Insufferable Proximity (74 page)

“What the fuck is this about?” Julian hissed yanking his arms again as he abruptly sat up and Gavin stepped back a little. “Get to the fucking point.”

“The point? May’s love turned to fury and her obsession with revenge was her only comfort. She raised Prince Charming’s child with the sole intent to exact her revenge, she wanted him to feel the same loss that she felt.  She diligently trained that child to walk in his father’s footsteps and slowly destroy him from within. First starting with the reason he left May in the first place, the baby his wife used to get him back.”

“And do what?” Heaven asked.

“Kill him. I was trained to kill my own half-brother and his mother.” he pulled the other picture from his pocket and held it out for Julian to see. It was the same women, but in this picture she was with Ayden King, his arm wrapped around her.

“What is it?” Heaven asked, “Julian!” she cried, trying to get his attention after seeing the look of stunned disbelief on his face.

“It’s my father and May.” he answered and Heaven looked at him in horror as Julian looked at Gavin.

“Surprise,’ Gavin’s smile seemed almost sad, “we’re brothers.”

***

Ayden picked up Fritz and they headed towards Julian’s house.

“Who is she?” Fritz asked Ayden.

“Remember when I was going to get a divorce.”

“Yeah, right before you found out Julia was pregnant with Julian.” Fritz answered.

“You remember the woman I was having the affair with?”

“Of course, how could I forget, May." he answered remembering the woman very well. “The woman who drank bleach when you went away on a business trip, just because she had a vision you were with another woman.”

“Yes.”

“The same woman who took a nose-dive off a cliff on the night you re-married your wife.”

Ayden thought about the woman who had been as beautiful as she was mentally unstable.  Ayden had been going through a horrible time in his life and had met May by chance. May had been a lost soul, even more depressed then he was, she was fragile but he saw this inner light in her eyes that he could not resist. In May he found the wounded bird he convinced himself he needed to fix, a gracious beauty whose cool facade carefully hid her monstrous inner wounds and deep self-hatred. He had just assumed she was quirky, and all of her eccentricities added to her appeal, but it wasn’t long before he noticed it went much deeper. He watched her jealousy taint her rationality and feed her paranoia, her delusions festered and led her far away from reality. He watched her spin out of control, desperately reaching for his hand to take him along with her for the ride.

“I think that May might be Gavin Grant’s mother.” he finished.

“You’re fucking kidding me!” Fritz exclaimed in disbelief.

“I think Gavin may be my son.”

***

Gavin heard them coming up the stairs and stood to the side of the door. Fitz opened the door, stunned by the sight of Julian chained to the bed and Heaven chained to a chair. He had not even stepped through the door frame when Gavin slammed the long thick piece of wood onto his head. Fritz fell forward into the room and Gavin slammed the wood into his back. By the time Gavin noticed Ayden, it was too late, Ayden jumped on Gavin’s back, trying to wrestle the wood from him. Fritz was out cold on the floor but Julian was yelling his name trying to wake him up. Julian yanked on the chains with all of his might, watching Gavin and his father fight for the wood. Julian watched in slow motion as Gavin withdrew his gun and held it to Heaven’s head.

“No!” Julian roared like a wild animal as Ayden rose to his full height.

“Back off, or I will shoot her!” Gavin warned them.

“You back the fuck away from her!” Julian roared, yanking hard against the bedposts, feeling the wood continue to weaken under the pressure. “Don’t you fucking touch her?”

“I know why you’re doing this.” Ayden said looking Gavin in the eyes.

“You don’t know shit!” Gavin shot back.

“I know who your mother is and I know that you’re my son.”

“It took you long enough to figure it out. Too bad you didn’t discover that years ago, you might have been able to save me.” he spat.

“I had no idea, she never told about me.”

“Too bad, because if you had of even kept track of May, you would have known about me. You alone could have prevented this, you alone could have stopped that woman from doing what she did to me.”

“What did she do?” knowing May the way he did, Ayden was afraid to ask.

“She tortured me for being your son,” he said, keeping the gun trained on Heaven while lifting his shirt with his free hand, revealing a chest and back covered with deep scars.

“Oh god no!” Ayden cried out in horror and Heaven gasped seeing the horrific carvings on Gavin’s body. Julian sat silently, unaffected by Gavin’s wounds.

“She had visions that you could feel the pain she inflicted on me,” Gavin looked like a sad little boy for a moment, “so every time she thought of you, she hurt me.”

“I’m so sorry.” Ayden said, wishing he had of known and was able to save his son from the cruelty his mother inflicted.

“She used to drive by your house and just wait to see you. One day she watched you kiss your wife in your front yard, I ended up in the hospital for a week. She told the doctor I feel down a flight of stairs. I did like the hospital though, the nurses were nice and let me have pain medication, May always wanted me to feel the pain, otherwise she feared that you might not.”

“Son, put the gun down, we can work this out.” Ayden pleaded but Gavin shook his head.

“It’s too late for that.” he shrugged, “it would have been nice but it wasn’t in the cards for me. Although it wasn’t supposed to go like this, you were supposed to believe Heaven killed Julian, not me. After his death there would have finally been room for me in your life and you would have never known I was behind his death.”

“You don’t have to do this, this is your mothers fight, not yours! She did this to you!” Ayden tried to reason with him.

“That’s where you’re wrong, it is my fight, I suffered enough for her cause that it became mine as well. And now I am going to make you feel what I felt, I am going to shoot your son right in front of you.” he said and aimed the gun at Julian.

“No!” Heaven screeched at the top of her lungs.

