Roman sat in the bed he shared with his wife as he ran his fingers through her thick hair as her head rested on his lap.

He was anxious to hear what had been haunting her nightmares, anxious to tell her what haunted his.

Would she think differently of him, would she be scared of the man he had become because of his past, would what she told him make him think differently of her, would it scare him away?

There was no answer to the question until they opened up to each other.

"Do you want to go first?" he asked softly making her smile as his skilled fingers massaged her throbbing scalp.

"Or do you want me to go first?"

"You can go first," she said softly as her hand squeezed his thigh.

"All right, Love," he said,

"I have never spoken a word of this to anyone. My past isn't one that I'm proud of. When I was a little boy I told you that my father threw my mother from his ship. She was a prisoner to him, a slave if you want to put it that way. He never once loved her. He treated her as a mistress as that was what she was. He used her for sex, to do his cleaning. She was nothing more to him than a whore. He called her whore many times when I was a little boy. She wasn't supposed to get pregnant with me but she ended up pregnant. I imagine he was angry, he never wanted me. He resented me. I was a nuisance. He allowed my mama board on his ship till I was born but as soon as I was born he threw her off the ship and took me away from her." He said and continued

"I never understood that if he resented my presence so much why he would take me from my mother. I took her place on the ship when I turned 5. I was doing the dirty work. I was cleaning up the ship. My father barely acknowledged my existence except when it came time to punish me. My brother Seth was always the favorite in his eyes. He loved Seth's mother but he lost her to childbirth. Seth was his favorite from birth. Seth resented me as much as our father did. He was always finding new ways to get me into trouble with our father. He set me up for many punishments. He hated me."

"Is that why you two hate each other so much now?" Melissa asked.

"I never hated Seth as much as I do now. Seth brought my hatred for him on by himself. He treated me like a slave much like our father. I was fed scraps on the ship. Whatever the other men didn't eat, the scraps that were left over were given to me. There were days I went hungry because I had no food. My father's way to punish me was to take my food away, what little food I was given. Most of the time I would have to sneak food from the kitchen on the ship, if I hadn't I would have died of starvation. I caught illnesses that I often wished I would die from but I always survived the worst. My father would beat me around when I was a little boy, lock me in rooms with the rats of the ship. He treated me like I was garbage. I was the child he never wished to have. While he locked me in room, allowed me to live in my own filth and beat me around he awarded Seth with large feasts, gave him the best living quarters and was teaching him the family trade. He wished I would die. When I was on the bed of death from being terribly sick he was wishing for my death. He punished me however he could, wherever he could. It hurt so bad." He explained with tears forming in his eyes as he thought about the abuse of his father.

"He took a whip to my back until I would bleed, trying to break me down. At first I cried which made him whip me more, torture me more," he said as he felt a shiver from Melissa's body.

"Are you cold?" he asked.

"A little," she responded.

He pulled the cover over her body to keep her warm.

"Is that where the scars came from?" she asked.

"The horrible reminders of my past," he answers.

"I grew up to resent my father. I still dream of his abuse. I wanted to kill my father. I grew up in the worst conditions made possible by my father, my only friends were the rats of the ship. Every day he whipped me, every time I bled and I held back my tears my rage toward my father grew and it grew. It kept growing until one day he thought he could still push me around, still whip me around but I was too tall, too big. I outweighed him by 100 pounds easily," he said.

Melissa knew that her husband wasn't a small man.

In fact he was the largest built man she had ever seen in her life. He kept in shape, his arms much larger than her small frame.

He was built like a Greek God, she knew that trying to overpower a man of his size was no easy task.

She couldn't imagine his father trying to push him around when he reached that size. She already knew his father's fate before Roman told her.

"Years of rage built up inside of me, I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't control myself, I turned it around on him. I beat him till he was lifeless. His men and his crew tried to stop me but they couldn't stop me. I was too powerful, too strong. I was in such a rage," he sobbed.

"I couldn't stop myself and I beat him to death. I had to get rid of the body as we sailed to Spain. I tossed him overboard, fed him to the sharks and I never looked back. I want to say that I regret what I did but I don't. He caused me years of torture, pain. He called me a bastard, never called me Roman. He called my mom a whore, told me I destroyed his life. He told me I was not meant to be his son, he told me he hated me. I couldn't regret what I did. I feel so heartless because I don't care that I killed my own father. Does that make me a bad man?" He asked in a broken tone.

"No," answered Melissa as she sat up wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his firm chest.

