Given to the Groom

by Annabelle Winters

“I wasn’t a gift for Brakos,” I whisper as I look at the last page of Grandma’s notes, where she puts it all together based on some old police reports she finally managed to get from some tiny office in Greece.

  Reports that name her family’s killers.

  Killers who themselves were killed in an encounter with the Greek Police back in the 1940s.

  Killers who left behind a daughter.

  A daughter who lived a quiet life, married a quiet man, but remained childless until she herself was reasonably old, in fact past her child-bearing years.

  She herself died in childbirth, but the child lived.

  A miracle child.

  A gift from the gods themselves.

  A son.

  Brakos.

  My husband.

  “Ohmygod,” I mutter, glancing at my ring as that final piece of the puzzle fits together like a shard of glass that stabs me right through the heart. “I wasn’t a gift for Brakos at all! I was . . . I was bait!”

  I was bait.

  The wedding was a setup. But not a setup for a marriage.

  It was a setup for a hit.

  I cover my mouth and start to laugh and sob at the same time, shaking my head as I roll around in Grandma’s attic like a freak. I don’t know what the hell Grandma expected to do to Brakos once she got him to come to our town, but there’s no way she could have pulled off a freakin’ assassination no matter how badly she wanted to do it!

  “Seriously, Grandma,” I say through my hysterics. “I get the anger. I get the need for closure. Maybe I even get that twisted, old-world sense of justice where the son pays for the sins of the father. But really, Grandma. What could you have done against Brakos and an army of bodyguards?!”

  “She could have done nothing,” comes his voice, deep like the ocean, resonant like thunder. “But perhaps it was never her plan to do anything herself. Not when she had you to do it for her.”

  I sit up so fast I almost throw my back out. “Brakos?!” I yelp, pulling my knees up against my chest as he lumbers up the attic stairs, his body blocking out so much of the light it seems like the sun just set and night has fallen. “How long have you been here?!”

  “Long enough to hear you talk to yourself,” he says with a grunt, crouching so he doesn’t bang his head on the low ceiling. He goes down on his knees and frowns as he flips through some of the Greek-language clippings and reports. Then his eyes go wide and his face almost drains of color. “Apó ton Día,” he whispers. “She was right. According to this old report, it appears that the Belitrios Family was not in fact wiped out by the Sicilians. Even I did not manage to get this report when I looked into your family's history. Your grandmother knew how to squeeze things out of the past, did she not?”

  I swallow hard as I see the grave expression on his face. I try to interpret the expression, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. “Brakos, listen,” I say, blinking and forcing a smile. “Let’s take some time and sort through all this stuff, OK? Some handwritten report from ninety years ago isn’t proof of anything. I mean, you would know if your grandparents murdered my great-grandparents, right? You’d never have fallen for Grandma’s trickery, never have walked into a trap that would have been obvious. Or kinda obvious, at least. I think. I mean, I don’t know what I think, but you know what I mean. OK, I’m babbling. I seriously shoulda eaten something. You didn’t bring any food with you, did ya? Brakos? Why aren’t you saying anything? Why are you looking at me like that? Brakos? Can you please say something? Can we talk? Brakos? Brakos? Brakos!”

  9

  BRAKOS

  Brakos. Brakos. Brakos!

  I hear her voice but I cannot respond. All I can do is look into her eyes as a feeling I cannot interpret invades me like a serpent slithering beneath my skin, coiling itself around my heart, my lungs, my throat from the inside until I feel like I’m choking.

  “Blood is destiny, Bellanca,” I mutter as pieces fit together so fast it makes me dizzy but also makes me smile. I shake my head as I gain control of myself, and now I feel a surge of power that reminds me that I am a god, that blood is in fact destiny! How else can this be explained!

  “What the hell does that mean?” she says.

  I take a breath and sit cross-legged in front of my wife, the woman I claimed as mine and will keep as mine, no matter what obstacles those mischief-makers on the mountain throw in our path. “Bellanca, listen. Listen carefully. No, I would not have known if my grandparents murdered your great-grandparents decades ago. I did not know who my grandparents were. Bellanca, I did not even know who my own parents were!”

