The Mancini Saga (Book #1) I.O.U.

  The Mancini Saga:

  (IOU)

  A Novel by

  APRIL M. REIGN

  THE MANCINI SAGA: IOU

  Published by April M. Reign

  Copyright ©2010 by April M. Reign.

  www.aprilmreign.com

  Cover Design by: Liz Jones at www.ljartist.com

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the permission of the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is the work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of this author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Reviews

  "From the first page to the last, I was wrapped up in this tale of courage, risk, love, family, and passion. It's a page-turner from start to finish. April Reign does a terrific job delivering poignant truths in a riveting story. If you want to get wrapped up in a world of intrigue, secrets, and true love, this is the book!"

  -John Catlin

  “April Reign provides a unique vision in this spellbinding novel. Full of suspense, I.O.U will make you come back for more.”

  -William Neil Bryson Jr.

  “Explosive . . . Dangerous . . . Passionate and Romantic—a bona fide page turner that’s sure to take you on an adventure. April Reign’s novel, I.O.U, is a must read.”

  -Michelle Avalon

  April Reign's innovative talent envelops the reader into the lives of her compelling characters. A mix of suspense and romance keeps you turning the pages. I can’t wait to read the next story in the Mancini Saga.”

  -K. T. Warren

  OTHER BOOKS BY APRIL M. REIGN

  The Mancini Saga - Snap Shot

  Dividing Destiny

  Enticing the Moon

  The Turning – Bound to Darkness

  BOOKS COMING IN 2012

  The Turning – Unleashed

  Beyond Today

  Descent to Madness

  AMAZON

  BARNES AND NOBLE

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my two teenage sons. Thank you for being patient as I spent endless hours writing this novel.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to send a special thanks to Eve Paludan, Liz Jones, H.T. Night, John Catlin and all my readers.

  The Mancini Saga (IOU)

  Chapter One

  Connecticut

  1998

  Mia buried her head deep into her pillow, trying to muffle her sobs. When her parents told her to pack her bags because she would be getting married in the morning, her world came crashing down. Not only was her husband-to-be three times her age, James, the self-proclaimed prophet and leader of The Church of Biblical Truth, was a short, pudgy man with nine wives. Devastated by the sudden news at becoming his tenth wife, Mia felt her heart drop and the pit of her stomach churn. How could my parents let this happen? she wondered.

  Mia shuddered and her entire body clenched up, imagining the grotesque things that this disgusting old man would demand from a sixteen-year-old girl. She had seen his wives; none of them seemed particularly happy. That thought alone caused her to cry harder. Not only was she angry, she was terrified.

  “He’s a horrible old man,” she whispered into the fabric of her pillowcase, careful not to let anyone hear her speak such treachery against the cult leader.

  She reached over, grabbed a tissue from a box at the side of her bed, and blew her nose. Mia felt betrayed by her parents. She could feel her emotions shutting down, her heart stealing itself against the overwhelming conflict and confusion. The betrayal, the abandonment, the craziness of the situation was too much; without making a conscious decision to do so, she was hardening her heart to protect herself. With each tear she shed, her heart shut down even further. All she wanted was the freedom to choose with whom she fell in love and eventually married, of her own free will . . . a hopeless fantasy, she now realized, and one that would never come true. She did not want to think what the future might hold. Her mind was blasted by a hurricane of wild thoughts that mostly boiled down to three choices: fight, flight, or submit.

  She walked to the window and gently moved the orange curtain to one side. Leaning her forehead against the glass, she gazed longingly past the Compound and above the hundred-foot, cinder-brick wall. On the other side of the wall was freedom, but it was also the unknown. She did not know a soul outside of the Compound.

  The pale blue sky was an open highway to creatures with wings. “If I could fly, I would leave this wretched place and know what it’s like to be free,” she whispered, her warm breath fogging the dirty window that was inches from her face.

  A light tap on Mia’s bedroom door startled her. Quickly wiping tears from her swollen eyes, she walked over and reluctantly opened the door. Her seven-year-old brother, Kyle, stood in front of her with a bleak look on his boyish face. When he spoke, his voice quivered with concern. “I don’t want you to cry, Mia.”

  She picked him up and placed him on her lap, cuddling him close. His brown hair, still damp from his shower, smelled like fresh daisies on a warm summer day. She brushed his hair away from his face and kissed his button-like nose.

  “I’m exhausted, Kyle,” she whispered. “Tomorrow will be a new day.” Mia set him down on the bed and walked over to her dresser. She reached into her top drawer, and beneath neatly folded clothes, she pulled out a small, square book.