"It doesn't make you a bad man and you're not heartless. I believe you have a heart, Roman. You did what you needed to do. Your father put you through hell. I can't imagine the life that you lived with him. I'm sure it was horrible. You gave him everything he deserved," she said shocking him.

"You're not upset?"

"Why would I be upset? He abused a defenseless child on a daily basis. He put you through hell, I understand why you did what you did and how you feel no remorse. He could have killed you when you were a little boy and I am sure he would have felt no remorse. If he had killed you when you were young or you would have died from all the diseases you suffered you wouldn't be here today with me. I think you're an amazing man despite everything you went through as a child and everything you have done in the past. Is it true you have killed many others?"

"Only men that deserved it," he said honestly.

"I know I have a reputation for being a murderer but I only murdered those that deserved it. I don't kill for the thrill. Now stealing is another story. I have to make a living somehow. I have never taken prisoners but I have raided other ships to steal their goods. I have only ever killed in self-defense but people are going to believe what they want. I'm a feared man, how can you love me?" he asked with a shiver at the thought of her soft words.

"Because you're not as terrible as you believe, I can see the softness inside of you. I have seen a side of you no one else has. I think you have a heart, a beautiful heart," she said sending chills through his body.

He had never felt love until he met Melissa. He never knew he could feel so happy about something that he feared so much.

He smiled at her words.

"I love you." She reached up and kissed his cheek softly.

He never knew that three little words could make him feel so warm yet so scared.

"And I assume that your way to get back at your brother for his torture toward you was to sleep with his wife?"

"I wanted to hurt him the way he hurt me. I didn't mean for his wife to die. She was an innocent bystander. I'm responsible for her death. She fell in love with me and when I turned her away she killed herself. I feel awful because she was a nice girl, a lot better than Seth ever deserved. She was beautiful, a beauty I had rarely ever seen until I met you. You two look similar but you are far more beautiful but because of me her life was cut short and an innocent child never got to see the earth. Seth has hated me more ever since his wife took her life. I wanted him to suffer but not like that. We have taken sibling rivalry to a new level. He will not stop until I am dead or someone close to me is dead. He is going to stop at nothing to make sure I am suffering like he is. I'm sorry that I used his wife to get back at him and in turn made his wife take her life," he said with tears in his eyes.

"I'll never forgive myself for that. She was innocent in our rivalry until I destroyed her, until I was reckless and careless with revenge."

"You are not responsible for her death, Roman. She chose to kill herself, she made that decision. You didn't kill her. You can't blame yourself forever. You need to let it go. You can't keep holding onto something that's not your fault. If you keep holding onto it and holding onto the pain you'll never be able to be happy. You need to let it go and realize that it was her choice to end her life. You didn't know she was going to go insane and commit suicide. You had no control over that. You can't blame yourself, Roman. Stop blaming yourself."

"It's hard to not blame myself. If I hadn't interfered in their marriage with my recklessness and my carelessness blinded with revenge to destroy my brother I wouldn't have destroyed her," he said as tears slid down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Melissa."

"You have nothing to be sorry about," she said wiping his tears away.

"You're a good man, Roman despite what you think or feel, no matter what you have done you're a good man. You're my man and I see the good in you. Stop blaming yourself, Roman, please for me and for our possible unborn child," she begged.

"Our unborn child?" he asked.

"Do you truly believe you're with child?"

"Truly," she said with a smile,

"You could be a father, you can't keep blaming yourself for things you have no control over. I know you can't help the nightmares, they're going to come because I have nightmares of my own."

"I know, Love," he said holding her tighter.

"What haunts you in your sleep, it breaks my heart to see you cry in your sleep, to see you fighting your demons, what haunts your beautiful mind?"

"Much like you I didn't have the best childhood. It was full of pain and sorrow. My mama died when my sister and I were younger. My father moved us to Spain shortly after her death. My sister Michelle became a mother firgure at a young age of 10. She took on all the responsibilities that my mother had done, the cleaning, the cooking and," she stumbled to say the next words,

"and having relations with my father," she said.

"When she was 14 I often heard her crying at night. I never understood why she would be crying but it was always after my father visited her at night. I never understood her tears until the night it happened to me. When I was 8 years old my father started to beat me around, taking his rage out on me, the pain of losing my mother made him angry. He often lashed out at me and my sister. He beat me with a whip, a belt, his fist anything that he could use to bring me pain. He had to take his pain out on someone, I was always the target. He whipped me till I bled, till I cried and screamed before he finally stopped. He broke my bones, he battered me, it was always worse when he was drunk which was almost every night."