  She frowns and blinks. “I don’t believe that. Weren’t you going off about how you were descended from some old Greek mafia bloodline?”

  I raise an eyebrow and grunt. “I said no such thing. Perhaps you are confusing me with your other mafia lovers.”

  She can’t help but laugh. Then she sighs and takes a breath, raising an eyebrow and waiting for me to continue.

  But I stay silent as I go through Bernice's notes. Notes from old Greek documents that must have taken years of painstaking effort to track down from paper records in government offices all over the old country. Then I exhale and speak. “Bellanca, I was raised in an orphanage in the Greek countryside. The orphanage had no clear records of my ancestry. Best I could tell my father had dropped me off and just walked away.” I glance at the papers in Bernice Belitrios’s box and then back into Bellanca’s brown eyes. “And now I understand why. My mother died giving birth to me. My father either wanted nothing to do with raising me or perhaps even thought I was a curse, given I’d been born when my mother was past her child-bearing years. Greeks were a superstitious bunch back then. Who knows what went through his mind. I certainly didn’t. Once I heard I was abandoned by my father, I made no further effort to understand my lineage. To hell with my parents, I'd promised myself as an angry young boy. I decided that Zeus himself was my father, and that was that. I was a god, and I was destined for greatness.”

  Bellanca moves closer to me as we sit huddled on the floor like schoolchildren, even though I’m about nine times her size—or so it seems in this cramped attic.

  “So you . . . you worked your way up to the top of the Greek Mafia from nothing?” she says, and I swear I see a hint of admiration in her eyes before she quickly blinks it away.

  I shake my head. “That’s what I thought. But now I know I did not come from nothing. That is what I meant when I said blood is destiny, Bellanca. Do you see? It did not matter whether I knew the facts about my ancestry or who my grandparents were. My blood knew who I was, what I was born to be! My fate was determined by the blood that flowed through my veins. It was inevitable that I became who I am. My blood was my destiny.” I pause and take a breath, shuddering as that dark feeling floods me again, that sickening but also exhilarating feeling I got when I understood what Bernice Belitrios was planning. “Just like your blood is your destiny, Bellanca. Your blood knows who you are even if your brain does not. And I think your grandmother understood this. She understood who you were, understood what she could awaken in you when the time was right, understood that you might be able to do what she obviously would never manage to pull off.”

  “Are you saying . . . you can’t really believe that Grandma . . . that she . . . that I . . .” Bellanca stammers as the recognition dawns on her.

  The recognition that perhaps her grandma was not just planning to use her as bait . . .

  “I’m saying that not only were you to be bait for the trap that Bernice had set for me, but you were also the trap,” I say softly, studying her face as I see the fire in her blood slowly rising along with the darkly invigorating self-awareness that I discovered in myself decades ago, when I first understood the kind of man I was.

  And the kind of woman I’d need by my side.

  “Not just the bait,” she whispers through
trembling lips. “I wasn’t just the bait. I was also . . . also the weapon?”

  I nod as I slowly back away from her, smiling as I see her come into her own like a goddess awakening. “Precisely. You were also the weapon, Bellanca. That was the final piece in Bernice’s plan. She just happened to die before she put that piece in place. Maybe she wasn’t sure how exactly to do it. Or maybe . . .”

  “Maybe what?” Bellanca says, and I see her eyes narrow as she looks at me with a strength that gets my own blood hot, gets my muscles to coil, gets my fucking cock to stiffen.

  “Maybe she believed that she wouldn’t need to even do anything,” I whisper. “Maybe she believed so deeply that blood is destiny, she simply trusted that she could just put you in a room with me and destiny would run its course.”

