A Broken Fate (The Beautiful Fate Series book 2) Read online

  “Aggie, first of all, Ari is your son, so gross, no, I will not give you details. Secondly, you know I don’t like to talk about that kind of stuff. I think we may need to set up some boundaries.”

  She rolled her eyes at me and we both said “whatever” at the same time.

  “AH!” Aggie hollered, startling me and I jumped a bit in my seat. Before I could ask her what was wrong she quickly and excitedly said, “Piase Kokkino. Say it, Ava, say it!”

  “What?” I laughed aloud at her silly behavior.

  “Say it! Piase Kokkino!”

  “No! Why?”

  “When two people say the same thing at the same time they each say ‘piase kokkino’ and then touch something red.”

  “Why?”

  “Saying the same thing is an omen, we will get in to a fight or an argument if we don’t touch something red! It’s Greek tradition. Here!” She pointed to a red magnet on the refrigerator, “touch this.”

  “You are a nut, Aggie. I am going to lie out on the beach. Call me if you need me,” I gave her a quick hug to show her I love her.

  “You aren’t going to touch red?” She looked at me with a frown.

  “Nope.” I answered as I pulled off the clothes I was wearing over my bikini, grabbed a towel and walked to the beach. Nick, Rory, Ari, Andy, Thais and Lauren were splashing around out past the breakers and Julia was stretched out on a towel on the sand.

  “Hey,” I said, “mind if I join you?”

  “Hi, girl, not at all,” Julia said enthusiastically. She must have been really bored to be so happy to see me.

  “So…” I racked my brain for a normal conversation to have with her.

  “How are things going with Rory?”

  “Really good, actually; it’s funny how hung up I was on Ari when we first met. I can’t believe I overlooked Rory for even a second; clearly he’s perfect.”

  “Clearly,” only a tiny tad of sarcasm crept into my tone. Julia missed the sarcasm and I was glad.

  “Rory is great,” I said, this time in all honestly. “I’m glad things are working out for you.”

  “Me too! I really love him. And we are moving up to L.A. in a few days for school. I found a great apartment on campus. I am looking forward to having some alone-time together.” She smiled. “How about you – how is married life?”

  “Everything is super,” I replied, hoping she would leave it at that.

  Julia rolled over and sat up. She had a crafty look on her face.

  “So dish - how was the wedding night?”

  I let out a nervous laugh.

  “It was good.”

  “Oh, come off it, Ava; I know it was more than good, don’t give me that. I heard it was brilliant,” he words rolled off her tongue in her perfect little English accent while pointing nonchalantly to the corner of her bottom lip right where Ari’s scar was.

  My jaw slid open, “how would you know that, Julia?”

  “Uh, Rory, duh!”

  “Rory? How would Rory know anything?”

  “Oh, Ava, please. You know Rory and Ari put on this big front that they couldn’t care less about each other, but the truth is they tell each other everything. Just look at them out there carrying on like two eight-year-old boys.”

  The two of them splashed and dunked each other in the waves. I was mad, mad at Ari. I resolved to talk to him about this later. So little in my life is private anymore, the least he could do is keep our intimacy private and between the two of us. Julia kept talking and soon after, my anger receded and I let the warm sun ease some of my tension away.

  Ari sauntered up the beach a little while later. He took a seat next to my towel.

  “Come swim with me.”

  “No thanks. I watched you swimming with Rory; I’ll pass.”

  Ari ran his hand through his wet hair.

  “I promise I won’t let you go,” he said very fast while reaching for me.

  “Ari!” I screamed but before I could protest any more than that, he scooped me up cradling me in his arms and took off down the beach in a dead sprint. I hadn’t realized just how fast a runner Ari is. He reached the water in seconds and once his body hit the waves, he wrapped my legs around his waist and held me like a child on his hip, as he got in deeper and deeper. I wrapped myself around him like a constrictor and shoved my face in the crook between his neck and shoulder.

  Ari moved his arm up my back and tilted my chin up with his finger to look me in the eye. He smiled a reassuring smile. The water this close to shore was warm and calm. The waves were gentle and had a lazy way about them.