  “I want you to have this,” she handed him a black photo album. “But, you must promise me that you’ll keep this a secret. I’m giving it to you so you can use these pictures when you dream.”

  When Kyle took the photo album from her hands, Mia walked back over to the window and gazed out at the Compound. Her lips twitched when he opened the album; she recognized the crackling sound it made when he turned each page. There were many nights, over the years, when Mia would lie on her bed and create her own stories surrounding each photo.

  Kyle turned the pages slowly, anticipating the next picture. She watched him from the window where she stood. His wide-eyed expressions made her smile, giving her a few moments away from her own desperate situation. She loved him for that.

  “Mia, what’s this?”

  “The Brooklyn Bridge, I believe.”

  “I wanna see the Brooklyn Bridge. Can we go?” His eyes lit up.

  “Maybe we will go there someday,” she lied. Mia knew they would never see the Brooklyn Bridge, at least not while they remained behind the compound walls. The world outside the Compound was a forbidden place that James, in his wisdom, deemed pure evil. She snickered at the thought.

  “Do people like us live there?” he inquisitively asked.

  “I don’t know.” She walked over to him and ran her fingers through his hair.

  Kyle’s questions sounded like hers the first time that she saw the photos. A friend at school found the photo album in his parents’ drawer and, in confidence, showed it to her. Mesmerized, Mia asked if she could have the photos, even though she knew James would never approve of such worldly possessions.

  But today, Mia shared with her brother what she knew about the outside world. She told Kyle of the stories she collected from her classmates when they would secretly talk about a world of freedom and choices. She shared with him her dreams and desires of leaving the Compound in search of the life she wanted for herself. He listened closely as they talked for hours about each photo.

  When it was time for dinner, Kyle quickly hid the album in his bedroom. The fa
mily sat around the kitchen table, picking at their meals in silence; the air was thick with feelings of despair. Mia was desperate to understand her parents’ decision in regard to her marriage to James. She knew her parents were anxious to see her embrace this new life, but she could not help but feel that it was better for them than it was for her. They had each other and no one was forcing her mother to marry an old disgusting man.

  After dinner, Kyle cleared the dinner table while Mia started washing the dishes. She tried not to dwell on her marriage in the morning; she knew, for her sake and that of her family’s, that she would have to be strong. She wondered how she could find the strength to embrace a marriage to a man three times her age. Why did he need another wife if he already had nine? Her mind spun with questions that she needed answered.

  Mia’s mother, Angela, discreetly entered the kitchen with a glass of red wine in her hand. With a persistent ache in her chest, she watched as her daughter washed the dinner dishes.

  Tonight would be the last night that Mia would sleep under their roof. Angela shivered at that single thought. She loved her daughter and wanted, more than anything, for her to be happy. Even she questioned Mia’s marriage to James, but she would never let her daughter see her uncertainty—she had to remain steadfast. They did not have a choice. They were bound by their covenant to the tenets that their leader defined for them.

  Angela could see her daughter’s defeated mannerisms while she washed the dinner dishes. Her pixie-short, brown hair was a mess from hours of crying, and her slumped shoulders were the result of the news she had received about her future. Angela hesitated before she interrupted her, wanting nothing more than to clear the air with her daughter.

  “Mia, darling, can we talk?”

  Mia tensed, but did not speak; she continued to rinse off the sudsy dishes, and put them on a towel to dry. When her almond-shaped, brown eyes began to water, she refused to cry—she had cried enough. She refused to allow her parents the luxury of witnessing one more tear slip from her eyes.

  Angela sighed. “I’m sure this will be a one-sided conversation. Just listen to what I have to say.” Angela ran her hand down her daughter’s arm.

  Mia pulled away.

  “I know this arranged marriage doesn’t feel right, but James will give you a good life.”

  Mia remained quiet, her eyes fixated on the bottom of the white porcelain sink.

  “We have raised you and your brother in a safe environment. We should be grateful to James for the protection he has given us from the outside world.”

  Mia had heard enough. She laid down the dish in her hand, and looked directly at her mother. “Was the outside world really that bad?”

  “I can tell you there are things outside the walls which make no sense: random killings, car accidents, drugs, peer pressure, and children having babies.”

  “And freedom of choice, right?”

  “It’s that freedom of choice that the devil navigates, darling.”

  Mia cringed. Her mother sounded exactly like James. He preached to children, from infancy, about the evil that lurked outside the walls, putting fear in their hearts and stifling their natural curiosity. Mia lived with that fear until she touched her teenage years. When she was old enough to question his logic and connect the stories she heard, only then did her curiosity flourish.

