by Z. Stefani
“Too bad, because if you had of even kept track of May, you would have known about me. You alone could have prevented this, you alone could have stopped that woman from doing what she did to me.”
“What did she do?” knowing May the way he did, Ayden was afraid to ask.
“She tortured me for being your son,” he said, keeping the gun trained on Heaven while lifting his shirt with his free hand, revealing a chest and back covered with deep scars.
“Oh god no!” Ayden cried out in horror and Heaven gasped seeing the horrific carvings on Gavin’s body. Julian sat silently, unaffected by Gavin’s wounds.
“She had visions that you could feel the pain she inflicted on me,” Gavin looked like a sad little boy for a moment, “so every time she thought of you, she hurt me.”
“I’m so sorry.” Ayden said, wishing he had of known and was able to save his son from the cruelty his mother inflicted.
“She used to drive by your house and just wait to see you. One day she watched you kiss your wife in your front yard, I ended up in the hospital for a week. She told the doctor I feel down a flight of stairs. I did like the hospital though, the nurses were nice and let me have pain medication, May always wanted me to feel the pain, otherwise she feared that you might not.”
“Son, put the gun down, we can work this out.” Ayden pleaded but Gavin shook his head.
“It’s too late for that.” he shrugged, “it would have been nice but it wasn’t in the cards for me. Although it wasn’t supposed to go like this, you were supposed to believe Heaven killed Julian, not me. After his death there would have finally been room for me in your life and you would have never known I was behind his death.”
“You don’t have to do this, this is your mothers fight, not yours! She did this to you!” Ayden tried to reason with him.
“That’s where you’re wrong, it is my fight, I suffered enough for her cause that it became mine as well. And now I am going to make you feel what I felt, I am going to shoot your son right in front of you.” he said and aimed the gun at Julian.
“No!” Heaven screeched at the top of her lungs.
***
Alice heard the loud scream and looked up to the ceiling then hiccupped. She took off her shoes and silently crept up the stairs and heard muffled words coming from Julian’s room. She stood with her back against the wall that turned to the hall leading to the room then took a deep breath and carefully peeked around the corner. She saw a sliver of Julian against the headboard, his father Ayden had his hands up in surrender and she saw a forearm to the right, its hand clutching a gun. Alice was drunk but she wasn’t incompetent, she silently went back down the stairs and tried to use the house phone to call the police. She wasn’t too surprised to find the phone line was cut and ran down to her room to grab her own cell phone then called the police.
***
“Please don’t shoot him!” Heaven cried and Gavin looked at her in disgust. Fritz was moving and Heaven was trying to distract Gavin so he would focus on her.
“To think that once you were on my side, you hated him just as much as I do.” Gavin spat in disgust and Julian yanked against the bedposts.
“Just let him go.” she pleaded, and Gavin took a step towards her.
“Stop it! Stop begging for his life!” Gavin yelled at her, grabbing her face and Julian went wild. Gavin was too busy focusing on Heaven to notice that Fritz had rose to his full height. In one swift movement, Fritz grabbed the hand holding the gun and pointed it up to the ceiling as Gavin fired the weapon. Julian managed to break the thick wood of the bedpost and was now unchaining himself as Fritz, Ayden and Gavin fought for control of the gun. Within moments Julian was loose and with panther like movements, jumped off the bed and tackled them all to the ground, his hands finding Gavin’s throat as Ayden and Fritz jumped back. Ayden immediately began to untie Heaven as Julian sat on Gavin’s chest, slamming his heavy fists into his head. Gavin tried desperately to get loose but he was no match for Julian’s strength and was quickly subcoming to the beating. Fritz, seeing Julian’s rage begin to rise with each punch he delivered, tried to pull him off Gavin before he killed him. Unfortunately, Julian was too far gone to reason with and too deep in his frenzied rage to pull away.
Ayden finished untying Heaven and tried to take her out of the room. Heaven, seeing the state that Julian was in ran over to him and kneeled before him, Gavin was obviously unconscious at this point and no longer a threat to any of them.
“You have to stop!” she grabbed his face, looking into his eyes. He stared at her blankly for a moment until she finally watched his blood lust subside. He looked at her, his eyes focusing then he grabbed her in his embrace, pulling her tightly to him. Julian stood up, refusing to let her go, he sat back on the bed, his hands clutching Heaven as Fritz and Ayden kneeled over Gavin.
