Page 83 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream
My heart thumps for him. I literally cannot imagine what that must have been like.
“A few weeks passed and I hardly slept. I knew he was biding his time—lulling me into a false sense of security before he made his move. But I couldn’t wait for the inevitable. I went for him instead.”
I suck in a gasp.
“He pulled out a knife and would’ve slit my throat if I hadn’t knocked it from his hand and punched his lights out.” He sighs, pensively. “I couldn’t kill him. Even though I’d got a decent amount of blood on my hands already, I knew that if I took his life, the few loyal soldiers he had left would have come after me, and I didn’t want to be looking over my shoulder for the next few years.”
“What did you do?” I whisper.
“I ran. I was fourteen.”
I hold his hand tighter as we continue walking past the museums.
“Fourteen,” I murmur. “So young. How on earth did you survive?”
He smiles faintly, and for a moment the weight in his expression lifts.
“I made friends. Hid in bus stations, stole food. One day, a woman approached me while I was sleeping on a bench. She ran a shelter for street kids, orphans. She took me in.”
I feel as though my heart is breaking down the middle for him. “Who was she?”
“Her name was Agnes. She died a few years back—lung cancer. She smoked like a chimney.”
He stops and rests a warm gaze on my face. “She was the first person to calculate my birth chart.”
I inhale a fast breath. “That’s why you didn’t seem fazed when I talked to you about my interest in astrology.”
“Yeah,” he smiles. “And for what it’s worth, your interpretations were spookily similar. And she’d been practicing for decades.”
“Wow,” I reply, grinning. “I’m pleased.”
“Well, anyway, that’s where I met Arrow—and Viola.
My eyes widen. “Arrow and Viola were homeless too?”
He nods. “Arrow was. His parents were junkies. They didn’t know who he was half the time.”
My heart almost folds in on itself. I’ve only met Arrow a handful of times, but there’s an unshatterable bond between he and my husband that is only now beginning to make sense. I always knew there must have been good reason for the shadows Andreas andArrow carry with them like armor, but actually hearing it from Andreas’ lips pains me.
“And Viola?”
“She was a friend of Agnes’. She helped out at the shelter sometimes. When Agnes died, Viola got a job in a grocery store and hated it. So, when I got my first house I asked her to work for me, and she’s been with me ever since.”
My heart warms at the thought of Viola standing by Andreas for much of his adult life. “She’s a good woman. I like her.”
Andreas looks down at me softly. “She adores you,” he says, with an arched brow.
I smile. “I think the feeling is mutual.” Then a frown dips my brow. “Where is your father now?”
There’s no emotion to be found in his voice. “Dead and buried in the Bronx. He was involved in some gang-related drug bust a few years back, which turned nasty. One day, his is the name on everyone’s lips, because he had this annoying ability to manipulate anyone into believing his lies. The next, he’s dead. I felt nothing then. I feel nothing now.”
He stops and turns, his eyes meeting mine.
“The weird thing is, I still see him around, like he’s hovering in every corner and every crevice, watching me. I know it’s impossible, because he’s six feet underground, but every now and then I swear I see him. Nowak thinks I’m still processing trauma, that it’s a form of PTSD. I just think I missed out on the closurethat comes with watching your enemy’s life seep out of their body.”
His words make a chill coil around my spine. How tragic to need to witness your own father’s death just to be able to get on with your life.
“Arrow and I had no choice but to make our own way and our own luck. We learned how to wipe and refurbish smartphones and computers, sold them on the black market. We made a lot of money fast and our names became known in some high-end circles.”