  “Yes, but Mom, for seventeen years, you had freedom of choice. You fell in love and chose your husband. Why can’t I have the same choices?” Mia asked, wholeheartedly.

  Angela studied her daughter’s distraught face. Mia’s eyebrows were drawn together, her lips in a straight line and finally, she crossed her arms over her chest waiting for her mother to answer her question.

  Mia was right, in her youth, Angela did have freedoms that people behind the walls did not have. Differences were an act of individualism—and James did not want people to start thinking as individuals. He said it was for their own good, for their salvation. Members like Angela sometimes longed for their individuality, but would immediately put the thought out of their minds, lest the Devil take them over. James refused to allow girls to wear makeup or even grow their hair long. He even monitored everyone’s reading material and entertainment choices.

  Angela realized that some of her fondest memories were those outside the Compound. Whether pleasant or unpleasant memories, she, and Daniel would lie in bed at night and talk about the things they did when they were teenagers.

  Angela finally found compassion and ran her hand down her daughter’s soft cheek. “We only want what is best for you, to protect you.”

  “Do you think you’re protecting me by keeping me locked up and taking away my choices? You are sending me to a fifty-year-old man to marry, Mother. How is that protecting me? It feels as if you’re feeding me to a wolf! You say that in the outside world that children are having babies and you are here to get away from that world, and yet, by handing me over to James, you doom me to the same fate.” Mia shook her head and looked away when she felt tears begin to well up in her eyes.

  Angela took a sip of her wine, trying to buy herself some time to find the words that would comfort her daughter. She had none. She did not know what to say to make Mia feel better. Speechless, she stared at the fine details of her lovely face, admiring her strength and independence to speak her mind.

  Mia realized she would never win this battle. “Mom, I don’t want to share a man with other women. I want a man who is my peer, one that I have fallen in love with, like you and dad,” she pleaded.

  “I’m sorry, Mia. Please, lighten your heart and let go of your resentment. Your marriage will put us in good graces with the Lord.”

  Mia’s bottom lip began to quiver. She leaned in and hugged her mother. Without another word, she turned and left the kitchen, leaving the unfinished dishes in the sink.

  She would not stand there and beg for her life, only to know that her mother was abandoning her. She had no choice; she would be the loving, subordinate wife that James demanded—and then, she would wither and die.

  When Mia walked into her room, she threw her body on her bed, face down. She hopelessly cried, wishing there were a way out—out of the marriage and away from the Compound. She was stuck in a nightmare of life-altering changes, alone and abandoned.

  She sat up, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. Slowly, Mia pulled out a green duffle bag, set it on her bed, and tried to focus on packing her life into the flimsy nylon carrier. She placed each article of clothing neatly in her bag, stacking one item on top of the other. With a saddened heart, she sobbed at the turn her life had taken, and the senseless way in which her parents were allowing a man to take her away. She wished she understood, but she didn’t.

  When she pulled a t-shirt from her drawer, it unfolded, and something hard fell to the ground at her bare toes. She stared at it a moment, finally realizing it was a miniature statue, she had found, and hid years earlier; she bent down and picked it up.

  Mia stared at the statue in her hand and without a second thought; she sat down on her bed. Her finger traced over the miniature Statue of Liberty—her fine details, the confidence in which she stood, holding a torch high above her head—Mia was spellbound. In the eyes of that statue, was the heart of freedom, the story of the Declaration of Independence—and although she had never learned about either in the Compound classrooms, she had friends who were not born in the Compound and had shared forbidden stories with her, a history of the world, in the small scraps that they knew and remembered.

  Mia decided, at that moment, holding the tiny Statue of Liberty, that she was not ready to give up her dreams and marry an old, crazy man who claimed to be a prophet from God. After all of their repetitive religious training, she believed in her heart that God spoke directly to her and not through James.

  In a quick second, Mia changed her plans. She was almost packed and suddenly, she seized enthusiasm for finishing the task. Her mind raced. She had to move quickly. She knew that she was taking a chance, with h
er idea of leaving The Church of Biblical Truth. It was a chance she was ready to take. She took a deep, cleansing breath before she started to make the changes that would alter her fate. She packed her school backpack with essentials, wrote her parents a goodbye letter, and mapped out her escape plan. Not sure if she would actually make it past the brick wall, she knew she had to try.

  After her bags were packed, she sat on her bed perfectly still and waited for the early morning hours when she could safely make it to the compound gates without the chance of someone seeing her. She thought about her family and friends, and leaving behind everything and everyone she knew. It did not matter, once she was married to James, her life, as she knew it, would be different anyway—or so she assumed.