Prologue:
Sslipping….
The night is cold but the emotions are hot. I feel, I feel…. Nothing… but my life sslipping from my body and the ever present voice telling me to do what I do not know if I can do anymore…live …. But I must live for my family, for myself, for….for her…
Don't go…don't leave me in the dark …. I have been left there so many times before…the little boy I see off into the recesses of my subconscious yells to me. I feel for him I do and as I can tell that boy must be me. I want to save him but I must get back to my family too. Why? Who did this to me? I should be getting ready to be with the love of my life….we fought, but we always come back to one another. I yelled and she screamed and in that moment I had enough of it. I could not live my life with a woman who I loved more than anything, while her family constantly tug at her to part from me. I made light of something I should not have and it lead to the fight. I know not what my fate will be now lying here, my life force pouring out of me by the second. I pray my children will remember me as I was with them and not as I was with others. I can only guess what the holy Brady clan will say once they learn of my death? Hell they can say anything they like… as long as they stay away from my children while spewing their hatred, I could care less. My duty was to come here and do the bidding of my father, and then I met her….
Samantha…
The moment I saw her I was caught, and she didn't even notice it happening. Before I met her I never thought I could want and yearn for someone as much as I have for her these past four years. Why does it have to end this way? I have wanted a family my whole life, ever since I was parted from my mother when I was a boy and made to go live with Stefano. He gave me everything I wanted, but even as a child I knew it came with a price.
I can never forget the summer of the year I turned 10 years old. We had just moved back to England form living primarily in Italy. The summer started off pleasant enough and then I was introduced to my father's creation… Andre. I never could stand the way he looked at me, as if he was filing away ways to make me miserable. He would never confront me, but his presence was enough to make me feel in fear.
A dog.
Dogs.
Running after me.
Running me down.
The fear of believing that these rabid animals would kill me and then…the man came and I knew I had been saved until I looked up to see it was they very man I feared. He asked if I was alright. I told him about the dogs and he looked at me as if I had made it all up. I turn to point them out to him and they are no longer there as if they had disappeared. As I turned to ask where they went I never got the chance. I awoke to my father by my side. I asked where I was and he told me my room and that I had been asleep for a week, from me hitting my head while I was running on the grounds of the house we lived in. I asked him about the dogs and about Andre, but he convinced me that there were no dogs and that Andre had gone off to parts unknown to him and that I shouldn't worry about him anymore. I wanted to believe him, so as a child I did.
The days and weeks that past after awaking were fine and I had no residual effects from my bump on the head so life carried on and like most children I bounced back to the person I had been before.
Until one day I found myself deep in the woods behind our estate not knowing how I got there. I was cold and scared and almost afraid to cry. I was then found wondering back to the main house by one of my father's men and was brought to him. When asked why I had been out there I so wanted to give him an answer, but there was none, at least none I knew of.
These occurrences happened often after that until my 13th birthday and then suddenly they stopped all at once. After a while I became more and more focused on anything my father or any authority told me was important. I thought it was just my maturity forming and wanting to please my father. But with this loyalty and while I no longer had the blackouts anytime I was told of duty I felt a tug at the front and back of my head and then soon the disobedient thought flew away, never to be felt again.
Until…
Trouble walked into my life in the form of a 5'4" petite blonde with eyes the color of the Caribbean. He may have been calm and charming when they met the first time but inside he was awash with feelings he had never experienced. We fell and we fell hard. Not knowing who either was and what the complications that would ensue due to are familial obligations, we planned a life together. We loved another and went down the path that would seal our fates forever.
Then…
We were told of the hate on both sides. She asked me to leave my father but I could not. The tug would not let me. So I lost the woman I loved…
If only for a short time, but I lost her in that moment and it was agonizing while it lasted. She came back to me to the horror if her family. We lived in sin as my father would call it, but we lived nonetheless. She has given me 3 children in the span of our life together.
And right when we were finally getting it right and becoming as one…
Her family gave her all the doubt she needed to lead us down the path to separate once again. Because of the last tiff we had it will be the last time I ever see my loves face in this world.
I can hear him.
I can feel the tug.
He is commanding me to live. To stay alive.
No.
I will not let the tug win, again. Finally right now if I choose to fade away it will be of my own will and not the "tug" but ME.
I feel loose…
I feel adrift…
I say goodbye to…
My babies…
My Samantha….
My Trouble