  Not able to suppress my grin any longer, I smiled so hard it hurt my cheeks.

  “Fun, right?” Ari said with his boyish charm and I nodded eagerly.

  He threw his head back and laughed aloud. “I knew you would like this!”

  I’ll admit that I was not scared in Ari’s arms and I laughed with glee as he kissed my neck and tickled me with his lips.

  Ari did just as he promised and did not let me go. The salty waves rolled all around us. He had his arms wrapped around me and kissed me as if we had never kissed before. Despite the cool breeze chilling my wet skin, my body begin to heat up and tingle. I closed my eyes and tightened myself even closer around his body.

  “Yuck,” Lauren yelled, “I can tell you aren’t going to be any fun anymore; I’m going in.”

  A smile spread across Ari’s face and he loosened his grip for just a second to wave Lauren off, then went right back to kissing me.

  The beach cleared out almost as though on cue, and only Ari and I remained. Ari looked around and noticed that we were alone. His grin turned mischievous. I let out a giggle when he pulled the strings on the bottom half of my bikini, letting it come loose.

  “Oh, Ava,” he murmured, “music to my ears.” He walked with me through the water back towards the shore and lay me down in the wet sand. We were just far enough out that the waves would rush up my legs then trickle away only to come right back again. Ari kept pace with the sea and my fear of the water mixed with the pleasure of Ari was unlike anything I had ever felt before. My fingers dug into his hair and his fingers dug into the wet sand. I let out a moan then put my mouth on his strong shoulder again and bit down on him to muffle my screams.

  “Damn, Ava, I love it when you bite me, but I want to hear you, too.”

  My stomach flipped when he said this. Ari can say the sexiest things some times. I was no match for him. I looked away from his face, played with my hair and tucked a strand behind my ear.

  “Baby, it’s me. Hearing your moans and your giggles, feeling your nails and your teeth in my skin -- it’s enough to unman me -- I lose control every time. I love watching your little toes curl with pleasure. I want to hear your pleasure, too.”

  I blinked at him, unable to respond.

  Ari picked me and my discarded swimsuit up in his arms. He headed back to our house so we could clean up before Lauren’s birthday dinner. In the bathroom, I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I was healing. My eyes were no longer sunken and shrouded in dark circles. My cheeks were full again and between the sun and the blush Ari had just put on them with his conversation, they had taken on a rosy sheen. I looked forward to the dinner, to spending time with all of the people I love...and to laughing with them once again.

  We got back to Aggie and Andy’s in time to join everyone at the dinner table. The table was filled with family, fun, and lighthearted conversation, just as I had hoped. The day had made me feel like me again; it helped me forget about my troubles for a while. The only thing that was missing was August.

  I had talked with him earlier in the week. He was doing well. He insisted that we speak in French and the effort made my head hurt, so I didn’t stay on the phone for long.

  After dinner, Ari and I helped Aggie clean up the kitchen and then we all gathered around the big kitchen island to sing happy birthday to Lauren. The cake was two layers and covered in purple icing. It was decked out with
sixteen glittery, pink candles. Andy pulled out a silver zippo lighter to light them. At the sight of the lighter, I instantly froze. Fear and pain lodged in the pit of my stomach. My head pounded, my heart raced and my hands trembled. My knees were weak and bile rose in my throat. Images of my fingertips blistering and melting away flashed before my eyes. I saw No. 6’s sadistic smile and heard his evil laugh. My own screams echoed in my ears as my anxiety level mounted. I looked at my hand, then back at the lighter.

  “Dad,” Ari shouted, “Dad, stop. Dad, for Christ’s sake, put the damn lighter away now!”

  The entire party turned to look at us and finally Andy dropped the lighter to the counter top. It came down with a clatter against the hard marble.

  “Oh, my God,” was once again the only thing that would come out of my mouth. Ari grabbed me by my arm and pulled me through the kitchen and out the back door. He sat me on a deck chair and went to his knees, in-between my legs. Putting my face in his hands, he looked up at me in the eyes.

