Chapter 4
Avidya
Dear Diary,
Today is yet another day. Another day living with the choice that changed everything. I worry constantly, day and night.
I can’t sleep. Can’t eat.
What have I done? Was it the right thing to do?
God, I hope so.
Will my sister be able to survive not only the marriage, but also living the life I put onto her?
I don’t know if I’ll live through what I’ve done. I can’t figure out if it was worth it or not.
I may not be alive to tell anyone anyway.
~ Rach
What was Lynn thinking? Did she really think that these journals would contain anything to tell me what I needed to know? There was only one more to go, and there were no answers to what was going on, or who I was.
I was no closer to finding answers.
I couldn’t find Lynn to ask myself.
Long story short, Racheal was my biological mother, who was won over by Aaron, a man of great power, in her teenage years. She gave me up to Lynn and Cody, and now, here I was. Apparently, she was trying to stay in hiding and not be found by the one man that wanted her dead.
Lynn could be just as depressed and messed up as her sister. Was it possible that I’d follow the same fate?
That was one thing that was clear as day from reading these journals. Racheal was depressed, so much so that she even hinted at killing herself more than once. I wondered if she would try and succeed, too.
I also gathered that Aaron was part of another powerful mafia family. A family that had died out in the last ten years due to their own stupid choices.
After spending so much time reading through every page, trying to read in between the lines, I found nothing that gave me any clue to who she was, or who I really was. It was all a waste of time.
I knew that these handwritten pages didn’t need to tell me who I was. I was finding out who I was on my own. I had a family that was supportive and would stand with me the entire way. I had a man that I was no doubt in love with, who loved me just as much in return. I had a life that I never thought I’d get the chance of having.
“Find anything in those?” Zachariah asked as he entered the office, finding me curled up in the oversized black leather chair facing the window. It was one of my favorite spots to be, even more so the last month. It was big enough for me to fall asleep with a blanket and a book.
He had taken a shower and trimmed his facial hair after Carlos had left. Showering at the hospital just wasn’t the same as doing it at home. It seemed to take forever to get the hospital smell out of my hair.
Because of my broken arm, which only had another few weeks being in a cast, it was difficult to take a shower. Which sucked.
It was also the first-time Jonas or Travis wasn’t here. Of course, there was a man or two lurking outside, keeping us safe. Zachariah was smart enough to not let all of his men off his property, knowing well enough that there is still a threat out there.
“Nothing of importance,” I sighed out. “Lynn said that there would be answers, but I found nothing. Other than Racheal being a depressed person that self-harmed, but you know, that could make sense with what Travis had found out,” I shrugged at the end.
“Maybe Lynn knows something that we haven’t picked up on in these,” Zachariah said on his way further into the room. “If only we could figure out where she went to.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I said as I tilted my face upwards when he stood right in front of me. Zachariah was a good six inches taller than me even when I was standing.
He picked up the discarded journal beside me and flipped through the pages.
“Travis is trying to get Racheal to at least see him, or you,” he mused. Racheal was in a mental ward not all that far from here. Travis had yet to see her face to face, but she was there, according to my half-brother. Apparently, he had friends in low places. “I have a feeling it won’t work. She’s scared. Look here,” he flipped the page that was written in almost in a rush. The words were sloppy, unlike most of the other entries.
“I had noticed that some of her entries are sloppier, more so in this one,” I said, taking hold of the book once more.
Glancing through the entry, I recalled how she felt the need to run, to hide. She wasn’t sure why she was feeling like she needed to, but her gut was telling her to do just that.
She had written:
My gut feelings are the only thing I can trust these days. I have nothing else to lean on. But where would I go? There is no family to protect me from what is about it come. I have nowhere to go, no one to ask for help. What am I to do?
“She’s mentioned that someone had been following her, and she was sure it was Aaron,” I stated, flipping to the page that she had written that tidbit down. She had expressed her concern that her ex-boyfriend was trying to even kill her.
“He did want her dead, and according to Travis, Aaron thinks she is currently dead,” Zachariah stated.
“Could he have been behind…” I feared to say the words, which wasn’t what I wanted to happen. Could this man that I knew of, but had yet to meet, be the one that wanted us dead? Or at least one of us.
“It’s possible, yes,” Zachariah stated, taking a seat next to me. “But with him owing money to another powerful family, it’s hard to tell at this point. My father and grandfather have looked at this at every possible angle already.”
Aaron was a drug dealer, a popular one at that. The past few years, he’d gone into debt because he started using the drugs instead of selling, which wasn’t a smart move on his part. That was after his family fell apart at the seams due to trusting the wrong people. He threatened enough lives, some more than others. He’d threatened to kill me before I was ever born.
Lynn had taken me in after Racheal begged for my life. If it wasn’t for Lynn and Cody, I wouldn’t be alive today. I knew that for a fact.
It didn’t really matter that I was marrying into a powerful family, I was still just Avidya. None of that nonsense mattered to me. It never would, either.
“How about we go lay down for a bit,” Zachariah said. “I’ve missed holding you. I’ve missed just having you all to myself.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said, letting the book sit in my place as I stood up, taking his hand in mine at the same moment.
At the simple touch, my skin sparked alight with fire.
I gave him a shy smile from under my eyelashes. I’d do just about anything for him. I’d walk through fire for this man.
It didn’t take long for us to crawl into bed, wrapped up in the covers. I lay on his chest, my casted arm on his chest, my head pillowed right under his chin.
After what felt like years, I was finally home.