A Broken Fate (The Beautiful Fate Series book 2) (5 page)

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.”

“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.”

He shook his head at me disapprovingly. Then he said, “so… no kids, huh?”

I bit at a fingernail, feeling uncomfortable.

“I guess I have always pictured myself with children until I found out who my dad was and who I was. I just don
’t think I want to continue down that path. I don’t want someone else to have to bear my burden as a fate.”

“Ava, the worst part is over; you
’ve taken away any burden that might have fallen on our children. Everything you’ve gone through has been for our future. You’ve done something that no one in your past has had the strength to do.”

I thought back to the night before, how No. 6 had had company. Something in the back of my mind was trying to surface, something that told me my business with the Kakos was not yet over.

“I just don’t know if I want to take my chances,” I said to him.

“I want kids, Ava,” Ari
responded flatly.

Looking
down at my coffee. I was unwilling to meet his eyes.

“I am only eighteen. I didn
’t plan on getting married this young, let alone having children. Give me some time; let’s enjoy our marriage first and then we can maybe cross that bridge when we get to it...
if
we get to it.”

****

Ari and I spent our morning together hanging out at home. We sat on the sun porch with the newspaper and looked out at the crashing waves.

“Hey,” I said as a thought popped in my head. “What on Earth does Piase Kokkino mean and when did your mom become such a nut?”

“She’s always been a nut, Ava, as for Piase Kokkino, why do you ask?” Ari shifted in his seat to face me.

“Well, yesterday your mom and I both said some something at the same time and
she freaked out on me. I had to leave the kitchen before she started to do that weird spitting thing you guys all do.”

“Touch red.”

“Yeah, that’s what she said.”

“Well… did you touch red?”

“No, I refuse to fall victim to her silly superstitions.”

“Damnit, Ava!” Ari laughed, “You just sealed your fate with my mother. I’m sure there will be hell to pay between the two of you and I am going to get stuck in the middle of
some dumb fight of yours.”

“You can’t possibly believe in that bull. Last year when I said that spitting ‘ftou
, ftou, ftou’ thing they do was silly, you agreed with me.”

“Well…. For starters, I really liked you and
I would have agreed with anything you said and… spitting is silly, but I still believe it, that it wards of evil spirits.”

I leaned across Ari and gently placed my finger on his red lips.
“Piase Kokkino. There, all better.”

He smiled in response. “It’s too late
now, Ava.”

“What other things, superstitions
, do you believe in?”

“You really want to know?”

I laughed, “I feel as though I am left with no choice; I will be doomed if I never learn these oddities.”

“Ok… Well, you know that cactus over there by the door?”

Ari pointed to a round cactus in a big blue pot that sat perched by our backdoor.

I nodded.

“My parents have one, too and so do Gianna and Thias. A cactus is supposed to ward off the evil eye from the home.”

“What is
the evil eye?” I said the words with a fake, spooky tone.

Ari shook his head at me incredulously. “Evil eye or Matiasma comes from someone’s jealous
compliment and is intended to make you feel bad or ruin you. Greeks go out of their way to avoid the evil eye. Some wear blue charms around their neck and even hang ropes of garlic above doorways. My mom keeps that rope of garlic over her stove to keep her cooking safe from the evil eye. She thinks people are jealous of her culinary skills.”

I smiled a great big smile. “How do you know all of this stuff?”

Ari scoffed, “I had to endure Greek School for nine years before DPI and I had the information beat in to me on a daily basis.”

“Will you tell me more?” As silly as the beliefs sounded, I really enjoyed the stories but
even more so, I loved to see Ari’s passion for his heritage.

“Of course
I will. Crows…” Ari pointed to a bird in the distance. “If you see a crow it is considered an omen of bad news, misfortune or death. If you hear a crow cawing, you say ‘Sto Kalo … Sto Kalo … Kala Nea na me Feris.’ By doing so you are telling the crow to fly away and bring back good news.”

“What is that thing your mom always does with her bread knife?” I asked.

Ari raised his eyebrow. “Knives… you never ever hand someone a knife. Every evening my mom sets the bread knife down on the table in front of my dad; he picks the knife back up off the table and slices the bread. If she were to hand the knife directly to him, that is her giving him permission to stab her in the back or do her harm. Now… Bread… we have bread at every meal, it is considered a gift from God and should never be thrown away. If the bread becomes too hard to be eaten, we feed it to the birds. Since the food was a gift from God, it would be a sin to put it in the garbage.”

“I like that one.”

“Me too.”

“What else?”

“One more…” Ari looked down at his watch and then grabbed hold of my shoe and shook my foot playfully. “Shoes… a shoe left out, sitting overturned with the sole facing up is an omen of death. If you take your shoes off and they were to accidently land upside down, you have to immediately turn them around, say ‘skorda’ and spit on them.”

“So many of the beliefs have to do with death; it seems like a lot of energy wasted on trying to avoid the unavoidable.”

Ari shrugged, “as much as I would love to sit here with you and tell you more about where we come from, we have to go. I promised both my mother and sister we would help out today.”

“Ok.” I smiled. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

“My pleasure,” Ari beamed a smile, “if you behave yourself with my mom today, I will reward you with our superstition of bat bones.”

I laughed a great big laugh and
Ari stood up, took my hand and we walked down the sandy path to his parent’s home. We then helped Aggie get ready for Lauren’s little party. Aggie was having a hard time with the fact that Lauren was growing up and she was not looking forward to Lauren moving into the dorms. I have to admit that I was not looking forward to it either. I knew a little something about student behavior, having witnessed it first-hand. Thankfully, Lauren was not placed on the twelfth floor as she had wanted and got stuck instead on an all-girls floor lower down in the building. I kept telling her an all-girls floor would let her concentrate better on her classes and she kept telling me, “I am just going to go to work for Ari anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Lauren!” I exclaimed. “Believe me; you don
’t want to work at
baio
. Margaux is pure evil and you will want to kill Ari if you had to work for him.”

“That may be true, but I want to do something in fashion and I figure since I already have a brother and a sister-in-law in the industry, you and Ari can help me get my foot in the door.”

“Ari is not doing anything with fashion; that is all Margaux. He is managing her business, not her clothing line. He is just a glorified accountant. Margaux wanted him to take it over so she could concentrate on design; she has been doing both since my grandpa died and is tired of it. As for me, I don’t have anything to do with
baio
. But if you are serious about fashion, I bet she would let you intern next summer.”

“Yay,” she squeaked.

“Lauren, think long and hard about that; Margaux is a big, nasty pill to swallow and if you don’t have perfect grades she won’t even give you a second glance. She didn’t pick Ari because of me; she picked him because he is brilliant.”

I hoped my words would help Lauren concentrate on school and not boys. She is the most boy-crazy person I have ever met.
As a descendant of Aphrodite and Adonis, Lauren is drop dead gorgeous, a true goddess and I was sure every straight boy in her school had a thing for her. I worried that she would end up making the wrong choices. I think she could tell what I was thinking because as we were packing up her room, she got up and closed the bedroom door.

“Ava,” she asked. “Are you glad you did what you did with Ari? You know, how you waited to be married before you ummm… before you know… you had sex?”

I groaned internally. I am the wrong person for this type of conversation and I wanted to tell Lauren that nothing would make her mother happier than to have this talk, but I sucked it up and put a smile on my face.

“I love Ari and I cannot imagine loving anyone else. I wanted to give him something that no one else in the world could ever have. Waiting until I was married made everything so much more important, more intimate, and more powerful. It brought a very strong and beautiful emotion to the mix. Deciding to wait was a difficult decision but in the end, I would have been disappointed with myself if I had not waited.”