  “Ava, breathe, it’s ok. It will never happen to you again, I promise. Ava, I love you so much; just please breathe. Everything will be okay.”

  It took me much longer to get over this flashback than the first one. Horrorstruck, I kept looking down at my hand to make sure the flesh wasn’t melting from my bones.

  Once I began to calm down, I put my hand on Ari’s face. He held my fingers to his lips and kissed each fingertip over and over again.

  “Do you want to go home?” he asked softly.

  “Kind of, but I don’t want to hurt Lauren’s feelings.”

  “I’m sure she’ll get over it once she sees what’s waiting for her in the garage.”

  We walked home slowly, hand in hand. I couldn’t face going to bed for fear of my taunting nightmares, so Ari and I snuggled up on the couch for a while without saying much of anything.

  “Ava,” he whispered after a long while. “You know you can tell me anything. Maybe you’ll feel better if you talk about the things you went through.”

  Closing my eyes, I let out a breath, briefly considering giving him every single gory detail.

  “No,” I shook my head, “it’s bad enough that I have these images in my head and in my dreams; I don’t want them in yours, too.”

  “Please, I would do anything for you. I wish I could trade places with you. I wish it had been me he had taken.”

  I closed my eyes as Ari’s words brought back even more images... Pictures of Ari on the TV begging to let us trade places, pictures of my captor giving me that option time and time again and pictures of how each time I said no, to keep him from hurting the person I love more than I love my own life.

  I remembered how I faced torture and death by letting the thought of Ari take up all of the space in my head.

  I laid my head on his chest and breathed him in.

  “You were with me the whole time. No. 6 kept turning the TV on, playing images of you over and over and over again. Each time I felt scared or was in pain or was sad, I closed my eyes and thought of you. You saved me a thousand different ways, a thousand different times.”

  He kissed my head, “I’ll always save you, Ava.”

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  He cocked his head to one side. “You texted me, remember? I don’t know how you got ahold of a phone, but you sent me an ‘x’ and I knew right away it was you. I was,” he paused, “Ava, I was a complete wreck. Getting that text was the closest I have come to believing in miracles ever in my life. The police traced the number and they were able to locate you within a matter of a few hours.”

  I shook my head. Fuzzy memories began to come back to me. I the sounds of the helicopters and fighting with No. 6 at the top of the stairs. I remembered running through the house and finally finding my door to freedom. I remembered seeing Ari’s face in a sea of lights and faces.

  I rubbed the back of my head and asked, “What happened?”

  “He came after you with a…” Ari swallowed hard, “with a bat and he hit you.”

  I lay silent for a while.

  “Ari?”

  “Mmm?” he answered as he ran his fingers through my hair.

  “Is he dead?”

  It was his turn to stay silent.

  “No, Ava, he’s not dead.”

  He rubbed his scruffy cheek as he usually does when he’s thinking about something or when he is nervous or uncomfortable.

  “He’s in the hospital in critical condition. He was shot five times. They took him to the hospital per procedure. None of paramedics thought he was going to last the first five minutes in the ambulance…but...”

  “But…I have to do it, don’t I?” I asked, cutting him off. “I am the only person who can really end his life on earth?”

  “Ava, don’t worry about that right now. He isn’t going anywhere. If he ever recovers, the authorities will take him straight to prison. He will never get to you again.”

  I nodded my head and then snuggled deeper into Ari’s chest. I willed myself to sleep and filled my thoughts of No. 6. There was no way that bastard was going to live another day; conscious or not, he would die by my will before daybreak.

  I found myself in the dimly lit hospital hall with my scissors in hand. I stormed through the halls, searching for No. 6. I knew he was in there somewhere. The pounding of my feet reverberated against the corridor’s walls. After a long search, I found his door at the end of a quiet corridor. I barged straight into the room and stopped dead in my tracks.

