A Broken Fate (The Beautiful Fate Series book 2)

by Mann, Cat

  We moved our party in to the resort’s restaurant for dinner and while waiting for our meal, the four of us shared recaps of what we had done so far in Greece. August noticed my pink, sunburned cheeks and Ari frowned again. I changed the subject to what we had planned for the upcoming days and I was thankful when Claude announced, at the end of dinner, that he had to be on his way. He got up to leave and we said our goodbyes. When he was out of earshot, I turned my attention to August.

  “What was that all about?!”

  “What on Earth do you mean, Ava?” August said putting his hand on his heart as if I had wounded him.

  “Don’t play dumb with me, August. I know Claude was with you the other morning.”

  “Oh? So what?” he said, trying to brush me off.

  “So what? He cheated on you. How can you even think about settling for him? I thought you had moved on from this relationship.”

  “I promise this is the last I will ever see of him,” August frowned.

  “Ok, sure,” I said sarcastically.

  Ari just stared at us the whole time, having no idea what we were going on about, or who Claude really was, so I filled him in on the details. He told me I should stay out of August’s relationships and just mind my own business. Part of me knew he was right, but I elbowed him in the ribs anyway as the three of us got up to head back to The Athenian Loft. August had shipped most of his things to Aggie a few days ago; what he had left was in a backpack he carried on one shoulder.

  Later, after Ari and I were settled, I went to check on August. I found him sitting on the bed, staring at the floor as though in a pit of utter despair. I sat down next to him and he put his head on my shoulder. I could tell he was upset about letting Claude go for the last time.

  “It’s okay, Aug,” I said, wrapping my arm around him in a hug.

  We sat like that for a while then he took a deep breath.

  “OK, it’s over. You’re right, Claude is a complete jerk and I am over him.”

  “It’s okay if you’re not,” I said petting his hair.

  “Ok, good, because I’m not,” he choked out as tears slipped down his cheeks.

  Ari came in and took one look at us. I could tell he wanted to turn around and leave but instead he took a seat on the other side of August and put his head on August’s shoulder. A small laugh escaped both August’s and my lips at Ari’s attempt to comfort him. Before long August dried his eyes, stood up and started to get a few things out of his bag.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to be teaching again,” I said to him once he was calm. “I didn’t think you wanted to keep that up.”

  “I don’t really, but I am ready to be back in California and DPI offered me good pay. I’ll be teaching French and history, so that should be easy enough. I will keep my eyes open for something else, but DPI will work for the time being.”

  I smiled, happy to be getting August back to the U.S.

  Ari, August and I spent the next couple of days being obnoxious tourists. We went to The National Archaeological Museum and The Parthenon. We saw the Theater of Herod Atticus, the Theater of Dionysius and the Ancient Agora and Kerameikos. August took pictures of absolutely everything. Every time August and I saw a statute of Adonis, we giggled. Then Ari would give us his best annoyed look, which made us laugh harder. Being in Greece with my husband and my best friend was more fun than I had anticipated. It helped me forget the fears that plagued me, if only temporarily.

  On our last night, August made reservations for dinner and a tour on some boat. I was apprehensive about going and suggested that August and Ari go on without me. They looked at each other and then shook their heads no. Ari pulled me up off the bed and held me in his arms.

  “Ava Baby, don’t worry, I’ll be with you the whole time. It’s not a boat, it’s a yacht; you won’t even know you’re on the water.”

  Ari was right about the yacht; it was huge. Nevertheless, I definitely knew we were surrounded by deep water. Between my uneasy feeling and a slight chill in the air, I had to cuddle up on Ari’s lap on a deck chair to keep from feeling sick.

  We were all talking about how we weren’t looking forward to the long flight home the following day, and how we could stay here in Greece forever when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large rope tied around one of the rails. Rolling waves of nausea hit my stomach and I knew then what was coming and I attempted to brace myself for the horrible memories that were invading my mind. The images flashed before my eyes and I quickly got up and rounded the deck out of sight.