  “Destiny? What destiny? For me to . . . to murder you? To avenge something that happened generations ago, before either of us was even born? That’s what you expect me to believe?! That’s what you believe?!” She shakes her head and closes her eyes, swallowing hard like she’s trying to fight herself, fight what’s inside, fight what has to come out if she is to stand by my side, rule our empire with me, be the goddess to the god that I am. “Hell, you must be even dumber than I—”

  I move so fast even I am surprised, and before I know it I have her by the hair, my face close to hers. My own blood is boiling, but I am in control. I will not hurt her. This is about Bellanca, not Brakos.

  “Brakos knows who he is,” I growl against her cheek. “Brakos accepts who he is. Now Bellanca must do the same. Accept yourself, Bellanca. Accept that your destiny runs through your veins, is written in your blood. You cannot escape it, so you must embrace it.” I kiss her cheek gently, my cock straining in a way that makes me want to take her brutally hard, fuck her to that place where she understands who she is. But I stay in control. I remind myself that this is about Bellanca and not Brakos. It is about her.

  And it is about us.

  “Blood is destiny,” I whisper against her face. “You want proof? Then answer this question: Why did you get into that car, Bellanca? Why did you walk down that aisle, Bellanca? Why did you drink from that glass when I offered it? Why did you give yourself to me on our wedding bed? Why is my seed taking hold deep in your womb?” I pause as I feel her start to breathe hard. “And why do you feel what you are feeling right now? Why do you understand the legacy of violence that is in our blood, will be in our children’s blood, will be passed on to their children . . . even if our own names are lost and forgotten with the passage of time.”

  She moans as I massage her neck, rub her breasts, pinch her nipples so hard it makes my own fingers hurt. “What are you doing, Brakos? What am I doing? What am I thinking?!”

  I kiss her hard on the lips, lifting her dress up over her arms and groaning when I realize she left our wedding suite without bothering to take her underwear. “You called me stupid twice today. But I am not stupid enough to fall for some fake documents describing some nonexistent criminal enterprise run by a ninety-seven year-old grandmother from her attic.”

  She pulls back for a moment. “Wait, you knew the documents were fake? Then why did you come? Why did you go through with the wedding?”

  “I came for the one thing that was real, Bellanca,” I whisper as I reach between her legs and slide my fingers into her wet cunt. “Almost every document Bernice sent me was a fake. But I did not care, because the one thing real was the proof of her bloodline, the proof of the blood that ran through her veins, runs through your veins.”

  “Um, that still doesn’t explain a thing, Brakos. I still don’t understand why you—”

  “For the same reason you got into that car, walked down the aisle, took my seed into you, merged our bloodlines,” I mutter. “We were drawn to each other by destiny: Our destiny, not that of our ancestors. There is a blood debt, yes. And your grandmother wanted it paid with blood, with death, yes. But the gods disagreed, and when Greek gods disagree, they intervene. Bellanca! The gods of old chose to give our destiny a chance to play out! We were put together by the gods to test each other, to complement each other, to love each other! Love each other forever, Bellanca. This is how the blood debt gets paid, Bellanca. Do you see? My ancestors took the lives of your ancestors. And now we will cancel the debt by creating new life.”

  “You realize that’s circular logic, don’t you?” she mutters as I push her down onto her back and start to rub her mound until she’s dripping all over the floorboards. “You just said you had no idea who your grandparents were, so why did it matter if I was part of the Belitrios bloodline? Especially since you already knew there was no sprawling Greek-American mafia-network that you’d gain control of by marrying me.”

  “I did not know the facts of my ancestry or the blood-history that ties our families together, but I always understood that blood is destiny, Bellanca.” I slide two more fingers into her slit as I raise my chin and look into her eyes. “And I knew that if Belitrios blood ran in your veins, it meant you were destined for something special, destined to be special. I was drawn to you, and it did not matter what else I got in the marriage arrangement. I did not want anything else, Bellanca. Just you. Only you.”

  “So you wanted my blood?” she mutters as she spreads her thick thighs and I lick her with long vertical strokes, swallowing her tangy sweetness as my heat keeps rising. “Well, that’s romantic. So you’re a Greek vampire now? What happened to being a god? Vampire seems like a step down.”

