father owned most of everything. That was until he started gambling and drinking too much and owed alot of people money. 

I can't remember a time my father was nice to me. But sometimes i don't blame him. 

I just tuned eighteen years old, that makes it eighteen years since my mother died. Am the third born, I have two older sisters, Nova and Naya but during my birth, our mother lost too much blood and she died, but I survived. Everyone hated me and blamed me for her death, but no one hated me more than my father for taking away the love of his life. He used every moment he got to remind me of being a murderer and killing the love of his life. My sisters resented me too, especially Nova. Naya alwyas tried to hide her contempt for me but not Nova, she made it clear I will never be her sister am a murderer. 

And when our father started drinking and gambling and put us in debt, somehow it was still my fault. They said if I hadn't killed our mother, our father wouldn’t have been so depressed. So the only person that ever showed me any compassion growing up was the caregiver, Sofia. She had need with our family since my mother married my father and she took care of all of us when mother died. 

Sofia would sneak me in some food, and clothes and she would sometimes teach me how to read. She usually told me one day everything will be okay I just had to be strong. 

Unlike my sisters, I wasn't beautiful, I had all kinds of freckles all over my face. My sisters were both very beautiful with glowing skin, sometimes I wondered if really we were related. How could we be, when we were so different from each other. 

I was lost in thought, I didn't hear Sofia come in until she switched off the lights on. 

"You shouldn't keep your father waiting Nala, you know how he gets when he is impatient." she said as she sat up next to me. 

“He dislocated your shoulder again, didn’t he?” She said to me as she took my hand, her eyes showing how hurt she felt. I shook my head up and down in response. 

“This is going to hurt.” She said without slowly. She grabbed a discarded shirt and put it in my mouth for me to bite down on. She then counted to three and at three she pulled my arm, rotating it around the shoulder joint to pop it into its place once again. Tears began to fall freely down my cheeks as I bit down extremely hard on the shirt. The pain was overwhelming and hurt without any sedatives.

“There, better now?” she said getting up. I then used my hand on the non-injured arm as I balled it into a fist, shaking it up and down for yes.

“Do you know what is going on, where am I going?” I asked her hopefully, but there was a sad look on her face at the question. That can’t be a good sign, I thought to myself. 

“Sofia?" I called her name again, *what's going on?" 

“I can’t say, your dad wanted to tell you.” 

She then started to gather my belongings packing them in the bag laying open on my bed. 

I cleaned my pufffy eyes and slowly headed out to go downstairs as I left her still packing my stuff. 

As soon as I entered our dining room, I immediately knew what was happening. There was two other men with my father, one the same age as my father and I could recognize him anywhere. Damian, the most feared man in our region. His reputation proceeded him, he killed anyone who dared go against his orders, he was the biggest druglord and rumor had it, his oldest son Salvatore was set to take over his empire as he was thinking of retiring. 

I had never seen Salvatore personally, and from where he was sitted I could only see his back. He had broad shoulders, that's all I could tell so far. 

“Ah, she is a beauty indeed, she will do.” Damian said as soon as I approached the table laughing proudly. "She looks like she will give me a grandchild very soon. She had wide hips good for child birth." he added and they all laughed, except for his son, Salvatore. 

The two older men shook hands as my father handed Damian a couple of documents. He then handed them over to Salvatore who slowly and meticulously put them back into an envelope. 

"This is Damian and his son Salvatore. You will be going away with them." my father said with finality written across his face.  

"What does that even mean?" I asked almost afraid of the answer. 

"That means, he is your husband and you are to give him an heir in the next one year." my father said smiling. 

"Father, please! Don't do this to me, I will do anything else please!" I begged immediately going on my knees as tears fell freely down my face. 

"It's done Nala, the contracts are signed. You are to be Salvatore's wife. You will give him a heir as soon as possible,otherwise you are going to be in trouble."

"But am only eighteen." i finally said having nothing else to say. My two sisters Nova and Naya were all older than me and we're not married. Why was he marrying me off. 

"Stop embarrassing yourself and me Nala. I taught you better than that. Now get up and go get your bags."