  Pressing my forehead against the cold steel rail, I forced myself to breathe. I saw myself hanging from a rope. I felt the blood trickle down my torso, urine running down my leg. I could feel the wobble of the stool underneath me, my only lifeline. I heard voices sifting through the ceiling beams from the room above as No. 6 wrongfully predicted my suicide and a muffled voice responded from his speakerphone. That voice had given me my first hint that No. 6 was not the last of those determined to kill me.

  The stream of images intensified. I felt the crack of my ribs as No. 6 kicked my limp, nearly lifeless body. I felt my lungs burn and scream for air. I felt the cold sharp blade as No. 6 sliced my wrist open and I watched the blood pool around me.

  I pushed my forehead more firmly onto the cold steel of the yacht’s railing, grabbed my wrist and bit down on my lip to keep myself from screaming. When a warm, oddly familiar smell flooded my senses, my stomach gave up and I was sick over the rail.

  “Ava, are you ok?” Ari asked, rushing towards me.

  “Yeah, fine, just a little sea sick,” I moaned.

  Hurt washed over his face and then was quickly replaced with anger.

  “You’re lying. Do not ever lie to me, Ava.”

  Oh, crap. I felt horrible and tears sprang to my eyes. He was right.

  “I’m sorry,” I cried. “But I can’t get the words past my lips.” The images came back and I continued to be sick over the side of the yacht. My reaction to the rope was by far the worst of my flashbacks...but I finally felt as if there were no more holes missing from that week. I had at last been able to remember the whole ordeal.

  Minutes passed, my shaking slowed and my breathing began to go back to normal. Ari helped me to my feet and he put my face in his hands and gave me a serious look.

  “Ava, you don’t have to protect me. I understand if you don’t want to talk about these issues, but we are in this together. Don’t ever lie to me again. Ever. I mean it.” He handed me a bottle of water and kissed my eyelids.

  “Ari,” I said quietly, “I do have something I need to tell you, but I am not ready to talk about it with you yet.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly annoyed, and thought about what I said for a second. I could tell he was seriously angry with me. I wanted so much to get the news of No. 7 out in the open, but my mouth stayed closed and no matter how much my brain screamed at my lips, they would not budge. Ari nodded and pulled me into a hug.

  “Just promise me, Ava, that you will talk to me about everything as soon as you are able.”

  “Promise,” I said, breathing his calming scent in, letting it wash over me.

  ****

  The three of us had planned to sleep on the plane ride home, but Ari had gotten a ton of emails from Margaux before we boarded the flight. He groaned and started to get to work as soon we took flight. I looked over his shoulder and asked to look at his work for a bit. I needed a distraction, something to keep my mind off the secrets I was harboring from my love. He gladly handed his iPad over and took his glasses off, rubbing the bridge of his nose. I read Margaux’s notes over and shot her back an email under Ari’s name addressing the situation at hand. Her problem was clearly something of importance to her, though not really to anyone else. The issue had a quick fix and I knew Margaux had already seen the resolution...she just wanted to remind Ari that she could demand things at a moment’s notice.

  “All finished, that should keep the devil hap
py for a bit. I wish Perry were still here. He could do this and you wouldn’t have to.”

  Ari smiled crookedly at me.

  “If he were here, Ava, then I wouldn’t have a job.”

  “True, but you don’t need a job. We could just be beach bums.”

  Ari laughed.

  “Three weeks ago I couldn’t get you near the water and now you want to be a beach bum? Not happening, I want a job, Ava. It’s not a matter of whether I need one or not. I want to provide for you, for our family.”

  “You do provide for me, Ari. You don’t need to work to make me happy. And I do miss Perry; he was so nice to me,” I said as I snuggled my head down on Ari’s shoulder.

  “Really? You hardly ever mention him.”

  I bit at the inside of my lip. I didn’t like to think about Perry because thinking of his death reminded me that it had been caused by my hand. I took a deep breath and very quietly began to tell Ari about my first encounter with cutting the thread. I toyed with Ari’s fingers while I spoke, and I twirled his wedding band around his ring finger. When I finally told him everything about that dream and his death and the funeral, he turned to me, moving my head off his shoulder.