  “You are talking too much, Bellanca,” I growl against her pussy as I lap her wetness and then rise up and desperately get out of my clothes. “There is nothing more to be said. Nothing more to explain. Nothing more to understand.” I toss away the last shred of clothing and then quickly flip her over, smacking her hard on the ass as she shrieks in shock. “But there is one thing to be done. It is a Greek wedding-night tradition. The claiming process is not complete until this is done.”

  I raise her ass and spank her good and tight. Then I spread her asscheeks and slowly lick her dark rear rim until she hunches over and gasps.

  “You cannot be serious,” she mutters. “A Greek wedding-night tradition? Brakos, there is no way you’re . . . Brakos? Brakos? Brakos!”

  10

  BELLANCA

  “Brakos? Brakos? Brakos!”

  I hear myself screaming, but it sounds like a whisper as all my senses disappear just as Brakos slides his thick finger into my wet asshole and opens me up in the most filthy way imaginable. I moan and come all over my Grandma’s attic floor as he slides his tongue deep into my rear canal, slicking me up all the way inside like the devil he is.

  “Oh, fuck, Brakos,” I groan as he pulls back and then firmly places his cock against my opening, sliding it slowly inside as I tighten, relax, and then submit with a shuddering sigh.

  Submit to everything.

  And then everything goes quiet as Brakos claims me from behind, and I close my eyes as I think back to that dark, twisted feeling that washed over me when Brakos went off about the whole blood-is-destiny stuff. I still don’t know if I believe it. Still don’t know if it’s true, if it’s real.

  And then it occurs to me that I’ll never know if it’s “real” or not. Not in the way my brain wants to know. There are no “facts” that can prove that blood is destiny, that the two of us were drawn together by fate, put together by the gods.

  I mean, there’s that weird coincidence of a totally random wedding happening on the exact same day that Grandma chose for my arranged wedding.

  Um, that is a weird coincidence, isn’t it?

  A coincidence that was just enough to have me downstairs waiting for a car to pick me up, just enough for me to let my guard down, just enough for me to . . . to . . .

  To believe that the gods really are intervening?

  That fate is real?

  That blood is destiny?


  Is that a fact or is it fantasy?

  And does it matter?

  No, it doesn’t, I think as my husband shouts in Greek and comes deep inside me, his heavy balls slapping up against me as he empties them again until I’m overflowing with his seed. The facts don’t matter anymore.

  Because who needs facts when it feels like this.

  Who needs facts when you know it’s forever.

  I close my eyes as Brakos collapses on me, squishing me onto the floor as Grandma’s old papers float around us like confetti. I sigh as I wonder if I’ll ever know what Grandma really expected would happen on our wedding day. Would she have pulled me aside and given me a vial of poison? Would she have slipped a gun into my panties? Or would she—like Brakos thinks—have simply trusted that I’d . . . what, just up and murder him because my “blood” would know there was a debt to be paid?

  Brakos and I lie together in silence, and then I feel that weird sense of movement and my eyes flick wide open.

  And immediately I turn bright red at the thought of what Grandma’s spirit might have just witnessed!

  But then I almost cry when I think that maybe she’d be just fine with it.

  Maybe she’d understand that although her notes make it clear she carried hate and vengeance in her blood for decades, that she most certainly wanted Brakos dead as payback for what his grandparents did to her family, that although I carried her blood in my veins, I also carry my own destiny in that blood.

  A destiny that might be different from the one she envisioned.

  “After all, Grandma,” I whisper out loud as I look into my Greek god’s green eyes. “This is America. We come here to escape the past, not to be bound by it, right? That’s what freedom means, right? That’s what America means. It’s over, Grandma. The debt is repaid. The unfinished business is finished. Now and forever.”

  I listen for some sign, but it’s quiet like a graveyard, and I decide that Grandma’s spirit has either moved on or has fled the scene after seeing what just went down on the floorboards of her attic.