  The room was filled with a hauntingly familiar scent and No. 6 was not alone. I couldn’t make out the other person’s face because as soon as I walked in the person vanished as if into thin air. All I saw, as the figure faded from the room, was a Nike trainer with a yellow swoosh on it. I tried to push the fear from my mind. Who would want to visit someone as evil and demonic as Damien Kakos? What if the end of No. 6 wasn’t the end of the Kakos? I focused on the task at hand, Damien Kakos watched, helpless with fear in his eyes as I took his red thread in my hand. Looking down on him with merciless hate, I sliced his life in two with no remorse. I heard the hospital monitors give a few final bleeps and melt into a single flat tone. I turned around and left.

  Chapter 6

  The L Word

  I woke with a pounding headache as flat-lined monitors turned into very loud honking.

  The noise was coming from outside. I had fallen asleep, on top of Ari, on the couch. I nudged him awake.

  “Morning,” he said sleepily, blinking up at me. He re-adjusted his head on the pillow and closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

  “Someone keeps honking a car horn. Will you please make that noise stop?” I groaned.

  Ari moaned and slid out from underneath me. His hair stuck out everywhere. For a grown man, Ari is adorable when he first wakes up, which is probably why nothing gets accomplished at our house in the morning. He walked through the living room and down the hall towards the seldom-used front door.

  “You had better get up,” he yelled to me from the entryway. “The honking isn’t going to stop until you come out and see Lauren’s car.”

  “Ugh,” pulling myself up from the couch, I dragged my feet across the floor to the front door. Lauren was waving and honking from her new, little, red Volkswagen hardtop convertible. We went outside in our bare feet to check it out. The car was cute and nice. Lauren had a decal of the Greek flag stuck to the back window and I guessed Andy had a hand in that gift. Lauren was beaming with joy so I forced a smile. Ari curled his fingers around mine and as he did, his watch nudged the scar on the inside of my arm. I held his wrist up to check the time. Seven in the morning – the early morning sun was beating down and my headache was not relenting. I turned, holding on to Ari’s hand and walked back towards the house, pulling him with me. Lauren parked and trailed in behind us.

  I made my way to the coffee pot and Lauren slipped her hands around me in a hug.

  “Thank you so much for all my gifts, Ava. I love you.�
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  “You don’t love me, Lauren,” I grumbled. “You just love the fact that I have a better fashion sense than your mother and your wardrobe has dramatically improved since I came into your life.”

  “Well, maybe a little bit, but I still just mostly love you,” she said, letting me go.

  “I love you, too.”

  I poured some coffee and set a mug down in front of Ari, then sat down to look at the paper.

  “So did you guys hear that Damien Kakos died last night?” Lauren asked.

  Ari coughed on his coffee and shot me a suspicious look. I quickly looked away.

  “Mmm, I think I knew that,” I answered. Ari rolled his eyes at me and then looked back down at the paper.

  “Ava,” Lauren said sheepishly, “are you alright? What happened last night with the lighter?”

  “Lauren!” Ari yelled disapprovingly.

  “What? I want to know, too,” she said to him, assuming that I had told him all about my flashback.

  “Lauren, I’m fine, really,” I spoke up. “The lighter just brought back some pretty gory memories; you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Fine, no one ever tells me anything,” she pouted. Ari shot her a warning look so she decided to change the subject.

  “So when are you guys going to have kids?” she chirped.

  “Never,” I replied at the same time Ari said, “Someday.”

  We both shot each other shocked looks.

  “Lauren,” Ari said standing up, “go bother Rory, it’s too early for this shit.”

  “Fine,” she stood up to leave, “but I am having a party tonight on the beach with my friends, so please tell mom not to do anything embarrassing.”

  “Oh, holy hell. I am so glad we don’t live in that house anymore,” I muttered over my coffee.

  “No kidding,” Ari chimed in as he walked Lauren to the door.

  Closing my eyes, I took in a deep breath. I tried to clear my thoughts but Ari brought me quickly back to reality.

  “I cannot believe you did that last night,” Ari said as he walked back into the kitchen.

  I shrugged, “No. 6 had to die; no sense in prolonging the inevitable.”