  “So, Margaux and your mom both knew that you cut Perry’s thread?”

  I nodded my head, “I didn’t know it then, but yeah, they knew.”

  “Why didn’t they tell you who you were?”

  “I don’t know, Ari. There is just so much that I do not know.”

  I put my head back on his shoulder and fell asleep.

  Chapter 10

  Happy Family

  After my flashback on the yacht, brought on by the sight of heavy rope coiled around a railing, I had terrifying nightmares and my anxiety was through the roof. The plane ride home from Greece was a nightmare in and of itself. Right after I fell asleep on Ari’s shoulder, I woke up screaming. Ari hurried to calm me down before I panicked the other passengers, cupping his hand quickly over my mouth to muffle my scream. He told the flight attendant that a spider had scared me and she helped us search for the little intruder before giving us a look of suspicious curiosity and walking away.

  I put my head back on Ari’s shoulder, but he gently nudged me off him.

  “No, you can’t fall asleep here, not until we get home, Baby,” he whispered.

  I was tired and the situation made me grouchy.

  Without another word, Ari lifted his iPad.

  “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” Ari read to me softly as he started Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. His voice was so calm, warm and soothing that every so often my eyes would flutter and close. At such times, Ari nudged me softly back awake, shaking his head no.

  Rory and Julia picked us up from LAX. They were holding hands, apparently having made up while we were away. Julia squealed with delight when she saw August and they had a classic airport reunion. I walked past them and climbed into the back of the Rover. I was in no mood for squealing or girl talk.

  When we finally arrived home, I headed straight back to our bedroom. I climbed into bed and fell asleep within seconds. The images on the other side of my consciousness were those of torture and fear. Time and time again I was brought back to the basement, my prison, and to No. 6’s taunting laugh and dirty fingers.

  I woke screaming in the night. I ripped blankets from my body and threw pillows to the floor. I cried for Ari, screamed for the pain to stop.

  “Ava, Ava, shhhh. You are home. You are here. I am here. Open your eyes. It’s going to be alright. You never have to go back there again. Shhh, calm down.”

  I opened my eyes to Ari’s rushed words. I searched in the dark for his face. He flipped the bedside light on and pulled me into his arms while I sobbed.

  “I was so scared,” I whimpered.

  “I know, I know,” he whispered. “I’m here with you; you’re safe.”

  I lay curled up in Ari’s arms while he rocked me in bed, back and forth. He ran his fingers through my hair and down my back. He wiped the tears as they sprang from my eyes.

  “On August fifth, my world ended,” Ari spoke so, so quietly. “I waited for you. I waited so long, Ava, and you never came home to me. I called you and called you and sent you text after text. I went to my parent’s house; no one had seen you. I went to Gianna’s and none of them had seen you. No one saw you run by, you didn’t stop to talk to anyone on your way home, you had vanished. You were missing and I panicked. I knew I had failed you. I hadn’t protected you, kept you safe. I should have gone with you that day, but I didn’t.

  “Why had I let the woman I love, the woman I had just married, leave my sight for one tiny moment? What had I been thinking? I ran as fast as I could down that beach. I screamed for you. I looked out in the water in a frenzy searching for you. I died inside when I found your phone lying in the wet sand. I fell to my knees and cried as I dialed 911.

  “My family followed me out on the beach, looking for you. My mother found me crying in the sand and she was the first to notice the trail of blood-soaked sand and footprints. He had dragged you away from the water, towards the road and just like that, the trail stopped. He had taken you away. I didn’t know where to find you or even where to look. I didn’t know if you were alive, if you were scared, if you were in pain.

  “Days went by with nothing. No word, no leads. Everyone was afraid to talk to me, afraid of saying something that might upset me. I caught people looking at me. My friends and family, people I have known my whole life, looked at me with pity. They didn’t know how to communicate with a man who had just lost his heart, the love of his life, his reason to breathe. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I didn’t know how.

