Page 54 of Pretty Poison

“I don’t know,” I admit. “At first, I hated him, but with every passing day it felt like I was forcing myself to despise him and it all slowly went away. In a sense, I’d like to think I’m happy, yes. But in love like husband and wife should be? No.”

“If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.”

“What about you and Ares? Are you still—”

“I don’t like to think about him,” he says with a sense of harshness in his tone.

“Isn’t there something you like to remember to keep you sane? To keep you going while being in here?”

He laughs, a hum escaping him. “The last thing I said to him was… I told him that he was a bastard. It was a stupid argument, really, and definitely didn’t warrant that response, but I said it and it’s the last thing he had from me before I stormed out.” He pauses briefly, placing another torn-off bit of sandwich into his mouth. “If I had known that was the last time—”

“But you didn’t,” I interrupt him, a quick change in my tone. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Maybe, but somehow he did. He told me he felt something about this mission wouldn’t end well, and I listened… for about a week. But after our petty fight, I took it to spite him. I should’ve listened.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“But I should have. His gut instincts were always right. No matter what they were, they were right and made enough sense that after the first time, I always listened to him.”

“So, what did you fight about?”

“Liana, I told you—”

“I know what you said, Apollo, but I’m here to make up for lost time. I want to know who you were after you left and what led you here, before I do what Dario wants. You will always, always be my family before anyone else.”

Finally, he looks at me. I hadn’t noticed before through my blurred vision caused by tears, but his eyes… His eyes are different. Not only are they filled with dread and numbness, oneis completely white, a lengthy scar above his eyebrow down to mid-cheek, while the other seems untouched; it mimics Savio’s childhood scar.

My hand lifts on its own accord, wanting to feel it, but his head retreats. “You can look, but you can’t touch. I can hear the questions escaping you, but for now, you only get one, so choose it wisely.”

“I still want to know you,” I admit, pulling my hand back. “What happened with Ares before you came here?”

“We were arguing about kids,” he starts, looking back at his tray of food. “I wanted them, he didn’t, and I accepted that. Some people are destined to want children, but if their partner doesn’t, they find something to fill in that void. Ares’ love was enough to fill that void for me.”

“I thought there was an argument?”

“I’m setting the scene so you’ll understand why I acted the way I did,” he quips. “The day I left, he found out he had a daughter. It was a summer thing with this girl back in high school. The only reason she told him was because she was ill, afraid she wouldn’t make it, and wanted her daughter to know her father. Without a single ounce of hesitation, he rose to the occasion. I called him a bastard because he was contradicting himself. He told me he didn’t want children, but the second he found out he already had one, he was ready. I guess he just didn’t want one with me.”

“Not necessarily,” I answer, hoping to get my words out before he cuts me off. “By knowing he was already a father, he might’ve realised he was wrong. Sure, he thought he didn’t want one, but I guarantee once he found out, his feelings on the whole ‘kid’ situation changed.”

“Maybe, but I was so worked up that I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even look at him without feeling angry. I was so pissed off at him, like he was telling me I wasn’t enough. That I wasn’t father material.” He looks up at me again. “Do you know what it feels like to be looked at by your partner and suddenly see all the things you hate about yourself? It’s like he was telling me everything I already hated about myself, making me relive everything over and over again. He was my everything and he made me feel lower than Gabriel ever did. I swear he had the same look in his eye, too.”

“You were only seeing what you wanted to see.”

“And I saw the pain and anguish in his face long before he even realised he felt it. By that point, I was long gone, erasing everything about myself to become someone new—to become the person that came here.”

“Wait,” I say, a brief sense of hesitation in my tone. “Dario said you evaded them for a year before they caught you—didn’t you go to see him? Didn’t you try to make amends before they caught you?”

He sucks his teeth. “I tried. I went back to our old house, but I didn’t go inside. I mean, what could I have said that would’ve made anything better? Instead, I went around back and watched as he played with her. She squealed as he picked her up and he laughed like I’d never heard him laugh before. I wanted to be there with them. I wanted to be a part of their family, but then I saw him. Ares was with another man. I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t throw myself back into his life. He was happier without me there—he was happier with his daughter and someone new. It’s what he deserved.”

“Oh, Apollo, I’m so sorry,” I whisper, resisting the urge to touch him.

“They only found me because I visited his place on a regular basis. To hear his voice was like music to my ears, music I hadn’t realised I loved so much until it was gone.”

“So tell Dario what he needs to know, Apollo. Tell him why you were here and your plans, so you can see Ares again. You deserve closure as much as everyone else involved.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know anything; it was an anonymous mission. Before we came here, we managed to find his name, but it proved to be a dead end. The man who ended our lives doesn’t exist.”

Another man who doesn’t exist.What the fuck have I walked into?

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