30. Hades
Hades
CHAPTER THIRTY
Present
It was never a dream.
It wasn't a product of my madness and obsession.
How many times in the last few years have I woken up drenched in sweat, guilt consuming me for thinking I was having erotic dreams about one of those responsible for Pam's torment?
How many early mornings did I drive for hours to the hospital-prison in Massachusetts, where Kennedy was, and stay outside, inside the car, hating myself for still wanting her so much? For wishing to turn back time, erase the past, and claim her for myself before it was too late?
Love and hate are sibling emotions. They can coexist, cohabit within us.
I didn't know she was already mine, that because of Pam's diabolical plan going wrong, we were bound forever.
A bond that, no matter how much Pam tried to disrupt it, will never dissolve. King is the greatest proof of that.
Rationally, I knew it wouldn't be possible to have slept with Kennedy and not remember. But somehow, even drugged, my brain stored the memory of us in the library, and every night in my dreams with Kennedy, I relived that passion.
I still hold the phone. Past and present merge on the screen which displays the recording.
We fell asleep on the floor. Me still half-dressed.
She gets up and, only when she’s picked up her clothes do I see that I tore her blouse.
I watch Kennedy in the video bending down and kissing me.
"I need to get some clothes on. I'll be right back," she says to my sleeping self. "I hope you remember what you told me when you wake up, Hades Kostanidis, because from today on, I will always be yours."
I get up and leave the room. I pass by Odin and Beau and leave the warehouse, heading straight into the heavy rain that, like that night, falls outside.
I scream until I’m hoarse.
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."
"I'll go to hell to fight Satan himself if necessary, but no one will take her away from me."
"From you? You think she's yours?"
"She always has been, even if she hates me."
"She doesn't remember everything that could make her hate you, but one day her memory will fully return. If you made promises, payment will be demanded. Kennedy will feel that you chose Pam."
I look at the sky, knowing what he's saying is true. "You said she doesn’t remember everything?"
"Have you ever been in prison, Hades?"
"No."
"I have. The first time, you're desperate. The days don't pass, they drag, and the uncertainty about the future and the loneliness are an invitation to depression. She went through that alone for a month, right after coming out of a coma that separated her from King for two years. For now, Kennedy is afraid of you, of you taking King away, but make no mistake, the time for resentment will come. Kennedy is remembering. Today, she remembered that she never dated Ryan. Your ward "—he says the word with disdain—"was the one involved with him and who kept trying to push him onto my Kennedy."
"I know."
"You do?"
"Yes. I've uncovered almost the whole truth. There are recordings, and that might help her defense. We'll prove Pam's involvement with Ryan."
"Almost the whole truth, you said? What's missing?"
"The night Pam died—there are questions that need to be answered."
"Yes, and I've been looking at the case. I don't understand much about law, but there's something I noticed that Kennedy's first lawyer, a public defender, overlooked. The defense team that's handling her case might not have picked up on it yet."
"What?"
"The basis of the accusation against Kennedy is them saying that she entered into a 'drug-induced psychotic frenzy' with her boyfriend and assisted him in killing Pam, right?"
"Yes. The theory is reinforced by her fingerprints on the statue."
"But they never tested Kennedy's blood."
"What?"