by Penelope Sky
4
Sofia
Spring had come early, so it was a bit warm in the city. I wore a pink dress with a black cardigan, but the layers couldn’t hide my swollen belly. I did my hair and makeup and felt my heart race a million miles an hour.
Hades would be there any minute.
He was supposed to pick me up and drive me to the appointment. It was the first time he would see my new place, the first time we would do something as a divorced couple. Our divorce would take a few months to be finalized, but we both behaved as if it was a done deal.
My mom walked in behind me and looked at my reflection in the mirror. “You look very pretty. But maybe some pearls would be nice.”
I rolled my eyes. “Mom, I’m having a baby. Not meeting the Queen of England.”
“I would really love to see Hades when he stops by. He was a good man.”
Yes, he was. I told my mother the reason we had to leave, and she understood. But she was so fond of him…as was I. He was the father of her grandchild, so he would always be around. But I thought today wasn’t the best time for chitchat. “Maybe next time. It’s probably going to be a little tense since we haven’t seen each other in so long.”
“Alright…I understand.”
When I heard the doorbell ring downstairs, I immediately felt the jolt in my chest. I was nervous, uneasy, totally erratic. I’d seen Hades so many times before, but now everything was different. I wasn’t even sure what we were anymore. Were we friends?
I headed to the bottom floor and then opened the front door.
He stood there. Tall and proud. In a black t-shirt that fit over his broad shoulders nicely, he was the same powerhouse I remembered. He had a wide chest that stretched the fabric tightly, and his bulging arms did the same thing. His flat stomach led to narrow hips, and his jeans were slightly low on his hips. His wedding ring was absent, but the watch I gave him was still on his wrist.
I stared at him for several seconds…speechless. He was more handsome than I remembered. Striking brown eyes, masculine cheekbones, and a jawline so hard it could cut glass. He was the perfect man.
I missed him.
His eyes landed on mine, and they didn’t blink. He stared for a long time, as if he was sizing me up the way I’d just done to him. I probably looked completely different. My stomach was much bigger, along with the rest of my body. My thighs were thicker, my arms had more mass, and my tits were definitely a size larger.
He didn’t make a single comment.
The quiet stretched on for a long time, like neither one of us knew what to say.
I wanted to move into his chest and hold him, but that didn’t seem appropriate anymore. Just looking at him didn’t seem appropriate.
He stepped away from the door and slid his hands into his pockets. “Ready to go?”
I grabbed my purse and walked with him to the car.
We sat together in the doctor’s office. I was on the table in a gown. My bare belly was visible, and the sonogram machine was next to me and ready to be used.
Hades sat against the opposite wall, his gaze directed out the window like he purposely didn’t want to look at me. He didn’t make small talk or ask how I was doing, probably because our conversation over the phone had already been dull enough.
This was the man I used to speak to every day. Now, we didn’t talk at all.
The doctor came inside and smeared the gel across my belly. He pressed the apparatus over the surface of my tummy and projected a picture of our baby on the screen. Andrew’s heartbeat was visible, along with some of his other features, like the shape of his skull and the outline of his body.
Seeing my son brought tears to my eyes.
Hades came to my side and stood next to me, his eyes on the screen as well. He stared with the same intensity, as if he couldn’t believe this was really happening. He took a deep breath and continued to stare.
“Everything looks healthy,” the doctor said. “He’s coming along nicely. Keep taking your vitamins, drink lots of water, and try to walk for at least thirty minutes a day.”
I was on my feet all day at work, so that wasn’t a problem. “Thank you.”
After the doctor cleaned me up, he walked out so I could get dressed.
As before, Hades turned around and faced the opposite wall so I’d have my privacy to get ready. He didn’t have to do that, but I guess it would be weird if he didn’t avert his gaze.
After I got dressed, I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. “I already knew he was doing well, but it’s nice to hear. There’s no way he could kick me all the time and not have strong bones and muscles.”
“Or maybe he’s just feisty like his mom.”
“Very true.”
We left the doctor’s office and got back into his car. Hades drove me home, driving through the streets as the sun set in the sky. Summer was still a few months away, so it got dark a little earlier than I wanted.
“You want to get dinner?” I wasn’t sure what provoked me to ask the question. I was just sad at the way our relationship had become so quiet and uncomfortable. I’d expected it to be awkward in the beginning, but that discomfort wasn’t wearing off.
He kept his eyes on the road with one hand on the wheel. “I have to be heading back…”
“Oh.” I couldn’t hide my disappointment. He used to drop everything for me. Now I wasn’t the most important thing in his life.
After another five minutes of painful silence, he arrived at my home and parked at the curb in front of my door.
I was suddenly filled with sadness. It may be a few months before I saw him again, maybe even longer before we spoke again. This break was so clean that it was emotionless. It was hard to believe we’d ever loved each other when he was so indifferent to me.
He got out of the car and walked me to the door.
I got my keys out of my purse and unlocked it.
