Disclaimer: This story is fiction. All the characters are fictional with borrowed names to comply with the fan fiction genre. They should not be confused with any person living or dead. I am not now nor have I ever been affiliated with any professional wrestler or wrestling company. No disrespect intended.
New update. Sorry for the time in between. It's just not coming as easily as it did before. :)
Chapter 17
"I didn't want anyone to want me." Emmy spoke softly in one of those angelic soft voices. She wasn't grotesque but Roman could tell that she had stopped caring. She had wasted away to nearly nothing. Her bones visible through her thin skin. Her eyes gaunt and pale. "I loved my husband. I still love him. So much that I don't know what to do without him. I didn't care if they put me in jail, but your parents they said you were a good man. I just couldn't turn my back on them. Not when your mother came every day to care for mother when she was ill."
"I'm thankful to you." Roman gently touched her hand. He didn't expect anything from Emmy and had no plans to demand her to fulfill the role of his wife. "My heart belongs to another as well. But I'm afraid I did something she could never forgive me for."
"Oh?"
"Forgive me for not going into details, but if I spoke about our short time together it would only bring more pain."
Emmy nodded, seeming to understand. But she could never know that the silence he kept wasn't for his own protection but to protect the woman he loved.
"I decided to sell my land." Emmy sad with a hint of sadness in her hazel eyes as she stared out the window of the small shack Roman had built before his incarceration. "I just don't think I could live there with another. Everywhere I look there's a memory of Nicky."
"May I asked what happened to him?"
"The factory. They said it was an accident. He wanted to build that stupid gazebo I wanted to put in the back yard and he took a temporary job to get it done. I said, Nicky. We'll get to it when we get to it. But he was always so impatient. Every idea he had to get done right away. He fell into a machine. Cut him right in two." Her eyes turned dark. "I don't give a damn what anyone says. I think his brother pushed him. They never got along and Jake was always so jealous. So much he was always angry at Nicky."
"I don't think your husband would want you to give up Emmy." Roman laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. "He would want you to go on and find happiness. I know he knows how much you loved him. Hell anyone who sees you would know that."
"I have no life without Nicky." She growled, then walked away. She laid down on the worn out bed, covered herself to her shoulders and curled into a ball. Roman felt sorry for her. He really hoped she found something to live for, but he knew how she felt. It was hard for him as well and the only thing that kept him going was knowing that Mya was somewhere living. He guessed that was the difference between him and Emmy.
Bray looked like a scary man. She had not been ready when that bag was removed to lay eyes on a beast of a man with more hair on his face than she had ever seen on any man. But it wasn't all the wild hair that she had found disturbing, it was that smirk. That sinister grin that he bestowed upon her that gave her chills. He had been a wonderer. A man who had hidden himself in the deepest wood for three years before he was finally captured. He'd never wanted a wife. He didn't want to be tied down or answer to anyone and he had made it clear that she would not settle him. He would do as he pleased and she would just have to get used to it. That was fine with Mya. She didn't really care for the man and she didn't want her life to be upset by him either.
She went back to work, but she didn't go back to living at the hotel. Instead, she took the money she had saved and gave it to Bray so he could put it down on a piece of land that had already been settled. It had a nice home on it and she could tell that that pleased him because he wasn't the type who liked to work hard for anything. He preferred and instant life. Everything built for him, so it made sense that he would want to buy the property of a widow.
It was easy to go along with Bray's desire. The home was beautiful. Three bedrooms with a small second floor that was a cute alcove where she ended up spending most of her time reading. Bray enjoyed television or going off to drink with his friends and she had no problem with that because Bray was mean when he spoke. He constantly made remarks about her tiny stature. Always making sure she knew how ugly he found her. He called her a stick. Told her she was only useful as a door stopper. And a whole list of other degrading remarks. She ignored as much as she could.
Spring time brought a lot more work for her. She had to tend to the fields herself. Thankfully, the land was only a quarter of the size of the land she had worked with Roman. She would work the restaurant during the day and the land in the evening until very late at night. Sometimes she would be so tired that she would curl up inside a cave she had found on the edge of her property.
It was something she could live with until the day Bray showed just how much of a monster he was.
"A wife is supposed to cook for her husband." He screamed at her the moment she walked in from working all day. The house was trashed. Like he had gone on a rampage. "Your place is at home!"
"So you're going to work and pay the bills?" she said immediately as she hung up her purse.
"Ungrateful bitch." He seemed to cross the room in one step and delivered a hard slap to her cheek. She never expected to be treated like that. She didn't think that human men treated their own kind that way. She thought it was something they only did to the Ivex because they thought of them as animals.
"I said fix me something to eat."
"Fix it yourself!" she spat. She wasn't his property. She didn't have to put up with it now and she wasn't going to. Human women were supposed to be strong. They were supposed to speak their mind.
But this man was so much bigger than her, forcing her to run as he came at her again. She as fast as she could. She felt like the animal she had once been. It was a life she never wanted to return to and she never imagined she had to worry about enduring a life of abuse as a human woman. She was so confused. So angry and upset at the same time.
"Whoa." She screamed as she ran into a man. He put his hand on her shoulders to keep her from falling and she tried to wiggle from his grasp like a wild animal caught in a trap. "Mya! Mya!" She looked up into the familiar eyes of Roman. Then collapsed into his arms, letting the tears fall and welcoming the protection of a man she knew more than any other in the world. "Baby, what is it?"
He still called her his baby even though she knew he had gotten married to another woman. A woman who would probably snap her like a twig if she was the jealous type.
"What the hell are you doing with my wife?" Bray burst through the woods and entered the property that bordered theirs. "Are you messing around with my wife?"
"Your wife?" She thought she heard pain in his voice.
"Yeah, mine." Bray snapped. "Maybe this is why you wanted your wife to sell her property. So you could keep Mya close to you."
"What? You're insane." Roman said. Then he noticed the fresh red mark on Mya's cheek. There was nothing he could do but watch as he took her by the arm and led her back to their home. All that time and he had no idea that Mya was his neighbor. He had no idea that she was living in Emmy's old home. But it saddened him that Mya was being mistreated by the man she'd married. He wondered how they had gotten together. Had she accepted his proposal? If she had she'd only done it because she thought she wouldn't have any other offers. She couldn't imagine her being attracted to that man. He was a beast of man. He smelled like a drunk. But there was nothing he could do. It was against the law for him to interfere in another's marriage. No matter what was going on.
