Deacon's POV
All I could do is stare at her after what she had just said, for that short moment we were the only two people in the world. As she whispered into my ear.
Taking her hands into mine, I closed my eyes as the emotion and the tenderness of her words waved over me.
Remembering that night on the plane as we returned home, remembering the way that it felt to hold her there beside me again, knowing that she was really there. Being able to feel her tremble under my hands, the feeling of her thighs against mine as she took me into her in a way, she had never done before. Her skin against mine as we made love to each other with a plane full of people just outside and unlocked door, neither of us caring. Both lost in each other, as our love melted so much pain and sorrow away. I'll never be able to forget her face as she took the lead that night, feeling how I could only imagine that she felt every time before. The way her body reacted and the look in her eyes when she felt her thighs touch mine for the first time in so long. The need and yearning that poured from both of us, as though it would be the last time that we were ever able to touch and love each other again.
Her fingers wiped the warm tears from my eyes as the memory of her walking down the aisle with my father drifted into my thoughts, she looked like an angel, her smile, along with the sparkle on her eyes as she took in the entire room around her. Remembering the day that I asked her to marry me in the first place, the day that we ran to the courthouse and how absolutely perfect she looked on that day. That was the way that I wanted to remember Mia on our wedding day, even though the dress made her look beautiful, there was something about the way that we were that day that could never be duplicated. That day was truly who we were underneath all of this, just two simple young lovers eager to spend the rest of their lives together and not wanting another moment to pass without being intertwined for a lifetime. It was exactly how we saw each other and how we saw ourselves, jeans, t-shirts and sneakers, nothing fancy, nothing over the top, no show of money or status, just us being able to enjoy the happiest moment of our lives together.
Remembering the way, she held onto me after she read the adoption letter the judge had signed, the way she rushed into my father's arms in gratefulness and love. Never once had Mia ever seen my father as anything more than a loving man, she liked to call a gentle giant. She had never really known up until that night how little he had thought of her and it didn't change her feelings towards him a bit. Because in her mind it didn't matter what he had thought of her before, what he had said or the actions that he had taken. For her that was all the past and that was something that we couldn't change, all that mattered to her in those moments was knowing that he loved her then and there enough to give her a gift such as that. To give her something that no one else in her entire life had, a family. Even I had to admit that when our father brought the thought up to me that even I was stunned at it. By that time I knew that he loved her as his own, for fuck's sake he called her his daughter constantly with no shame, I had just never thought that he would take it to that point. Though I am glad that he did in the end if for no other reason than to see the joy that consumed her that night.
Her eyes when she read her name on the Omertá, when I knew that she wasn't expecting it, the shock of being told what she had just done. She had spent hours upon hours, days and days, making herself familiar with the terms, the rules, anything that into even the slightest mention of the Omerta. I remember her asking me one night why there had never been a daughter as an heir, I also remember the horror in her face when I told her that it was because many still felt as though their daughters played a more important role by being married to allies to make their bounds stronger. It horrified her to think that something like that actually still happened today. The way that she stared at the document seeing her name written directly next to mine, when she knew that it was something that shouldn't be that way. How she thought that by me giving her half of my power was somehow going to change how much we loved each other. Still, not understand that what had happened that night had changed everything that my father had been taught by his father going back generations. That night was not only the night that we all truly became one on paper and in the mind of anyone who dared stand against us but, that was also the night in which the entire hierarchy was turned upside down, paving the way for more and more strong female leaders to step forward all over and claim what would be and should be their birthright. She didn't know it yet, but she would be a legend for generations of daughters starting with our own.
Without thinking tightening my hands around hers, as the echoes of her voice crying out to me in pleasure filled my mind. How her body was pressed up against mine as she allowed me to ravage every inch of her body that night. Hearing her crying out for me to make her cum, the way she clung to me as she did. The way that her eyes could have lit the entire sky as she called to me in height of her pleasure.
Opening my eyes again I stared deeply into hers. All this time, after everything we'd been through together. She had never backed down from even the eldest member of this organization, proving each and every one of them wrong one day at a time, but her thought was that she wasn't good enough to stand beside me or that she wasn't all that I needed from the moment I laid eyes on her.
"All this time you left like weren't enough for me?" I cupped her cheek in one of my hands, as I saw the tears brimming in her eyes. I smiled at her as she nodded her head slowly.
"I know I'm not who everyone thought you should be with." Her head leaning a little to one side as she looked at me. "You were raised here, in this house, with every opportunity in the world laid out in front of you. Deacon, you were raised to be a warrior, who stands by his convictions, someone who does what's needed when it's needed.
I've never seen myself as anything more than the lucky waitress who you felt sorry for the night you followed me home. Every time you called when you said you would made me feel like roses were blooming around me, but I always thought that each time we hung up that would be last time I heard your voice, because I knew that you'd wake up one morning and realize that the orphan waitress wasn't what you wanted.
When they had me and you thought I had run, I had made my peace with dying. They told me what they planned to do to you, by using me to get you there. That was when I knew I loved you more than I ever cared about myself Deacon, that just the thought of you being in pain hurt me more than they ever could have. Knowing that even if it had been for a short time that I had gotten wear your name next to my own I would be able to leave this world happy knowing that you had at least loved me enough to share that with me.
