Page 7 of All for her Forgiveness

"The newspapers don't say anything about it, but given the fact that I only lived with the old lady and the deceased girl for a short time—a couple of months, they claim—I don't think so." I pause and then remember something I read shortly after we arrived at the cabin. "My God, how must Mrs. Vina feel? She must blame herself for taking me into her house and everything ending this way."

"Don't torment yourself until you have all the answers, Kennedy."

"How can I not? She had a stroke after it all happened," I say, remembering the report about Pam's grandmother's suffering. "Ernest informed me that the lawyers say there's a chance they might get me to answer the charges out of jail. My fingerprints weren't on the knife that killed Pam. If I hadn't run away, maybe I wouldn't be in so much trouble now."

"I think your friend, Ernest, did what he thought was right. Yes, you might never have been arrested, but money is a weapon, Kennedy. If the Greek family cares so much about the deceased, they might have managed to get you in jail even without concrete evidence, just until the trial. And so, you would have spent your entire pregnancy incarcerated."

I shudder with fear at the thought. Despite the lack of memory and having been in hiding, my pregnancy was healthy. I took short walks around the cabin every day, had contact with nature, and ate well. "Yes, he hid me thinking of my well-being."

"I'm sure if the girl, Pam, was so important to the Greek, he won't stop until he manages to get the real murderer arrested and tried. When they find him, everything will be clarified, and there's still a chance your memory might have returned by then," she says. "I'll pray for that."

Hades

CHAPTER THREE

"Areyou telling me that out of nowhere, one of the most respected law firms in the world decided to represent her?" I ask the team of lawyers I hired to assist the Prosecution against Kennedy Juliet O’Neal.

"Yes, that's correct,” answers one of them. “And there's more. They dismissed the psychiatrist, Dr. Roberts, whom you asked us to hire to assess whether her amnesia was real, which was expected. Why would they keep someone who’s interested in their client's conviction?"

"The doctor wasn't being very helpful anyway."

"You asked us to find the best criminal psychiatrist money could buy. Peter Roberts is the best in that regard. He won't bring you the answers you want, but rather the truth."

"The truth is what I want."

"Is it? Because, if you'll allow me to speak frankly, you seem obsessed with revenge."

"One thing doesn't exclude the other."

"If Miss O'Neal is guilty, then yes, I tend to agree with you, but I'm not convinced. I'm more inclined to believe that Ryan Corey III committed the crime."

"They both did. He was Kennedy's boyfriend," I say, feeling the bitterness of self-loathing in my mouth as I speak those words.

Even now, knowing everything she's done, how she wickedly squandered the chance given to her by Vina and Pam, the idea of another man touching her makes me sick.

Based on what? A few kisses we shared?

I must have been crazy, damn it!

But then I know there's no better way to define the state I've been in for almost three years than utter madness.

"I don't know,” says one of the lawyers. “The truth will come out sooner or later. The fact is I wanted to warn you that there's a good chance she might be able to answer the charges while out on bail soon, due to the fact that she's a first-time offender, has amnesia, woke up from a coma, is very young, and her fingerprints weren't on the knife."

"She was on the run!"

"That's not what the defense claims. They say your client lost her memory and, because of that, wandered around the world, but when she saw a headline in the newspapers with a picture of her saying she was wanted, she tried to turn herself in, got hit by a car, and the rest you already know."

"Where was she all that time? On Mars? Because only that could justify her not being seen anywhere. Kennedy was obviously hiding."

I stand up, feeling all the resentment I've been harboring for three years erupt.

I dismiss them and pick up the phone to answer Zeus, my older brother, because he's been texting me all morning and I know why. I hardly ever leave the house or see them anymore. Only on rare occasions. My three brothers, just like me, are overly protective.

Besides my being the youngest, my journey for revenge worries them.

"Why didn't you come for lunch at Eleanor's house on Sunday?" he asks, without greeting me, as soon as I answer.

Eleanor is his mother-in-law, the stepmother of his wife, Madison, and has become an important figure in the family, since we lost our mother a long time ago. In fact, we lost both parents on the same day—Mom in a fatal accident and my father by suicide.

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