Page 115 of All for her Forgiveness

"Is there anything we can do to help her?" I ask.

"No. She confessed. She'll spend her whole life behind bars," she says, sounding sad. "She told me that we are all capable of killing. At the time, I thought the statement was an exaggeration and didn't apply to me. Now, I'm not so sure."

"You don't have to think about it. I'll be by your side. No one will hurt you or our son, Kennedy. I would give anything, all my fortune, to erase what you went through, but I promise I'll avenge you."

"The Kennedy from the past would tell you to forget about it, but I'm not her anymore. I want Ryan to pay for what he did."

I don't think she knows we're talking about different kinds of revenge. For Kennedy, legal justice is enough. For me, I'll only be satisfied when I enact my own justice.

Kennedy

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

About a week later

I’ve just checkedthe news to see if there was any more information about Ryan's father's arrest, because ever since it happened, it's all anyone talks about in the country. Unfortunately it was the same news I already knew: that Ryan Corey II was arrested and accused of being the mastermind behind an attempt on my and Hades' lives.

I'm also anxious about the Prosecutor's Office likely dropping the charges against me. It would be a blessing if it happened before my wedding.

I gather my drawing materials and am about to leave the library to spend some time with King and Ernest when my phone rings.

"Hello?" I ask tensely, because I know who's calling.

Hades gave me a phone, and all the important numbers, especially those of family and my lawyers, are stored in it, but he also recorded Mrs. Vina's number so that I could be on alert if she tried to call me.

I now know that his relatives have been checking the footage from Hades' grandfather's house going back years to see if they find any evidence that could help me. He told me they want to check if Ryan had ever been there before I went to live with Pam and her grandmother, but honestly, I doubt it. Pam wasn't stupid. If her grandmother wanted her married to their protector, she wouldn't have liked to see her granddaughter hanging out with a playboy who did nothing in life but use drugs. I doubt the former Kostanidis housekeeper was involved in the beach house plot. If she dreamed of us becoming wives to the Greek brothers, Pam's plan would have ruined everything.

"Juliet . . . Or rather, I guess you prefer Kennedy, right? That's what Hades calls you.”

“Hello, Mrs. Vina, how are you?”

Even to my own ears, both our tones sound odd. Mine because I feel like I'm acting, knowing through Hades that Vina initially questioned him for supporting me; Vina's because it’s as if we haven’t been out of touch for three years, or as if she doesn’t believe, as far as I know, that I’m complicit in her granddaughter's murder.

After everything, is what I prefer to be called really what matters? I’d feel like laughing if it wasn’t so sad.

“I don’t care what you call me. I don’t think we’ll be around each other enough for it to matter.”

I’m tired of pretending. If I had confronted Pam from the start, the way I wanted to, maybe things would have turned out differently. I put up with a lot while living with them, not for the comfort of that house, but out of loneliness. The need to be loved and have a family.

Unfortunately, that's not what they were for me. To Pam, I was a new toy she wanted to discard once she was done with it. To her grandmother, maybe I was a project. A way to wedge herself into the Kostanidis family if Pam's situation with Hades didn't work out.

"What’s wrong, my child? After all this time without talking, is this how you treat me? You’ve always been like a granddaughter to me."

I decide to lay my cards on the table. "By 'always,' do you mean, like, the two months I lived in your house? Because we didn't even have time to grow to love each other." Hades told me she no longer lives on the property that belonged to his grandfather. Pam's grandmother asked him to move her to another house because the old one brought back bad memories. He complied with her wish and now intends to sell the old mansion. "I don't know why you called me, Mrs. Vina, but just so you don't waste your time, Hades told me about the conversation you had and that you didn't want him to help me."

"I—”

"Please, let me finish. If I were in your shoes and thought you had killed my granddaughter, I would do the same, but I would stick to my position until the end, not call you trying to reconcile. So my question is, since you never visited me while I was in a coma, why contact me now?"

"I was sad, confused. Besides, soon you'll be a Kostanidis. I saw the engagement announcement. Congratulations! I didn't know you had a son or that he was Hades'. I could have taken care of him for you while you were in the hospital-prison, but that's water under the bridge. I'd like to meet King and?—”

"No."

"No?"

"You won't meet my son. We have no connection."

"I'm close to Hades."

---