by Penelope Sky
“It’s been hard for him too.”
I never called Hades to shoot the breeze. I never asked how he was doing. I imagined he’d moved on with his life, replaced me in his bed, and I didn’t want to know any of those things. I knew he was sad about our breakup, but he was probably bedding other women to get through it. And that made me sick to my stomach…even when it shouldn’t. “Is he doing okay?”
Ash took his time before he answered. “As well as he possibly could be, I guess.”
“It’s been two months, but it feels like two days. It’s been rough, but there was no other solution.”
“Unfortunately.”
I kept walking until we reached my front door. “This is me.”
Ash looked up at the three stories then turned back to me. “It’s nice.”
“Thanks.”
“I’d invite myself inside, but I don’t trust myself around you now that you’re single.” He winked, telling me he was teasing me.
I smiled at his comment.
“You can call me if you need anything.”
“Did Hades ask you to say that?”
He shook his head. “No.”
My eyes softened.
“We’ll always be family.”
I lay in bed in the middle of the night. My hand rested over my stomach, and I focused on the feeling of Andrew’s kicks. They were gentle but distracting enough that I couldn’t sleep. Hades had never felt his son kick. I’d left too soon, and he never had the honor other fathers did. It was moments like these that made me miss Hades the most. I felt alone; I felt scared. We should be doing this together, not apart.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and looked at the screen. There was no message from Hades. There was never a message from him. He’d let me go with an aloof stare, like he knew it was the best thing for me, but he resented me all the same. I wanted to call him, but I knew I shouldn’t. It was too soon to have a close relationship, to be friends who had a kid.
Could we ever be friends?
I stared at my phone for a while, considering what I should do. The silence was suffocating. I didn’t just lose my husband, but my best friend, my everything. My life felt so much emptier without him. Maybe that would change when Andrew was here, but I knew there would always be a hole in my heart.
Maybe it was because I was lonely, maybe it was because I missed him too much, but I called him. The blue light lit up my dark room, and I pressed the phone to my ear and listened to it ring.
It didn’t ring for long. His deep voice announced itself over the phone, quiet but strong. “Sofia.” He didn’t say it with the same affection he used to possess. There was a tone of melancholy in his voice, slight betrayal. But he was there, answering my call like he promised he would.
“I hope it’s not a bad time.” It was one thirty in the morning, so it was a stupid thing to say. If he wasn’t asleep, he was working. Or worse, he had company over. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had replaced my spot in the bed. My ex-husband was the sexiest man in the world. With beautiful brown eyes and the body of a Roman soldier, he was the sort of man any woman would give up anything to be with. The thought of someone else made me weak, so I tried not to think about it.
“No.” He never talked much, even during our happier times, but he was speaking even less than normal. The old camaraderie was absent. He almost felt like a stranger now. That was probably because he was. We hadn’t spoken in weeks. His feelings, his opinions were totally foreign to me. “Are you okay?”
I missed hearing that question. When I was his wife, I was the center of his whole world. My well-being was the only thing that mattered. But now I wasn’t his responsibility anymore, and that made me feel so distant from him. “I’m fine. Andrew is kicking a lot, and I can’t sleep.” My hand moved over my stomach as I lay under the warm blankets. I was on the top floor, and my mother was on the second floor. “He’s been really ornery for the last couple of days. I’ve been eating a lot of spicy food, but I think that’s just a coincidence.”
He didn’t release a chuckle or give any indication he’d heard what I said.
“I have a doctor’s appointment in a couple days…if you want to come.”
He sighed loudly over the phone. “Of course I do. I’ll be there.”
I wanted to stay on the phone with him forever, but there was nothing to say. I couldn’t even ask him about work because that would mean I would be asking him about Maddox. I couldn’t ask about Damien because they weren’t friends anymore. I couldn’t ask about anything…
But I continued to sit there because it was better than nothing.
“Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah. Just busy with work and my mother.”
“That’s one thing I don’t miss…”
A small smile came over my face. But then I wondered if he missed me. He never told me he loved me anymore or stopped by for a random visit. When we’d decided to end things, he seemed like he wanted it more than I did. It was crazy to think we’d been so in love just months ago, and now we were so far apart. The only thing keeping us together was the baby we made.
It made me hate Maddox even more.
Hades’s deep voice made the phone vibrate. “I’ll let you get some sleep.”
Disappointment deflated my lungs like popped balloons. I wasn’t sure what I expected him to say. We had nothing to talk about other than how miserable we were. I didn’t want to hear about his personal life, and I didn’t have a personal life at all. We could talk about our son, but since he hadn’t been born yet, there wasn’t much to say. “Goodnight…”
“Goodnight.”
3
Hades
I approached the table in the strip club. Music played overhead, and there were girls everywhere.
