Seduced by Passion

Seduced by Passion - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The Letter

Raph was still sitting at his pappoús' bedside when he felt Neo and Tele's hands on his shoulders. He'd been so lost in his sea of grief that he hadn't even heard them enter the room. He lifted his head and stared into the faces that resembled his, and although the sorrow in their green eyes mirrored his, Raph felt as if he needed to say the words. "He's gone," he whispered in a broken voice.

They crouched down beside the chair and hugged him as they looked upon the body of the man who had been a surrogate father to them since they were six years old.

"He's at peace, now," Neo said, wiping his eyes. "He was never the same after Yaya and Baba died. He'd been longing to be with them for years. I think he was holding on just for us."

Tele shook his head slowly. "Losing the love of your life is bad enough but losing your only child at the same time is the worst thing that could happen to anyone. The pain of losing Helena is so unbearable at times. Even though I have Petra who reminds me of her, sometimes I wish I had died with her."

"Telepheus Giannopoulos, don't ever let me hear you say such a horrible thing again! Ever!"

Raph and his brothers turned as their mother entered the room. Even though he wasn't the one who'd tested the fates, when he saw the shock on his mother's face, Raph felt as if it was his fault. He had always taken the blame for his brothers when they got in trouble as children. Even to this day, they willingly stepped aside and let him take the fall. He was not taking the fall today. Raph stood and nudged Tele in the side. "Go to her."

Tele met their mother at the door. "I didn't mean it, Mom," he said. "It's just too painful when I think about her, and when I look at Petra— She looks so much like her mother. It brings back too many memories, especially of that day."

Jordan clasped his face in her hands, wiping at his tears with her thumbs. "You think I don't know how it feels, my baby boy? I know your pain. Not a day goes by that I don't think of your father. I miss him with everything in me, but I never once wished I had died with him."

Tension swirled in Raph's belly as he thought of that fateful night his father and grandmother died. Jordan and Kerena were on their way out the door to meet some friends at a restaurant in Oia. But at the last minute, Rapheus had come down with a stomach bug, and Jordan had decided to stay home with him. Instead of letting his mother go alone with the family driver, Xander had driven her to her lunch date in his brand-new Ferrari.

Raph had always wrestled with the possibility that if he hadn't gotten sick, his mother and grandmother would have left for the restaurant earlier with the driver, and his father would not have been taking the steep curve at the same time as the produce truck coming from the opposite direction. They'd died instantly, and the old man who'd been driving the speeding truck succumbed to his injuries the following week.

He swallowed the rising panic in his throat as he recalled hearing his mother's blood-curling scream echoing through the house when the police had come to give her the news. Still weak with fever, he'd jumped out of his bed and run into the living room to find her standing by the door screaming her husband's name at the top of her lungs with Neo and Tele holding onto her, and his grandfather on his knees, rocking back and forth, his face buried in his hands, calling his wife's name.

No one had needed to tell Raph what had happened, and his little heart had broken in two as he'd rushed to his grandfather and thrown his arms around him.

"I might never know why fate took my darling Xander," Jordan said.

Raph sucked air into his lungs as his mother's voice yanked him back from the abyss, and the despair of the "what ifs" that have plagued him all his life.