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. I shouldn’t be 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 to own me 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 was gifted to 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.
Zachariah would always die, right next to me as some nameless person would shoot him in the head without a care in the world. I’d watch as his eyes dulled right next to me. Was his life that easy to take away?
I knew that Zachariah was alive by luck alone. It didn’t stop my fears of what could have happened. We both could have died, but some unforeseeable force changed the person’s mind. Instead, we were both alive.
We had our lives still, which would not be taken for granted.
The only good thing after nearly a month of constant worry, I was now able to walk without the aid of crutches. It was a tiresome time trying to gain strength back in my leg, as the healing process seemed to take forever. Even longer for my arm, which was still in a cast.
My leg still ached more often than I’d like, given how much time it had been. Being shot close up like I was, the bullet had stopped just a hint away from my thigh bone. Bullet wounds were something I could certainly live without experiencing again. Once was more than enough.
I had to wonder how Zachariah dealt with such pain so often.
During the first two weeks, I constantly hurt, no matter what I did or how careful I moved around after being released from the stuffy hospital. I guess being crashed into by two different cars would do that to just about anyone, and that was excluding the throbbing of both my arm and leg.
Physical therapy was not something I ever wanted to do again, that was for sure. Even if it did get me back to walking sooner. Running would come later, in months most likely. That was okay, though. I was alive. My heart still beat inside my chest as blood pumped through my veins.
I was never left alone in the house after I was released. Not that I was home all that often anyway. Either Jonas or Travis were always with me, no matter where I went at home or at the hospital. Carlos was determined to make sure that I wasn’t left alone by any means necessary and for good reason.
Not many people were to be trusted with a huge price on not only my head, but Zachariah’s also.
I didn’t mind. It was for the best. With a killer, or at least a man that wanted both me and Zachariah dead, on the loose, I didn’t want to go out and about without protection. I’d take just about anything to make sure we were both safe.
For now.
I couldn’t wait for Zachariah to be back home. It was lonely without him. I missed him, even the bad parts of him.
I knew our relationship was nowhere near perfect. How could it be with how we came to be together? In time, after he’d get home, we’d get that time we needed to figure out what would happen next. I wasn’t going to give up on him. That car crash changed things for me with how I saw Zachariah.
I’m in love with him. I promised myself to tell him when he got back home and settled. I have this burning need to make sure that he knows just how much I love him.
He had been injured more seriously than I was in the crash. There was no other reason for that black car to run into us head on and cause us to run sideways into another, bigger car unless it was done deliberately to try to kill us.
I’d never forget how it felt to be hit by not one car, but two. I was caged in, unable to move with my leg pinned under the dash and a broken arm from the force of the collision. That pain, that experience, would likely stay with me until I die.
With the emotional pain I have felt this far, the car accident was at the top of the list. Nothing could compare to it, and by God, I prayed nothing ever would. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle anything more than what I have so far.
I was strong, but even the strongest person could only handle so much.
After Zachariah’s surgery to remove pressure on his brain due to the impact, he had been in a coma for a long two weeks before waking up. He had also been shot and was lucky to be alive. He was closer to death than I ever wanted to think about if I could help it.
I was scared that I was going to lose him. Lose him before we even started a life together.
The doctors were unsure if he’d have any lasting effects from some of the injuries, even though Jonas and Carlos had said he’d had much worse. How was that possible?
I didn’t entirely want to think about what could possibly be worse than lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to countless monitors, just barely alive. Seeing Zachariah in such a way nearly broke my heart.
He could have died. Many times.
Julia really had been a lifesaver in the weeks following the crash. I don’t know what I would have done if she wasn’t there, helping to keep me going as the days passed. She understood more than she let on. She knew I loved her son without any words spoken.
She gave me the encouragement to keep on going. If it wasn’t for her, I may have stopped trying to get myself stronger as Zachariah fought for his own life by the machines keeping him alive.
Jonas and Travis tried to keep me encouraged themselves, but they knew how life worked better than I did. They knew things I didn’t want to know. So, trying to keep me safe and trying to be my family at the same time was hard enough.
Carlos said he had taken care of whoever tried to kill Zachariah for the second time within days, which was yet another thing I didn’t have time to worry about. I refused to think about what I was sure had happened.
Now, after what felt like years instead of almost a month, Zachariah was being released. I wouldn’t ever be happier. The news that seemed to take forever to come, lifted more stress than I expected.
Other than the brain injury, all of his other wounds had mostly healed. His gunshot wound was healed as much as my own. He’d still be sore and had to take it easy, but he was healed enough to go home.
I had wondered why he wasn’t released sooner, as he’d been awake now for two full weeks to the day.
“He has to be able to keep food down, and able to move around on his own,” Violet had explained after I asked. “He’s had a concussion once before, and because of the brain injury he has, he’s being kept a few days extra as a precaution. It’s nothing to worry about in the long run.
“Also, I know my brother-in-law, and I know he won’t just stay at home and rest like he needs to. Not when there’s a killer out there that has made a hit on both of your heads. Keeping him for a bit longer will do him, and you, some good,” she finished.
That I could understand. Somewhat. It didn’t mean that I didn’t have to like it. I hated the idea of having to sleep somewhere other than where he was at. The doctors wouldn’t allow me to stay the night, since I was not officially his wife yet. Stupid procedures.
Zachariah would not have rested for anything, even now as he was being released. I was sure his mind was going a hundred miles an hour with lists of things he thought he had to do. Even after every male that I had met so far told him to not worry about anything until he was fit to do so.
“He’ll have headaches more often than normal,” the doctor had explained the day before. “It’s normal, and the pain reliever I have prescribed should take the edge off, as long as he doesn’t push himself. If a headache is accompanied by fever or double vision, he needs to be brought in right away.”
“I’ll keep a close eye on him,” Violet stated, keeping her head held high. It was clear as day that she didn’t much like this doctor, and I couldn’t blame her. I was sure he didn’t care about his patients, but more about the money he earned. His bright, but yet dull eyes hardly looked at anyone.
“We’ve been through this before,” Zachariah stated tiredly as he limped his way to us in the doorway. He refused the aid of a walking stick, claiming it was a tool for the old to use.
Thankfully, he was no longer bed bound, nor in the ICU. He had his own room, and Julia had been staying with him almost every night. His eyes were sunken from lack of sleep, and worrying about things he didn’t have control over. The same look of tiredness I wore, no doubt.
I certainly wasn’t the only one that was ready for him to come home. It was only a matter of hours now, and I was bouncing with nervous energy. I could have stayed at the hospital and come home with him, but after my last therapy session, I was in desperate need of a shower and a change of clothes.
The physical therapy sessions had become a welcome distraction and helped me get some of the pent up stress out, even if the therapist pushed my buttons on purpose.
Julia and Carlos had it handled. They’d be able to get Zachariah home without any issues while I waited at home, impatiently. They would make sure he had enough security to make it home in one piece.
I certainly didn’t put it past the man that wanted us dead to try to do the same thing, again and do it successfully.
In the meantime, since discharging from any hospital took hours, or at least felt like it, I curled up in the chair in front of the front window with a fleece blanket over my lap in a sleep-filled daze.
The past month had been more tiring than I could ever imagine it to be.
What else would life bring me? Did I even want to find out?