He stayed a couple feet back, like he was hoping I wouldn’t invite him inside for a drink. “Keep me updated on Andrew. If you need anything, I can get down here in a couple hours. When it gets closer to the birth, I’ll stay in the city so I don’t miss anything.”
How did we become this impersonal? We used to be so passionate and affectionate. Now there was no heat between us. All the fire that used to dance around had been permanently extinguished. “Alright…”
Hades turned away without even saying goodbye.
I didn’t know what possessed me to say it, but I grabbed his attention. “Hades?”
He turned back around, but he didn’t come closer to me.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
I walked toward him until we were face-to-face again. “It just seems like…I don’t know.”
His eyes shifted back and forth as he looked into mine, but he didn’t respond to my comment.
“It seems like you hate me or something.”
He shook his head slightly. “No. I could never hate you.”
“Then why are you so cold?”
His face tilted toward the ground as he considered how to respond. He lifted his head once again and looked me in the eye. “Because we aren’t together anymore. This is how I treat everybody else.”
“Well, I don’t like it.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then you shouldn’t have left me.” He turned to walk away.
I grabbed him by the arm and forced him back. “You have no idea how hard this has been for me. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you. You have no idea how much I hurt every day that you’re gone.”
“Then you could’ve stayed.”
“You know I couldn’t…”
He pulled his arm away from my grasp. “That was your decision, and I respect it. You were doing the right thing for you and Andrew, and I get it. But let’s not forget that you abandoned me to the hellhole where I live. You get to start over with a new life. I don’t. You were a prisoner to Maddox…and now I’ve become his captive.”
&nbs
p; 5
Hades
When I got the news Andrew was doing well, I should’ve been happy.
Ecstatic.
But I wasn’t. All I could feel was overwhelming resentment toward my ex-wife. She’d never looked so beautiful, never glowed so bright. Relocating to Rome was the best thing for her, and while she didn’t look happy, she didn’t look stressed either. She’d gotten everything she wanted…and she did it without me.
It made me bitter. Angry.
I wanted Sofia and Andrew to be safe, but I was miserable living under Maddox’s thumb. I was his little bitch, practically a slave. I was a rich man in a powerful position, but I had no rights, no freedoms. I couldn’t have the one thing I wanted more than anything else. It was like she didn’t care…at all.
When Maddox took her and all hope was lost, I sacrificed myself in exchange for her freedom. I threw myself on the grenade so she could get away.
But she abandoned me.
I would’ve judged her if she stayed. In fact, I respected her for choosing herself and our son over me. But the darker side of me couldn’t stop hating her for it. I’d sacrificed so much for this relationship, and it made no difference in the end.
How could she go to the doctor with me and be so calm? How could she be so pragmatic about this whole thing? It’d been two months, so we’d both had time to decompress. There had been a lot of tears when she first left. But I’d never gotten over that phase.
It seemed like she had.
How could she love me as much as I loved her but be fine with all of this?
I wasn’t close to being fine.
It’d been a few days since I’d stormed off and left her on her doorstep. But I hadn’t stopped thinking about that moment from the time I’d gotten home. I went right back to work with numbness all over my body and a scotch in my hand. I was stuck in a never-ending vortex of pain. My life was so meaningless, sometimes I wondered what the point was. If I were dead, Maddox would have no interest in Sofia. I wouldn’t have to live without her.
It was late in the evening as I sat on the couch with the TV on. Living alone was suffocating. I’d preferred isolation, but after I was happily married, I couldn’t imagine being alone again. Now it was just depressing…especially when I thought I heard her voice coming from the closet or the bathroom.
My phone lit up with Sofia’s name.
She was calling me. I watched it ring but didn’t answer. I’d never loved someone and hated them at the same time. But if she ever needed me, I had to be there. I would never forgive myself if something happened to her because I was too pissed off to be reasonable.
I answered the phone. Bitterness was audible. “Yeah?”
“Don’t fucking yeah me.” She launched herself at a million miles an hour, expressing all the rage she’d kept bottled up inside the last few days. She was like the sun, solar flares jumping out everywhere. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to lose you. I hate this so fucking much. You think I like being alone? You think I like being hours away from you? You say that you’re a prisoner, but you have no idea what being a prisoner is really like. You don’t know what it’s like to be chained up and raped, so don’t sit there and act like you and I are the same. We are not the fucking same.” She was harsh in her tone and destructive in her choice of words. She didn’t hold anything back, and her rage was mixed with the distant sound of tears.
I kept the phone to my ear and closed my eyes when she mentioned the most terrible thing we’d had to endure.
“I told you to kill him, and you refused. If you aren’t going to do anything about it, then I have to move on. Don’t you dare judge me for what I did. If I’d never married you in the first place, I never would’ve been raped. You were supposed to protect me, but being with you has caused me more harm than if I were alone. I don’t regret being with you because I loved you, but I can’t be stupid and expect a future to be any different from the past. I have a son to think about now. And what kind of mother would I be if I didn’t give him the life he deserves?”