When Maddox saw me coming toward him, he dismissed one of his men. “Get the fuck up. My boy is here.” Once his guy was gone, he kicked out the chair so I could sit. He had girls on either side of him, but neither one of them actually touched him. What was more perplexing was the fact that he wasn’t facing the stage. Sometimes it seemed like he forced his sexuality when he really didn’t possess one. He wasn’t that interested in women, but he wasn’t interested in men either. He was just interested in power, making people do things that he wanted…preferably against their will.
I sank into the chair and felt the usual wave of nausea drown me. Maybe he only wanted me because I seemed unobtainable for so long. I was a prize he got to put on display, a captive that showed his strength. Maybe that was all I was to him…a trophy. He was already filthy rich, he was already powerful, so what made him tick? What did he want? I honestly had no idea.
The waitress brought me a scotch.
I took a long drink, but nothing could get this taste out of my mouth.
There were cards on the table like they’d been playing blackjack before I got there. Maddox had a glass of water in front of him. I’d never spent extensive time with him so I didn’t know him that well, but this was the third time I’d seen him in a bar setting and he hadn’t ordered a drink.
Odd.
Maddox gently nudged the brunette beside him. “My good friend is down tonight. Why don’t you cheer him up, sweetheart?”
Just as she rose to her feet, I shut down the offer. “No.”
The girl returned to her seat, a little offended.
“No pussy tonight?” Maddox took a sip of his water, holding it like a glass of vodka.
“No booze tonight?” He said I couldn’t kill him, but he never said I couldn’t insult him.
Maddox set down his glass again, his expression slightly provoked. With a gentle wave of his hand, he dismissed all the girls at the table. Now, it was just the two of us, sitting in the center of an empty strip club, girls climbing on the bars like monkeys.
I knew I’d pissed him off because the air was different. It was tense, cold. I held his gaze and refused to be intimidated.
“You can have any girl you want t
onight. I paid for them all.”
“I don’t have to pay for sex.” I’d done it many times in the past, but now that I’d had the real thing, real passion, it was hard to imagine going back to anything else. I could pay a fortune for a woman to be what I wanted, but she still would never come close to what I’d had.
“They say the best things in life are free, but only poor people say that shit.” He took another drink of his water. “Not sure why you’re so hung up on that woman. There was nothing special about her. Sometimes she had a sharp mouth, but the rest of the time, she was boring.”
My teeth started to grind together. “Sometimes I wonder if you want me to kill you.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes I wonder the same thing. Life is so dull without murder, blood lust, violence… It just gets stale. Are you afraid to die?”
No one had ever asked me that before.
“I’m not.” He went on. “In fact, I’d be impressed if someone could ever pull it off. I’ve got tricks on top of tricks up my sleeve, and I get off on preparing for any eventuality. I guess I’m hoping you will try, because I’ve gotten bored lately. I wouldn’t mind torturing someone…”
What a sick fuck. There was no rhyme or reason to his madness. He was a lunatic who did terrible things once the entertainment stopped. He’d dropped thousands of euro renting out the strip club, but he clearly wasn’t interested in the girls or the booze. He was just there because he didn’t know what else to do. It was kind of sad. “You’re so lonely that the only connection you ever feel is through death.”
He stared at me for a long time. His blue eyes were so chilly that frost seemed to rise from his gaze. He was extremely still, like a mountain on a windy day. All the trees and bushes bowed in the wind, but he stayed exactly the same. He conveyed the most emotion when he conveyed no emotion at all.
I waited for him to say something, but nothing was forthcoming. I seemed to have punctured his skin, hit an invisible button. He liked to study and observe everyone around him, but he didn’t want anyone to do the same to him.
He didn’t like it one bit.
Damien sat across from me on the terrace. He used to come over all the time when we were friends. But now, he came over because it was the only place where we could have a private conversation. Our relationship seemed irrelevant at this point. We just needed each other to survive.
Damien looked out at the view and stayed quiet for a long time. “How is she?”
“Fine.” I hated to admit it, but she was much safer there than she was with me. I used to be at the top of the food chain. I used to be the man who gave other men nightmares. But now I was dangerous…and not because I wanted to be. Everything I touched was destroyed. I was a slave to a man who got off on destruction. I had nothing to offer my wife…nothing to offer to my son. They were both better off without me.
Damien watched me for a long time. “So, that’s it? After all that?”
“Yeah.”
His eyes filled with disappointment. “It’s not right.”
“Doesn’t matter. She wanted to leave, and I let her. She made the right decision for herself and our son. I wouldn’t want her to have to see the man who’d raped her on a daily basis. I wouldn’t want her to watch me be a fuck boy to the man that tortured her. I don’t deserve her, and I know it.”
“Then kill him. I don’t understand.”
“He wants me to. He’s waiting for me to do it. He even told me that.”
He sighed deeply. “Fuck. That’s annoying.”
“I’ve met some scary men. Some crazy men. But I’ve never met anyone like him. He doesn’t want anything, he doesn’t need anything, so he just does things. He likes torturing me because he has a twisted obsession with me. He likes to cause drama. He likes to cause problems so he has something to solve. He wants me to make an attempt so he could take my wife and torture me by raping her.”
