Page 13 of All for her Forgiveness

"What do you want, Ares? Don't you have a ballerina-wife to take care of?"

Three years have passed since Pam died, and since then, a lot has changed in our family.

Zeus married a former dancer from Ares' club and is now a father. He finally avenged our grandfather, and for the first time in his life, he seems happy.

Dionysus is married to the woman who was his son Joseph's nanny. Cici is, without a doubt, the love of my brother's life.

As for Ares, well, he became obsessed with his ward, Serenity, a dancer he acquired as a bonus when buying the shares Zeus needed to take control of GordonBank. They recently got married and are happy.

I like my three sisters-in-law, but I have a special bond with Serenity. Currently, I'm not close to anyone, but she would be equivalent to a best friend if I embraced that kind of concept.

"I came to talk."

I hadn't stopped punching the bag, but something in his tone makes me pay attention to my brother. "Is everyone okay?"

"It's not about the family. I came to talk about Juliet."

"What could you possibly have to tell me about Kennedy that I don't already know?"

No matter how much I try to call her "Juliet," as other people do, to try to distance the girl I met in New Orleans in the past from the cold and cruel murder accomplice she turned out to be, I can't.

I've referred to her perhaps half a dozen times as Juliet in conversations with my brothers, but it sounded so unnatural that I gave up.

"She's been granted the right to face trial while out on bail."

"I suspected as much. My legal team warned me about this possibility."

"Yes, I figured you'd know, but do you knowwhythey granted her this?"

"Because she's a first-time offender, there's no DNA on the knife, and she recently came out of a coma. Besides, they don't have much evidence against her, which I plan to correct as soon as I find that damn Ryan and make him confess the truth and give his accomplice's identity. Only then will this hell end."

"Sending the woman you were completely infatuated with before Pam died to prison for the rest of her life will end your personal hell, brother? Zeus and Dionysus might believe your rage is just hatred, but I don't. I know you, Hades. You fell for her. If you didn't claim her for yourself, it was because of Pam."

I don't deny it. Before the tragedy happened, my intention was to make her my girlfriend, even though all the signs pointed to the fact that she wasn't someone I should get involved with.

"Kennedy participated in the murder of Pam, Ares! Not a simple death, something spontaneous like pushing her down the stairs. They tortured her for hours. She was beaten until she was unrecognizable. That son of a bitch violated her in every way." I grab the shirt I threw on the sofa and put it on my sweaty body.

"Where are you going?"

"Running. I can't stay here, damn it!"

I don't wait for a response and head off into the night, without caring which direction I take.

More than an hour passes before I'm back, but by then, some of the guilt I carry has diminished, along with the constant pounding that always echoes in my ears when I think of Pam.

I paid for that trip. I didn't take Pam's phone call seriously that night, when she said that Juliet was acting strange and Ryan had shown up there unannounced, and she asked me to come to Cape Cod to save her.

Save her.

I promised her she'd be safe, and I failed to fulfill that promise.

Now, I can't stop until the culprits are punished.

I enter the hallway of my house and lean against the door, in the dark, eyes closed.

"You didn't ask me the reason I came here,” Ares says, and I still don't open my eyes to face him. “It wasn't just to tell you that Juliet is temporarily free. You would have found out through your lawyers."

"There's nothing about her that I don't already know."

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