Chapter 4



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Chapter 4

“Eros, pl-please!” her voice shook as she tried making head or tail of this situation. Her brother was her responsibility! She had practically raised him after her parents had died when she was nineteen and Daniel had been fourteen.

And now he was her only living family. She wanted to cry and wail, that at the end of the day, she had been a failure in that part of her life too. She had failed to raise him as a good man! ‘God! Was it something she did, that had turned him out like this – A thief?’

“You can’t do this Eros....please!” Suddenly, she was ready to do anything , anything at all to save Daniel. ‘He just had his 18th birthday a few weeks ago, was still only a boy! With his whole future in front of him.....’ Then, how could she stand there and watch her brother being dragged down into jail and do nothing as his whole future is ruined, forever!

‘God! He was supposed to start collage in the fall!’ Her hands shook as she held the warm cup of coffee between her palms.

 “Why the hell not?” Eros replied with the same venom in his tone, that had coloured his words all throughout this conversation. “Give me one reason! A single good reason why I shouldn’t have that bastard arrested and incarcerated into a county jail somewhere?”

For a second, Anna looked blankly at the bitter man sitting in front of her – opening and then quickly closing her mouth as she tried to think of something to say to him in reply.

But nothing came to mind, what can she say except the fact that, “He is my brother!”

“And who are YOU Anna?” Eros gave a short laugh. “From the moment we have met today, you had denied to be called or referred as ‘my wife’ every single time. Why should your brother – that little jerk matter to me?”

Once again Anna was left speechless, staring blankly at the foreign man, who was once again hell bent on destroying her life.

“After all that you did to me, during our marriage.....all the things I went through, can’t you let this ONE thing go? Only this once? I-I understand that you had to pay a lot of money to get those rings back and -and I promise to pay it back.....” She gulped down the bile that had risen to her throat, as she looked pleadingly at the cold hard man in front of her.

“I will sell the apartment if I had to and there’s some money left from my father’s life insurance that was supposed to go to Daniel’s collage fund but –”

‘Bang!’ Anna looked up from her cup of coffee, the sound had been of his fist hitting the hardwood of the rickety pink table that they had been sitting on. “Do you really think, I am here for the money Anna?” He thundered and thus, riveted the attention of every single person in their vicinity to now look at them.

“That little jerk had been running rings around you for many years now!” He spoke with barely suppressed anger in his voice. “Hanging out with drug dealers, thugs and what not. But you still keep your eyes tightly shut, when it comes to your little brother’s dark side! And pretend like nothing’s wrong with him! The way he had been heading, this was inevitable.....”

“That’s not true!” Anna cried, this time the tears finally making their way through her eyes and dropped along her soft cheeks, before she aggressively rubbed them off.

“Maybe it was an emergency and he had needed the money....”

“And maybe there are Lilliput’s living in the earth’s core.....”Eros snapped back in his sarcasm dripped voice. “Just accept it Anna that your little brother is no longer the innocent child that you have known and loved. He had changed!”

“For the worse!” Anna finished. And a grim silence settled around them where both of them looked away from each other.

Where Anna slowly came to the realization that maybe Eros Kozakis had a point, that maybe it was time to accept that Daniel, the little boy she had so loved and cherished, was lost now!

 Eros knew that his wife loved Daniel more than anyone in this world and this was going to hurt her, but things could no longer go on like this. Someone needed to shake her awake and make her see the truth before it was too late.

“I-I will pay you back the money for the rings. I promise.” She said at long last, after the stretched silence. “And I will talk to Daniel too. Make him understand that what he had done was despicable, that it would land him in a lot of trouble-”

“And let me guess....after you have that serious talk with him, you will make him pinky promise you that he will never do such a despicable thing again or else he will be grounded!” Eros laughed, the sound of which rubbed raw against Anna’s skin.

“Then, YOU tell me – What should I do?” She shrieked. “Let the police drag him into jail and watch his life being destroyed right in front of me?” Tears were falling freely from her eyes now and she could only imagine how pathetic she looked in his eyes.

Once again a long silence stretched between the two of them, as they each looked away. Anna bent her head low, watching the hazy shape of the coffee mug through her tear stained eyes, while Eros looked at the darkened sky outside as a grim determination settled on his features.

“If you don’t want the police involved, then fine. I will deal with Daniel myself!” Through the haze of misery, Anna heard those words and jerked her head up to look into his face.

“What do you mean, you will deal with him?” She asked as yet another kind of horrifying scenarios flashed through her head.

“Don’t worry glykia mou, I won’t harm him.” He said with a self deprecating smile. “But I will be sending him off to work, so that he could pay me back the money he owes me and maybe finally learn – how to be a responsible adult, on the way.”

“An-And that would mean that – you will call off the police investigation?” Anna asked as her heart swelled with hope, and her fingers crossed behind her back. “He won’t be taken to jail?”

 Eros nodded solemnly, watching his wife finally breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that this short respite was going to be over soon.

“But I have a condition of my own....” he drawled and waited for his wife to look at him again, before continuing. “You will have to come back to me glykia mou, as my wife – back into my bed!”

And suddenly, with a loud rumble – the clouds burst forth. The splatter of rain drenching all the poor souls that had the misfortune of standing under the open sky.



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