Then after a few days of you not coming, even though my heart was breaking I knew it was for the best. You were safe. That's all I cared about." Mia closed her eyes briefly fighting back her tears. "I heard you coming that day, and I begged them to kill me before they knew you were there. I thought maybe if they would you would be safe. When you came through that door, the way you grabbed ahold of me and held me against you, like I was the most important person in the world to you, I was devastated Deacon. Because I knew, somehow, I just knew that if they were going to kill me then, they weren't going to just get rid of me like I had been praying they would. They wanted you broken down and in their minds, there was one way to do that. I was so mad at you for coming after me Deacon, because I knew what they wanted to do to you."
Mia looked at me her tears finally spilling over. "I knew that first night I told you I had never been with anyone before you believed me, and you didn't say anything.
Deacon, when they told us what they planned on doing to me, in front of you, the first thought that crossed my mind was to beg you to kill me. For me what they wanted to do was worse than death to me. I would have e rather died than that happen.
Then you just sat there with me, holding me. You told me that they would have to kill you first to get to me. That as long as you were breathing, they would never lay a hand on me. As much as I wanted that to be true, I believe we both saw through that and knew that they were going to get their way somehow or another.
Even though they couldn't see it themselves, I saw the pain and the fear in your eyes having to watch what they were doing. That's why I begged you to pull on those cuffs, because once my suffering was over, you could heal. To a lot of people what he did to me on the plane would have been the worst thing in the world to live with. It isn't mine though."
"Mia, what are you talking about baby?" I asked trying to keep myself composed.
Flashback
Deacon's POV
I had to watch in horror as they tortured Mia. Her screams were going to be haunt me for the rest of my life if she didn't make it through this. Knowing I had, had the ability to stop her pain, but refused to because I was selfish.
As her hands slid over mine, stopping on my wrists, all I was capable of doing was staring at her. "Mia, no, we're both going to make it through this. We're going to have the rest of our lives together, please don't do that."
"I can't take the pain, they're ripping me apart Deacon. If you don't want me to do it, then I'm begging you just pull the cuffs." She sobbed loudly, her eyes begging for mercy.
When I didn't react, I felt her hands tighten around mine as she looked at me one last time. Regret filled her eyes as she pulled my wrists apart abruptly. The last sound I heard was a rush of air escaping from her mouth as she collapsed instantly into my knees.
"MIA!!!"
"Seems as though the little bitch wasn't meant to go home with you was she?" A man laughed as he unlocked the cuffs from around my wrists. Moving swiftly away from me as Mia fell motionless to the ground at my feet.
In one motion I had my shirt off and on her body as I held her close to me. I looked at my brother, who knelt beside us quietly. "What am I supposed to do to help her?"
Alex brushed the hair from her face. "I don't know if there's anything that either of us can do to help her. She needs a doctor."
I held her tighter into me, her blood coating my clothes but I didn't care. She needed to know that I was there with her, even if these were the last moments we would have together I wanted her to know that she wasn't alone. "Mia, please if you can hear me, please fight. Stay with me. We haven't enough time together yet married or not for you to leave yet."
Hearing the bullets from the other side of the door was a mixed blessing. Knowing that our father was there gave me hope, though knowing how he was going to respond to us bolting off as we did halted that hope.
Holding her closer I heard the door open, as I stared at the door I met my father's angered gaze.
"You stupid, impatient chi..." He was cut short as he looked at Mia.
"Please help her." I begged. "Please."
Alex looked to him. "She took this for us, you at least owe her that."
I clung to Mia as my father approached, his gun still in his hand. "NO!" I shouted as he leaned towards her. "You're not going to hurt more."
"Son, if this is what she took for my sons I would not cause her more harm." He said solemnly removing his suit jacket and wrapping it around Mia's body. "Let me carry her."
I watched as my father tenderly picked her up. "We'll do what we can for her son, but I don't hold much hope for her."
"I'll be there when she wakes up. I want to be the first person she sees when she opens her eyes. I married her and this is what she gets for loving me."
End flashback
"The one thing I still have a hard time living with. When I grabbed the cuffs, you begged me over and over again not to. You promised me that we'd both make it through and we'd have our whole lives to spend together, telling me again how much you loved me.
Right before I pulled the cuffs, when I looked into your eyes, thinking it was going to be the last time I ever got to, I didn't tell you that I loved you. If I wouldn't have made it, the last words I would have said would have been me begging you to do it yourself."
Without a second thought I wrapped her tightly in my arms as I sat back on the bed, and pulled her I'll into my lap. "Mia, baby, I knew. Please of all the things you don't need to regret that's the biggest one, okay?"
"What?"
All I could do was hold her, I placed a gentle kiss on her cheek and looked I to her eyes, smiling at her. "Baby, I knew because you did tell me, you apparently didn't realize you did."
She looked at me in complete confusion at my statement. I leaned in close to her ear, as I allowed my smirk to graze against her ear. "You told me by the way that you held me, the way that you looked at me, the way that you fought so long before giving into the pain. Mia, my god you married me on a whim. If that doesn't tell someone that you love them I don't know what does."