The Roma's Promise

Table of Contents Disclaimer What If… Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Book Club Questions Shae Coon The Roma’s Promise Copyright © 2023 Shae Coon. All rights reserved. 4 Horsemen Publications, Inc. 1497 Main St. Suite 169 Dunedin, FL 34698 4horsemenpublications.com [email protected] Cover by Shae Coon Typesetting by S. Wilder Edited by Tilda M. Cooke All rights to the work within are reserved to the author and publisher. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 International Copyright Act, without prior written permission except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please contact either the Publisher or Author to gain permission. This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Library of Congress Control Number: 2022947619 Paperback ISBN-13: 979-8-8232-0109-4 Audiobook ISBN-13: 979-8-8232-0107-0 Ebook ISBN-13: 979-8-8232-0108-7 Disclaimer This book is for mature readers only, 18+. It includes rough sexual scenes, intense and humiliating punishments, violence, criminal elements, and mentions of trafficking. Reader discretion is advised. What If… You weren’t you And I wasn’t me Then maybe there’d Be a chance we Could be But I am I And you are you So what could be Will have To do. - R.S. Green Prologue A psychotic break is defined as someone losing touch with reality and experiencing delusions or hallucinations. I would argue that we all need a break from reality once in a while. Apparently, my doctors disagree. And so does my husband. Husband. The word sounds foreign to me. Especially when the title comes with a man I don’t remember. He tells me it was love at first sight and that we married soon after meeting because we couldn’t imagine life without each other. Then something happened, and I went missing for a couple of days. My husband searched for me high and low, eventually finding me asleep on the doorstep of Basilica Santa Maria and completely delusional. I was screaming about being taken by the mafia to repay an old family debt and that I had escaped. According to them, it was all a figment of my imagination. Emiliano Calvano was a real person, but one I must have seen on TV or read about in the papers and pulled into my delusions. My beloved pet, Rooster, died a few months ago back in America. And my sisters? Estranged for nearly a year, torn apart by our mother’s death. Everything I thought I knew to be real was a phantasm, illusions of a broken mind… At least, that’s what they tell me. 1 Greta “How are the daily exercises going? Are you feeling more focused?” Doctor Meyer, my psychiatrist, asks like she does every time I see her. She is a tall blonde German woman with blue eyes and slight wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. I’ve been at Saint Augustine’s Mental Health Hospital in Sardinia for barely a month, and if I wasn’t crazy before, I sure as shit am now. Every day is the same: sleep, eat, group activities designed for kindergartners, drugs, drugs, and more drugs. Drugs to help us sleep, to help us be calm, even drugs to enable us to take a crap. How does anyone get well in a place like this? “I told you: I was never unfocused,” I spit. “I see,” she says condescendingly and scribbles something into her tablet. “No, I don’t think you do, Doctor, or else you would tell them that I’m completely in my right mind and not a danger to myself or others and to let me the fuck go,” I argue. The look of murder I send her way doesn’t help my cause. Unfazed, she just sighs and lays down her tablet. “We’ve been over this, Mrs. Marius–” “Don’t call me that! That’s not my name.” “Fine. We’ve gone over this, Greta. I cannot in good conscience report that you’re stable enough to return to society when you still cannot see that what you think you went through was just a hallucination. Greta, you won’t even accept that you’re married.” “Because I’m not!” I shout and grip the edge of the suede sofa cushion to stop from launching myself at her. “I know what you tell me, but I’m telling you for the hundredth time, I do not know that man. You say I have hallucinations, but that doesn’t explain me not remembering a man I supposedly love so much that I married him within weeks of meeting him.” “Your mind is blocking out––” “Fuck you! You can stop with your psycho-babble bullshit. I know what’s real, and I’m done with this conversation.” “Very well. Your husband… Mr. Marius,” she corrects, “will be here shortly to visit you. We will try again another day.” Without another word, I stand and storm out of her office with a hard slam of the door. “Easy, Piccolo, you will shake the whole place down,” the male nurse, Diego, cautions, levity painting his tone. “Good. Then I could get the hell out of this damn place,” I murmur and start walking toward the main hall. “You wound me, little one. You wouldn’t miss me?” he asks in mock offense, and I can’t help but smile at the gentle giant. He is tall as a mountain, built like a lumberjack, with his broad chest, bushy beard, and deep brown eyes. The man is intimidating until you get to know him, and then he is just a giant teddy bear. “You would be the only one I missed. You could always go with me, be my bodyguard. Just get me out of here.” I smirk up at the man. “I’ll get right