Page 66 of All for her Forgiveness

I don't know how much time passes. Minutes? Days?

“I hope you remember what you told me when you wake up, Hades Kostanidis, because from today on, I will always be yours.”

A broken promise.

I broke a promise to the love of my life. The only one who deserved my love, protection, and care.

"I hope you remember what you told me when you wake up, Hades Kostanidis, because from today on, I will always be yours."

"Arrrrrgghhh, damn it! Damnnnn!"

"Hades."

I feel Odin's arms around me.

"I helped send the mother of my child, my lover, to prison, Odin. Kennedy was in a coma and got arrested anyway. Then, she spent a month in a damn cell. She'll never forgive me. She'll never stop hating me."

I thrash, trying to free myself from his embrace until I have no more strength, but he doesn't loosen his grip. He holds me while I let my despair out in tears.

"I sent my pregnant woman to prison. I don't deserve her forgiveness. I don't deserve to have either of them look at me."

"Love forgives, Hades. For love, forgiveness is given."

"How can she look at me? Accept me? I ruined her life."

"No, you didn't. Pam did. And now, we need to focus on what’s necessary: Convincing the prosecution of her innocence. Making them drop the charges against Kennedy."

"I was the first to demand blood."

"We will find the real culprit, that’s for sure, because I have no doubt that, despite us not knowing exactly what happened that night, it was Ryan who killed Pam."

"I always knew that, but I so easily accepted the police theory that Kennedy was an accomplice, damn it! Kennedy doesn't need to hate me; I can do that on my own."

He starts guiding me back to the warehouse, and this time, I don't fight. "It wasn't quite like that. I know that at first, you hired lawyers to defend her, even after seeing the footage of Kennedy leaving the house. It was only when they found the statue stained with blood, with your woman's fingerprints on it, that your descent into hell began."

Everything he's saying is true, but it doesn't change the fact that I wanted her arrested and paying for what I believed she had done.

I walk back into the warehouse and see that Beau and the man who pulled me out of the ring, Roman, were watching everything.

"What do you want to do, Hades?" Beau asks.

"Did you hear everything?"

He nods, agreeing. "We'll find him, that’s a certainty, but then you decide whether he'll face the law’s justice or ours."

"Before all this, I wanted to kill him with my own hands, but I owe Kennedy and my son closure. Ryan has to face the law’s justice. So far, he's nothing but a suspect on the run. I want his face spread all over the damn planet. I want to be in court when he gets sentenced to life imprisonment, even though I have no intention of letting him serve the full sentence, because I will kill him."

"I can get him out of any prison, no matter how secure. If that’s what you want, it will be done," Beau says.

"Now, we just need to find the bastard. And that’s my specialty," my cousin says.

"I have to talk to Kennedy and then figure out a way to get the charges dropped so she doesn't risk spending one more day away from our son."

"She didn't remember everything, but she remembered a lot," Ernest says when he sees me standing in the rain outside their house, looking towards the room where Kennedy is staying with King. He approaches, sheltered by an umbrella.

"How did you know it was me?"

"Because despite what your mouth told me at the hospital, I know a man in love when I see one, Hades Kostanidis. I have no idea what you told yourself all this time when you thought you hated her, but it was clear to me from the first second I saw you that you're crazy about her. So my question is: will you help me protect her? I don't want her to be arrested again."

---