***
“I’ll be back!” Gavin screamed like a lunatic as three officers put him in the back of the police car.
“It’s over,” Heaven said as she turned to look at Julian, “it’s finally over, now we can be together with no danger, no Gavin, no contract and no rules.
“We are getting married first thing in the morning, Princess.” Julian said as he bent down to plant a kiss on her lips.
“That sounds like a fantastic idea.” She smiled right before he kissed her.
***
Epilogue
-Five Years Later-
Levi King was turning two years old and to honor his birthday, his father turned their ridiculously-large backyard into an amusement park, complete with a merry go round, bumper cars and ponies.
“Be careful!” Heaven warned Julian, who was holding Levi on his lap in the bumper car. Julian and blue car in front of him were close to a head on collision and Heaven could feel her anxieties begin to rise. “If he has one scratch on him I will make you pay Julian King!”
“You hear your mother?” Julian whispered to his son who nodded eagerly.
“Yes.”
“You better cover that scratch or she’s going to kick my butt.” he grinned and Levi giggled. “Now hold on tight and we’ll hit them one last time before we have to get off.”
“No, I wanna ride!” Levi whined, not ready to stop yet.
“Slow down!” Heaven yelled to Julian who was ignoring her so she turned to the blue bumper car. “Ian, you slow down then since your brother is not listening to me!”
After Ian King learned about Gavin being his half-brother and found out how close he came to losing his own brother, Ian made a change in his life. First he started by working on his relationship with Julian and in the process he had divorced his gold-digging wife. It had been a hell of a divorce and had taken its toll on Ian, but he was happier now. His mother had been very upset at first, but after the birth of her first grandchild, Julia King’s heart began to warm up a little. Ian’s heart had also warmed up to a certain secretary and he was happier than anyone in his family had ever seen him. Gone was the stuffy, uptight Ian King and in his place was a man who was refusing to take life so seriously.
“Gloria, please tell your man to slow down, because if one of them doesn’t stop I will go up there, remove my baby from the scene of the upcoming crime, jump in a bumper car and run them both over.” Heaven said with a frown and Gloria giggled.
Gloria knew what true happiness was for the first time in her life, she had met a man who treated her like a real woman and not a paid escort. She had told Ian all of her dirty secrets and to her complete surprise, he told her he didn’t care. It felt good to be with a man who loved her for her personality and not what she had to offer.
“Ian, please slow down before Heaven runs you over with a bumper car.” Gloria smiled at her prince charming and Ian nodded as he slowed down.
“Scaredy-cat!” Levi yelled at his uncle and Julian laughed hard as he stepped out of the bumper car. “One more ride!”
“No more.”
“One more ride!” Levi stomped his foot and Julia
n grinned, seeing himself in his son more and more by the day. He reached down to pick him up and then put him up on his shoulders. Levi continued complaining as they headed towards Heaven.
“I want to ride!” Levi said as Heaven took him.
“I thought you said you wanted chocolate cake.” she smiled at her son.
“I want cake.” he nodded his little head up and down, his attention now on his huge birthday cake.
“I’ll take you back on the bumper cars after you eat.” Julian said and Heaven scoffed.
“Why don’t you take him on the merry go round instead, it‘s much safer.” she suggested.
“No, Bumper cars!” Levi cried with a mouth full of cake and ready to throw a fit.
***
Heaven sat by Levi’s bed and read him his favorite bedtime story, she waited until he was asleep then kissed his forehead and left his bedroom.
“Is he asleep?” Julian asked coming up from behind.
“Yes.”
“Come on.” he grabbed the baby monitor, wrapped his arm around her hips and led to their room.
“My mom wants to go to Hawaii with us next month.” Heaven said.
“Good she can watch Levi so you can give me those three days you owe me.” He grinned slyly.
“I only owe you two days, don’t forget about last week.” She objected.
“That doesn’t count.”
“Yes it does!”
“No it doesn’t, I traded you the Kittington case for a three day contract, that was letting you off easy. I should have asked for thirty days, you know how much I wanted that case.”
“Obviously not enough to resist my offer.” she smiled.
“You know I can’t resist three full days of you under my command, you don’t fight fair Princess.”
“I don’t?” she asked slowly unbuttoning her shirt.
“No you don’t.”
“Maybe you should teach me a lesson Mr. King.”
“I would love to Mrs. King.”
The End