community-friendly obstetrician.
I crawl in bed beside her, completely jazzed on adrenaline though I should be exhausted. I feel good, better than I should following the events of the day. I hold Kitten, knowing that after the intense scene she just experienced she will need me when she wakes and even though her slumber is easy, I don’t sleep.
Hours later, she awakens in my arms and her eyes immediately fill with tears. “Do you hate me?”
I kiss her. “I love you. I was trying to help you figure out how you feel.”
“You would support me in the decision to have an abortion?”
It is almost impossible to say the words but I force myself to. “If that is what you want.”
“I don’t, I’m just…”
I wish I could read her mind. She is wearing the same expression she wore to her father’s funeral, lost, broken, dread-filled. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’ll be a terrible mother. I’m selfish, self-centered. I like having the party revolve around me.”
I laugh though I don’t mean to, explaining, “You just described Jackie.”
“No, Jackie is maternal, compassionate, selfless.”
“We are talking about the same Jackie, right?” I ask sarcastically and receive a well-deserved look of contempt.
“You know we are.”
“Two completely different sides of the same woman?”
She smirks, my meaning clear. I hug her closer.
“What if God takes my baby anyway to punish me for the past?”
“God doesn’t work that way.”
“You’re joking. You were exposed to the book of Genesis in the Catholic church you were raised in, right? Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt for daring to look upon deviants like us as they fled Sodom. What will He do to me if I try to raise a child under this roof?”
I kiss her. “God isn’t going to smite you or your baby.”
She sighs and cuddles closer. I close my eyes, hoping she won’t notice how truly upset I really am. I do not want her to even consider abortion. I thought we had this worked out…I know she told Thomas we would have this baby.
There’s no slowing my racing heart, but she doesn’t seem to notice. I excuse myself to retrieve my cellphone and make a few phone calls. Within a few minutes I have an appointment scheduled—the soonest available being almost two weeks away—I don’t know how I’ll ever survive the wait.
“Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud.”
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
Chapter 8
Nikos
The room is pitch black and I am hanging by chained manacles. My wounds flare, pain striking red hot through my body. Sweat-soaked, chattering, I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Whether it is yesterday or whether today has become tomorrow. All I know is that Shanghai is far behind me, and I long for the lush green mountains of Pelion overlooking the perfect azure of the Aegean. I haven’t been home in so, so long.
If I close my eyes I can smell the salt mingled with fir in the air, the musky sweetness of the olive trees surrounding the stone house I was raised in. If I listen closely, I can hear Grandfather’s voice: Take good care of your brother, Nikos, and Ari will take care of you. Protect him. All of your days. Don’t forget.
I took his place, protecting him, because Ari would have never survived King Cobra. That isn’t to say that Ari isn’t a dangerous motherfucker, it just means that he isn’t a sociopath. He still cares. He loves. He has hopes and dreams and ideals I can’t even fathom.
I not only survived King Cobra, I succeeded him.
What in the hell happened?
My tower was impenetrable. Whoever came after me didn’t kill me.
At first, I thought whoever shot me, whoever shot my men, was a puissant amateur, but no, my men were left alive for a reason. I was left alive for a reason. Why?
I close my eyes but it is not Greece I am transported to.
“Daniel? What the fuck happened to you, man?” Sean Paul, my beautiful, dark,
I crawl in bed beside her, completely jazzed on adrenaline though I should be exhausted. I feel good, better than I should following the events of the day. I hold Kitten, knowing that after the intense scene she just experienced she will need me when she wakes and even though her slumber is easy, I don’t sleep.
Hours later, she awakens in my arms and her eyes immediately fill with tears. “Do you hate me?”
I kiss her. “I love you. I was trying to help you figure out how you feel.”
“You would support me in the decision to have an abortion?”
It is almost impossible to say the words but I force myself to. “If that is what you want.”
“I don’t, I’m just…”
I wish I could read her mind. She is wearing the same expression she wore to her father’s funeral, lost, broken, dread-filled. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’ll be a terrible mother. I’m selfish, self-centered. I like having the party revolve around me.”
I laugh though I don’t mean to, explaining, “You just described Jackie.”
“No, Jackie is maternal, compassionate, selfless.”
“We are talking about the same Jackie, right?” I ask sarcastically and receive a well-deserved look of contempt.
“You know we are.”
“Two completely different sides of the same woman?”
She smirks, my meaning clear. I hug her closer.
“What if God takes my baby anyway to punish me for the past?”
“God doesn’t work that way.”
“You’re joking. You were exposed to the book of Genesis in the Catholic church you were raised in, right? Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt for daring to look upon deviants like us as they fled Sodom. What will He do to me if I try to raise a child under this roof?”
I kiss her. “God isn’t going to smite you or your baby.”
She sighs and cuddles closer. I close my eyes, hoping she won’t notice how truly upset I really am. I do not want her to even consider abortion. I thought we had this worked out…I know she told Thomas we would have this baby.
There’s no slowing my racing heart, but she doesn’t seem to notice. I excuse myself to retrieve my cellphone and make a few phone calls. Within a few minutes I have an appointment scheduled—the soonest available being almost two weeks away—I don’t know how I’ll ever survive the wait.
“Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud.”
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
Chapter 8
Nikos
The room is pitch black and I am hanging by chained manacles. My wounds flare, pain striking red hot through my body. Sweat-soaked, chattering, I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Whether it is yesterday or whether today has become tomorrow. All I know is that Shanghai is far behind me, and I long for the lush green mountains of Pelion overlooking the perfect azure of the Aegean. I haven’t been home in so, so long.
If I close my eyes I can smell the salt mingled with fir in the air, the musky sweetness of the olive trees surrounding the stone house I was raised in. If I listen closely, I can hear Grandfather’s voice: Take good care of your brother, Nikos, and Ari will take care of you. Protect him. All of your days. Don’t forget.
I took his place, protecting him, because Ari would have never survived King Cobra. That isn’t to say that Ari isn’t a dangerous motherfucker, it just means that he isn’t a sociopath. He still cares. He loves. He has hopes and dreams and ideals I can’t even fathom.
I not only survived King Cobra, I succeeded him.
What in the hell happened?
My tower was impenetrable. Whoever came after me didn’t kill me.
At first, I thought whoever shot me, whoever shot my men, was a puissant amateur, but no, my men were left alive for a reason. I was left alive for a reason. Why?
I close my eyes but it is not Greece I am transported to.
“Daniel? What the fuck happened to you, man?” Sean Paul, my beautiful, dark,
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