This is my newest story. I hope you like it. It is AU Fiction. I wasn't going to start a new one but I had this on my computer for a while. It probably will be a short one.

Disclaimer: I do not own the WWE or the wrestlers in this story. I own only my OCs. This story is fiction and is to be taken that way. No copyright Infrigement intended.

He'd found her!

Prince Jonathan Cena parked his Mercedes beneath a broken streetlight, staring at the brightly lit gas station. The shining light from the shop's windows illuminated the snowy night like a flame in the darkness, silhouetting the girl working alone inside.

Marina Giancamo

The granddaughter of his enemy. The ex-lover of his business rival.

Fate, he thought, gripping the steering wheel. Il destino. After all these years of looking, how else to explain it? His phone rang. Paul, one of the bodyguards waiting in the car parked behind him, said a single word: "Signore?"

"Wait for my signal." John replied in Italian, and snapped his phone shut.

He watched her for another five minutes. It was ten o'clock on New Year's Eve, and the store should have been busy selling wine and beer; but the run-down South Chicago neighborhood was eerily dark and deserted beneath the heavily falling snow.

The girl assisted her only customer at the cash register with a shy smile. Her scrubbed, clean face made her seem younger than twenty-seven, he thought. Cat's-eye glasses framed her wide-set blue eyes, giving her plain features a dowdy, bookish look.

She would fall to him easily, he thought.

The solitary customer left and a gray sedan skidded to a stop near the gas pumps. A thin man stepped out of the car. He stared at the girl, spraying breath freshener into his mouth, and then started toward the store.

John saw the alarm in the girl's eyes, the way she bit her lip as she watched the slender man come toward the door. She was afraid of him. John allowed himself a single, grim smile. She didn't realize how much her world had changed.

As of now, she was under John's protection.

Before the clock struck midnight, she would be his bride. His revenge would be complete. And as for that matter.. He pushed the thought firmly from his mind. It would all be over. He would take her and in three months, he'd be free. Free—of everything.

"Oh no." Mari Wilson whispered aloud. The sound of her voice echoed in the empty space. She leaned her head against the glass, watching as her smarmy manager came toward the door. She'd prayed she wouldn't see him tonight. That he would have a date, a party, anything to keep him from stopping by to "check on the store."

Just one more week, she reminded herself with a deep breath. One more week to put up with Michael Cole's crude jokes, the way he stared at her breasts beneath her cashier's smock, the way he would "accidentally" brush his groin against her hip amend the narrow aisles of chips and candy.

She'd applied to be an assistant manager at a nearby store and she needed his good reference until her position was finalized next week. Then Mari could say goodbye to him forever. And even better, she would get a raise. For the first time since her baby had been born, she would be able to have just one job instead of three—she could work just forty hours a week instead of sixty. She'd be able to spend a few precious hours with her baby every single day.

Baby? Bailey wouldn't be a baby much longer. Tomorrow was her first birthday. She could hardly believe it. In Mari's constant struggle to pay rent and medical bills and child care, she'd missed much of her daughter's first year. She'd missed her first time her baby had rolled over, the first time she'd sat up by herself, the first time she'd crawled. She'd missed countless smiles and crying and happy jabbering… Stop it, she ordered herself, angry at how close she was to tears. Stop it right now.

Michael burst through the door with a hand ring of the bell, bringing a blast of wind and snow behind him. "Hey, Mar," Michael said with a leer on his lips. "Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year." She mumbled, hating that he called her Mar. It reminded her for the last man who'd called her that.

"Busy tonight?"

"Yes, very." She lied over the lump in her throat.

"Let me see." She tried to flinch away, but he still managed to brush against her backside as he went behind the counter. He punched a few buttons on the register, then seeing the few dollars inside the tray looked up at her accusingly. "Why, you little tease."

She backed from him. "It's been busy, really! See the floors wet with tracked snow? I'd better get a mop."

"Always such a busy little bee." He sneered, stopping her with one bony, sinewy hand. "You really think you're better than me, don't you?"

"No, of course not. I—"

Michael grabbed her blue smock, looking down at her. "I'm tired of being nice to you for nothing."

She the bell jingle above the door. But before she could look, he grabbed the back of her head, coming at her. "What are you doing—let me go!"

"You act so prime." He panted. "But you sleep around. You had that kid didn't you? I know you want me—"

"No." She whimpered, struggling to turn her face away.

Michael yelped as a large hand grabbed him by the shoulder, spinning him around, yanking him backward like a dog on a leash.

Mari gave a little cry as she saw a dark, towering figure pick up her manager by his jacket. Michael struggled futilely while the man, far taller and stronger than him, lifted him off the floor.

The stranger's eyes were hard. In a voice as cold and implacable as death, he growled into his face. "Get. Out."

"Yes." Michael gasped.

The giant tossed him to the floor. Her manager scrabbled back like a crab tripping over his own feet in his eagerness to get away. He paused at the door. "You're fired!" He bleated at Mari, then rushed out into the snowy night.

Fired? She was fired? Her heart pounding, Mari looked at her rescuer beneath the fluorescent overhead light.

The dark stranger looked down at her. His expressive eyes seared hers. He didn't touch her. He didn't have to. Just the heat of his glance made her tremble from deep within, as if he'd just woken something deep inside her….

"Are you hurt, signorina?"

She had to lean back to see his face. She was five-five but the man still towered over her. His shoulders were impossibly broad, the lines of his long, black coat elegant and sharp, and his face… his face was gorgeous! His blue eyes were beautiful. But he took her breath away. The way he'd saved her—the way he looked at her now. She'd never known a man could be at once so beautiful and so strong. He was like a handsome prince out of a long-forgotten dream.

"Signorina?" His eyes were intense, searching as he reached over to touch her cheek. "If he hurt you—"

She felt his brief touch like an explosion up and down her body. Her blood trembled as if she'd just thrown herself naked into a bed of snow. "No. I'm fine…I'm fired."

Fired. No way to pay Mrs. Parker. With no babysitter, she couldn't go to her two part-time jobs. And since Bailey's trip to the E.R. last month for croup, Mari was already a month behind on her rent. Her landlord had threatened to throw her out on the street if she didn't catch up.

Cold days stretched before her, Chicago's icy wind wailing like a baby's cry and frigid, desperate nights scavenging beds at homeless shelters. She'd be destitute with her baby in the dead of winter, no job, no money, no home… Her baby. She'd failed her baby.

Mari's heart rose up in her throat, nearly choking her. Her lips soundlessly repeated her daughter's name. Her knees trembled, her body shaking with a whole year of repressed grief and exhaustion. And everything started to go black..

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