Roman's grip on her grew tighter, his body filling with rage as she started to tell him her tale.

"Michelle was 16 when she started to sneak out of the house late at night and venturing off during the day. I never understood why she was leaving or where she was going until the night she left. She had met a pirate/gypsy man that she had been seeing. There was yelling, there was fighting, things were broken and my sister left. I never saw her again. She was the closest thing I had to a mom. She often took my whippings for me if she could, she would always try to stop our father from hurting me. She did everything she could to protect me but there was no one to protect her. She took the brunt of my dad's anger I got the leftovers. She was my best friend. I loved her so much and she left. She left me alone with the man that destroyed both of us." She said and continued.

"The night that she left my entire life had changed. Our father went out drinking after their argument. He came home upset, told me I would never see my sister again, he told me that she was not welcomed in our home again, he told me I couldn't reach out to her or go after her. I knew that if I did something bad was going to happen. That night my father raped me and it continued for years. He took my innocence away so that no other man would want me. He used me in business deals, he used me to pay his debts," She said her tears blurring her eyes and her heart torn apart by the horrid truth of her past.

"He damaged me, he broke me. He used me," she cried.

"I never got the chance to feel the love of a man, give myself to a man that I wanted to. He took that away from me, he took away my choice, he took away my life, I didn't even get to marry a man I chose, nothing against you but he took away my choices in life, he controlled me. He ruined my life," she cried burying her head into Roman's chest as he comforted her.

"I'm sorry that he put you through that but you're safe now. I will never treat you the way your father treated you. I'm sorry you didn't get to marry out of love. I'm sorry that your father used you and damaged you," he comforted her.

"I'm always going to protect you and never let anyone hurt you," he said,

"But I want to kill your father for everything he did to you. I want to destroy him like he did to you. It upsets me that he put you through such horrible acts. Melissa, I'm sorry," he said kissing the top of her head as he held her, the rage boiling in his body.

He had nothing but hatred for Bohemas, how could he hurt someone as beautiful as Melissa, someone as sweet and innocent as she was.

He wanted to hurt him, kill him, make him suffer the way he made his daughter suffer.

"I want to kill him," he stated again with rage in his voice making Melissa shudder at the sound.

"I will kill him," he promised.

"Roman," she said as she rubbed her hand over his firm chest.

"I appreciate that but you don't have to do it. Let my father live in misery the rest of his life."

"I want to do it, Melissa, he destroyed you, he took away your innocence. You deserved much more than that. You deserved a chance in life. I'm going to kill him," he promised.

Melissa knew she wasn't going to change Roman's mind so she said,

"If you're going to kill him, allow me to help you," she said sending shock through his body.

"You want to help?" he asked.

"Yes," she said,

"I want to learn your way of life, in fact I think I could use my way of life to get us more money from people but I want to learn your way of life, I want to be a pirate. I want to learn your trade, will you teach me?"

"And so much more," he said with pride in his voice.

He leaned down and kissed her lips softly and passionately as he cupped the nape of her neck.

He didn't need to say the words but she knew that he loved her, only a man that was crazy in love would kill for the woman he loved.

      -----------------------------

Roman paced nervously outside of his bedchambers waiting on news of his wife's examination with the doctor.

It had been a while since the doctor went in to examine her.

Knowing her history of sexual activity from their talk earlier that day and the years of abuse she endured he wasn't sure she would be able to conceive them a child since she hadn't done so yet.

If that were the case he wanted to kill Bohemas even more for taking that away from her too, making his daughter barren. His mind always went to the worst case scenario.

He stopped in his tracks as the door to his chambers opened.

"Melissa is ready to see you now," said the doctor.

"Have a good day, Mr. Reigns," he said with a nod before he made his way downstairs.

Roman rushed into the bedchambers to see his wife brushing through her long blonde hair.

He made his way over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders.

Their eyes met in her mirror, her beautiful blue eyes staring back into his grey orbs. The smile on her lips as she stopped brushing her hair, he knew,

"you're with child?"

"You certainly put enough effort into it," she smiled.

"Melissa," he breathed before he came around her, wrapped his arms around her and rested his head on her stomach.

"I'm going to be a father," he said with hope and promise.

He pressed his lips to her stomach before resting his head on her stomach again.

Roman never spoke his emotions he didn't need to, his actions proved more to his wife than anything.