Damien shook his head.
“If I take a shot and I miss…it’s my son on the line. He’s not even born yet, and I love him more than anything, more than Sofia. Even if there’s only a tiny chance I could miss, I can’t take the risk.”
Damien considered what I said and remained quiet. “What if I do it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s the same thing in his eyes. Damien, do not go behind my back and do it anyway. You are not smarter than him, you are not stronger than him. Promise me you will not do anything.”
He shook his head slightly. “I would never be so arrogant as to risk your family’s safety. But I do think we need to come up with a plan. Letting him win is not the answer. We need to take our time and come up with a solution. There’s got to be an answer. We just have to find it.”
“I don’t know…it’s like he can see the future.”
“Then we need to look further ahead. And if we don’t kill him, someone else will…eventually. This isn’t the kind of career that lasts a long time. It has a short shelf life. Someone will get Maddox eventually.”
But it should be me.
“You should be with the woman you love. You should kill the man who hurt your family. We should not be his busboys. We can lie low for a while…but not forever. And if you wait too long, Sofia might find somebody else.”
I knew Sofia loved me, but she broke my heart when she asked to leave. Marriage was about forever, for better or worse. She abandoned me and took our son with her. She did the right thing, but that didn’t make it less painful. It was a betrayal…and it stung like lemon on a fresh wound. After our son was born, men would swoop in. She would have a million offers all over again. No one would care about the fact that she was a single mom. She would move on and forget about me. “I don’t think Sofia and I are supposed to be together. The curse has never been broken—it just changes. She loves me and we get together…but then she leaves. Even if I kill Maddox and get her back, something else is going to get in the way. She’s the only woman I’ll ever love, and that’s my punishment. It’ll never change.”
“I don’t believe that. If you get rid of Maddox, all your problems will be solved.”
I shrugged. “I’m tired of fighting for her. I’ll always love her, always want her. But I can’t keep doing this. She left me…and a piece of me died.”
“But you said she made the right decision.”
“She did—for her and Andrew. But she still left me. She still abandoned me. That fucking hurts. She didn’t put space between us while keeping us together. She divorced me. She signed the papers and left.”
Damien was quiet.
That week when she packed up her things and left was the most difficult of my life. We didn’t have sex; we didn’t have a tearful goodbye. It was all business on her end. We both shut down our emotions and stopped feeling everything. I didn’t beg her to stay because I had way too much pride. I let her walk out of my life…and take my heart with her.
I sat on the couch in my sweatpants and watched TV. In the morning, I would fly to Rome to join Sofia at her doctor’s appointment. It would be the first time I’d seen her since she left. We hadn’t spoken much either, barely checking in with each other over the phone. I knew she was safe because she was nowhere near here.
How embarrassing. My wife was safer without me.
When she’d called me a couple nights ago, I’d loved hearing the sound of her voice, but I also felt dead inside. I knew she wasn’t calling me because she missed me. I knew she would never want to get back together. So every phone call was torture.
Thank god they were so seldom.
Now I stared at the TV screen and didn’t pay attention to what I was watching. I was always thinking about events in my life, whether they involved Sofia, Damien, or Maddox. Those quiet moments I used to enjoy were long gone.
My phone started to ring, and it was my brother. We hadn’t talked much either, so whatever he had to say was probably important. I took the call. “Yeah?”
“What a warm welcome,�
� he said sarcastically. “You make me feel so fuzzy inside.”
My brother had always been a smartass since we were boys. Some things never changed. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Just calling to check in. How are you doin’?”
Fucking terrible. Thanks for asking. “Same.”
“I ran into Sofia the other day…”
My heart kicked into overdrive anytime she was mentioned. “Ran into her where?” Was Sofia going to bars? Was she going out with friends? She was so solemn when she left me. Maybe she remained just as stoic as she moved on.
“At the hotel.”
“So, you didn’t run into her. You stalked her.”
“Potato…potahto.”
“How was she?”
“Even with that belly, she’s hot. I didn’t know pregnant chicks could be so sexy.”
If I hadn’t known he was joking, I’d fly there and kill him. “Ash.”
“Alright…fun’s over. She seemed okay. Says she’s working a lot. Lives with her mom. I told her she could call me if she needed anything.”
“Thanks for saying that.”
“No problem. She’s still a little sister to me.”
Even though she wasn’t my wife. “I’ll be down there tomorrow.”
“Yeah?”
“Sofia has a doctor’s appointment.”
“I’m glad you guys are working this out.”
We didn’t break up over something stupid. We didn’t fall out of love. There was no cheating. Something ripped us apart. “We’re still having our son together. I’ll always be in his life, even though I’m not sure that’s the best thing for him.”
“It is. You’re going to be a great father.”
A great father would protect his family. I’d failed to do that. “I should get going.”
“Maybe we could get a beer or something after?”
I suspected I would just want to come home after seeing Sofia. It would be a hard day, and the last thing I’d want to do was talk about it. “We’ll see…”