  “My mind shut down. I don’t remember making the statement on the news, I don’t remember the press conference, or the vigil. The only thing I remember, the only thing I will never forget is sitting in our living room, listening to Detective Scott along with my family. He had come to tell us that the police department was calling off the search for you, and that they were going to make a public announcement the next morning. He said that the department was presuming that you were dead.

  “People broke down all around me and cried. All I wanted was for everyone to leave so I could hurry up and join you in death. I wanted to die, too. I wanted to die so badly. I sat and breathed what I thought, what I hoped, would be my last breaths. I looked at my family for what I thought would be the last time. I couldn’t stand living a second longer without you in my life.

  “Then, out of nowhere, my phone whistled a text alert. Everyone I knew was in that room – except for you. I grabbed my phone off the table in front of me as fast as I could.”

  Ari closed his eyes.

  “That text saved my life – one tiny x. People jumped out of their seats and watched me text you back. I fell to my knees and cried, ‘It’s Ava! She’s alive!’

  “We found you in that dirty house, broken and beaten. You looked so scared, so close to not being alive.”

  Ari took a breath and steadied his emotions.

  “I don’t know what you have gone through and I don’t know what you dream about while you sleep, but I promise to protect you from it, whatever it is. I will keep you safe, Ava. I love you; you can trust me with your secrets.”

  That was my cue, it was my turn to talk, to open up about my experiences, my secrets, as Ari had put it. Instead, I sat in the quiet room and contemplated Ari’s mention of suicide.

  “How?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How were you going to, umm… do that to yourself?”

  He shook his head slowly as he stared out of the window at the dark ocean waves that crashed on the shore just beyond our sandy lawn.

  “Swim out to sea. Drown. Let the current pull me under and carry me away to you.”

  “Huh, I have never considered that, purposely drowning myself.”

  “Why would you?”

  I turned and looked at him.

  “Never d
o that. Never! I don’t care what happens to me, I cannot dream of a world without you in it.”

  “Nor can I dream of a world without you in it, Ava; you are my world. If I don’t have you, then I have no reason to live.”

  Moments passed and we sat in the quiet darkness, our room lit by a tiny bulb no brighter than a candle.

  “Ava?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Tell me what happened to you.”

  “No.”

  Ari shook his head incredulously as I crawled off his lap. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight as I drifted back to a dark, tortured sleep.

  ****

  Ari took me back to my physician, Dr. Phillips, the next day for a checkup. The doctor tried to prescribe some meds for my post-traumatic stress, and I declined. I told him I was doing fine and that there was no need for me to be on any prescriptions. Ari kept his jaw clenched through the whole visit. We walked through the hospital in silence and then out to the parking lot. Once we were in the car, he slammed his door shut.

  “Why did you do that?” he barked.

  “Do what?”

  “Lie!!”

  I blanched.

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “There. You did it again. Stop lying, Ava. You aren’t doing fine. You do need help.”

  I was saved by a call coming in on Ari’s phone. He shifted in his car seat and retrieved his cell from his jeans pocket. I stole a glance at the caller id display but the number was not one that I recognized. Ari gave me a sideways glance, then accepted the call.

  “This is Ari.” He answered in a clipped tone.

  “Hello, Mr. Alexander. This is Jane Wilcox with The….” I heard the woman on the other line say before I lost interest and stared out the window as we turned right onto the I-5 south ramp towards home.

  Because my kidnapping had been all over the news and had involved a seriously wanted fugitive, Ari and I received requests for my exclusive account almost daily from various news stations and reporters across the country. Obviously, I wasn’t going to talk to a bunch of strangers on television or in print, especially if I couldn’t even talk with my own husband about what had happened. Each time we were presented with a new offer, Ari would release the same statement: “Ava is an incredibly private person and wishes to remain that way. She is working through her experiences at home, in the arms of her loved ones. She wishes to thank all of those who supported and prayed for her.”