***

Alice heard the loud scream and looked up to the ceiling then hiccupped. She took off her shoes and silently crept up the stairs and heard muffled words coming from Julian’s room. She stood with her back against the wall that turned to the hall leading to the room then took a deep breath and carefully peeked around the corner. She saw a sliver of Julian against the headboard, his father Ayden had his hands up in surrender and she saw a forearm to the right, its hand clutching a gun. Alice was drunk but she wasn’t incompetent, she silently went back down the stairs and tried to use the house phone to call the police. She wasn’t too surprised to find the phone line was cut and ran down to her room to grab her own cell phone then called the police.

***

“Please don’t shoot him!” Heaven cried and Gavin looked at her in disgust. Fritz was moving and Heaven was trying to distract Gavin so he would focus on her.

“To think that once you were on my side, you hated him just as much as I do.” Gavin spat in disgust and Julian yanked against the bedposts.

“Just let him go.” she pleaded, and Gavin took a step towards her.

“Stop it! Stop begging for his life!” Gavin yelled at her, grabbing her face and Julian went wild. Gavin was too busy focusing on Heaven to notice that Fritz had rose to his full height. In one swift movement, Fritz grabbed the hand holding the gun and pointed it up to the ceiling as Gavin fired the weapon. Julian managed to break the thick wood of the bedpost and was now unchaining himself as Fritz, Ayden and Gavin fought for control of the gun. Within moments Julian was loose and with panther like movements, jumped off the bed and tackled them all to the ground, his hands finding Gavin’s throat as Ayden and Fritz jumped back. Ayden immediately began to untie Heaven as Julian sat on Gavin’s chest, slamming his heavy fists into his head. Gavin tried desperately to get loose but he was no match for Julian’s strength and was quickly subcoming to the beating. Fritz, seeing Julian’s rage begin to rise with each punch he delivered, tried to pull him off Gavin before he killed him. Unfortunately, Julian was too far gone to reason with and too deep in his frenzied rage to pull away.

Ayden finished untying Heaven and tried to take her out of the room. Heaven, seeing the state that Julian was in ran over to him and kneeled before him, Gavin was obviously unconscious at this point and no longer a threat to any of them.

“You have to stop!” she grabbed his face, looking into his eyes. He stared at her blankly for a moment until she finally watched his blood lust subside. He looked at her, his eyes focusing then he grabbed her in his embrace, pulling her tightly to him. Julian stood up, refusing to let her go, he sat back on the bed, his hands clutching Heaven as Fritz and Ayden kneeled over Gavin.

***

“I’ll be back!” Gavin screamed like a lunatic as three officers put him in the back of the police car.

“It’s over,” Heaven said as she turned to look at Julian, “it’s finally over, now we can be together with no danger, no Gavin, no contract and no rules.

“We are getting married first thing in the morning, Princess.” Julian said as he bent down to plant a kiss on her lips.

“That sounds like a fantastic idea.” She smiled right before he kissed her.

***

-Five Years Later-

Levi King was turning two years old and to honor his birthday, his father turned their ridiculously-large backyard into an amusement park, complete with a merry go round, bumper cars and ponies.

“Be careful!” Heaven warned Julian, who was holding Levi on his lap in the bumper car. Julian and blue car in front of him were close to a head on collision and Heaven could feel her anxieties begin to rise. “If he has one scratch on him I will make you pay Julian King!”

“You hear your mother?” Julian whispered to his son who nodded eagerly.

“Yes.”

“You better cover that scratch or she’s going to kick my butt.” he grinned and Levi giggled. “Now hold on tight and we’ll hit them one last time before we have to get off.”

“No, I wanna ride!” Levi whined, not ready to stop yet.

“Slow down!” Heaven yelled to Julian who was ignoring her so she turned to the blue bumper car. “Ian, you slow down then since your brother is not listening to me!”

After Ian King learned about Gavin being his half-brother and found out how close he came to losing his own brother, Ian made a change in his life. First he started by working on his relationship with Julian and in the process he had divorced his gold-digging wife. It had been a hell of a divorce and had taken its toll on Ian, but he was happier now. His mother had been very upset at first, but after the birth of her first grandchild, Julia King’s heart began to warm up a little. Ian’s heart had also warmed up to a certain secretary and he was happier than anyone in his family had ever seen him. Gone was the stuffy, uptight Ian King and in his place was a man who was refusing to take life so seriously.

“Gloria, please tell your man to slow down, because if one of them doesn’t stop I will go up there, remove my baby from the scene of the upcoming crime, jump in a bumper car and run them both over.” Heaven said with a frown and Gloria giggled.

Gloria knew what true happiness was for the first time in her life, she had met a man who treated her like a real woman and not a paid escort. She had told Ian all of her dirty secrets and to her complete surprise, he told her he didn’t care. It felt good to be with a man who loved her for her personality and not what she had to offer.

“Ian, please slow down before Heaven runs you over with a bumper car.” Gloria smiled at her prince charming and Ian nodded as he slowed down.

“Scaredy-cat!” Levi yelled at his uncle and Julian laughed hard as he stepped out of the bumper car. “One more ride!”

“No more.”

“One more ride!” Levi stomped his foot and Julian grinned, seeing himself in his son more and more by the day. He reached down to pick him up and then put him up on his shoulders. Levi continued complaining as they headed towards Heaven.

“I want to ride!” Levi said as Heaven took him.

“I thought you said you wanted chocolate cake.” she smiled at her son.

“I want cake.” he nodded his little head up and down, his attention now on his huge birthday cake.

“I’ll take you back on the bumper cars after you eat.” Julian said and Heaven scoffed.

“Why don’t you take him on the merry go round instead, it‘s much safer.” she suggested.

“No, Bumper cars!” Levi cried with a mouth full of cake and ready to throw a fit.

***

Heaven sat by Levi’s bed and read him his favorite bedtime story, she waited until he was asleep then kissed his forehead and left his bedroom.

“Is he asleep?” Julian asked coming up from behind.

“Yes.”