I continued to listen to her emotional monologue.
“It wasn’t easy for me to leave. It isn’t easy to live here alone. When I imagine you with someone else, it makes me sick to my stomach. When I told you I loved you, I meant it. That is something that will never change. So, don’t paint me out to be a heartless bitch that turned her back on you. I wish things could be different, but for as long as Maddox is around, it can’t be. Be mad all you want, but the person you should be mad at is you…not me.” The phone went silent when she hung up.
I kept the phone to my ear and listened to the dial tone. I opened my eyes once again now that the conversation was over. Well, it wasn’t really a conversation…just a very heated monologue. I should call her back and apologize, but I couldn’t. She was right, but that didn’t take away my anger.
I was angry at her for being so beautiful.
Angry that I couldn’t have her.
Petty and spiteful that someone else would get her someday.
And I would be here…miserable and alone.
“Is it that time of the month?” Maddox stared at me from across the table in the conference room, leaning back in his chair while his arms were perfectly straight on the armrests. His blue eyes were always expressive, whether he was playful or angry. A week had passed since my incident with him in the strip club, and things had been a little tense since that moment.
I turned my gaze on him, keeping up the same apathy.
“I’ve got an Advil in my purse. Do you want it?”
I turned my look away and ignored him.
“Come on, we’re friends. Unburden all your earthly troubles.” He raised his arms, making a welcoming gesture.
“If you think we’re friends, then you’ve never had a friend.”
His eyes slowly turned frosty, his playful demeanor disappearing. “Careful. I’m the only friend you’ve got.”
I continued to stare at him, feeling the slight threat in the room. I didn’t have much concern for my own safety because I had nothing left to live for. Andrew would be better off without me, and there was no hope for Sofia and me. There was nothing Maddox could do to me that actually frightened me. “You really think that’s what we are?” I didn’t understand his psyche, so maybe he truly believed that. He wasn’t fueled by women, money, or possessions. He seemed to have nothing, but everything. His men were loyal to him, but I suspected that was out of fear, not affection.
He cocked his head slightly, like a dog that was trying to understand what was just said. “What else would we be?”
“Do you rape all your friends’ wives?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never raped anyone before. Your wife was my first.” He winked.
I wanted to reach across the table and grab him by the throat. But since that was what he wanted, I stayed in my seat. I felt like a bug under his shoe. One wrong move and I would get squished.
“You want my advice?”
I almost laughed because it was absurd.
“Don’t live in the past. There’s so much shit we have to do.”
I rubbed my hand across my jaw because I didn’t know how else to bottle my anger. I couldn’t imagine living like this every day, subjected to this cruel torture. How could I look at the man who hurt my wife every day…and let him call me a friend?
“This partnership will be much more fruitful if you move on. Look at everything we’ve done together. We’ve been more successful than you and Damien ever were. We’re a match made in heaven. And now that Sofia is no longer your wife, you can focus much better.”
I averted my gaze because I couldn’t stare at him any longer. The only thing I wanted to focus on was killing him. I couldn’t help but live in regret because if I had killed him sometime in the past, none of this would have happened. Or if I had killed Damien a long time ago, none of this would have happened either. Sometimes it seemed like all these things were happening because they were meant to happen.
The universe wanted to keep Sofia and me apart.
Maybe it was time I started to listen.
Maddox continued to stare at me as if he expected some kind of rebuttal.
I had no rebuttal.
I had nothing.
I’d just stepped out of the shower when Ash called me. With a towel around my waist, I took the call. “Yeah?”
“Why do you always sound so gloomy when you answer the phone?”
“Because I am gloomy.”
“How are things goin’ at Maddox and Sons?”
I didn’t say a single word because it wasn’t funny at all.
Ash picked up on my silent hostility. “How are you?”
I was tired of people asking me that all the time, always timid like they expected me to explode. “Stop asking me that. I’m shitty, and I’ll always be shitty.”
“Alright…duly noted.” He was quiet on the line for a bit before he changed the subject. “I checked on Sofia at the hotel today.”
It was the first time I didn’t want to think about her. The conversation we’d had almost a week ago was still fresh in my mind.
“The manager there is kind of a young guy, maybe your age. I think he might be into Sofia…”
That didn’t surprise me in the least. “Everyone is into her.”
“Including me,” he said with a chuckle.
I was immune to his sarcastic remarks at this point.
“You want me to take him out?”
A bitter laugh wanted to escape my throat because it was so stupid. It was even stupider because she wasn’t my wife anymore. “No.”
“Are you sure? I can make it look like an accident.”
“She’s free to do whatever she wants.”
“But she’s carrying your baby.”
“I doubt the guy has much of a chance with her anyway.”
“Well, actually, he’s kinda hot.”
Both of my eyebrows rose. “What did you just say?”
“I’m just giving you all the information. He’s not some fat, ugly guy. He’s young, and he’s in shape. And they work together all the time, so he has good access to her.”