Chapter One
Six Months Earlier
There are too many people. They are everywhere, crowding the sidewalks, the streets, adding to the already unbearable heat of Miami.
Millions of eyes, all staring at me with disgust.
The rage boils up inside me, but what am I to do? And how can I blame them? No matter the injury done to me, no matter how much I rail at the injustice that people can no longer see past my hideous face… it doesn’t change my circumstances.
I am the same person inside that I always was, for the most part. Though I admit, storms of anger now taint my every thought, every feeling with red, because of what I’ve become on the outside. A monster.
It doesn’t matter. Soon I will be alone. Finally, blessedly and completely alone.
As I stalk down the crowded sidewalk to the office of the seaplane charter company, I try to push away the memory of how I came to be like this—once a rich, successful man on top of the world, now a mangled beast. Though I know I can’t focus on it if I want to survive, still the darkness dogs my every step.
Celeste. A beautiful icy blonde who loved the same things that I did: money, celebrity, and games of dominance and submission. But she loved one thing that I did not—her childhood sweetheart, a grifter more ruthless than I had ever been. I’d been so in love—at least, I’d thought I was—that I’d never seen the trap they’d set coming, the trap that left me bloody, scarred and very nearly broken. It also left me without a considerable chunk of my bank account, though not nearly as much as they’d imagined. I wish I could find more satisfaction in the fact that I’d withheld the enormity of my fortune from her.
The money? I can let it go.
The scars, both inside and out? They changed my life irrevocably. The prodigal son made a fool by love.
Never again. Where I’m going, it won’t get the chance.
A year ago I purchased the small island in the warm waters of the Bermuda triangle sight unseen, with thoughts of opening an exclusive resort of some sort. A fanciful dream made more tempting by my accountant’s promise of lower taxes.
Maybe the fingers of fate prodded me towards that particular purchase, because though the accident has halted those plans abruptly, I have plenty of use for the island.
I need to heal. And a tiny, deserted chunk of land that doesn’t even have a name sounds like heaven at the moment. A place where there will be no one to see me. No one to stare.
No one to make me feel like less of a man.
The plane charter office is much as I expected it to be—a rundown interior housed inside a tiny bungalow by the edge of the water. The door is propped open, to let the sunlight in and, I imagine, the stuffy interior out. Only a handful of people are inside.
The woman behind the counter is young, perhaps mid-twenties—close to my own age. She’s attractive, with skin the color of copper, and long spirals of dark curling hair.
Once, I could have charmed her with nothing more than a slow smile.
Now? She looks up as I enter, and though she quickly recovers from it, she winces once, quickly, when her eyes find the scarred half of my face.
Though it makes my stomach do a slow roll, I ignore it, push it down. Approach the counter that she stands behind.
“Theodosius Vardalos.” Pulling a sheath of papers from the pocket of my jeans, I slide them across the chipped laminate. “I have a reservation for a private charter.”
Her smile is bright, overly so as she scans the papers detailing my reservation. Her smile falters as she reads to the bottom of the paper.
“Mr. Vardalos.” Smiling nervously, she looks at me—and immediately looks away. Staring at her hands, she taps on the ancient looking computer in front of her. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vardalos, but your charter has been cancelled. Your pilot is sick.”
“And I’m sure you have more than one. There must be someone available.” Calmly, I hand her a crisp stack of bills. I won’t entertain this turn of events. I hired this company and paid them a ridiculous amount of money to not only fly me the two hours that it will take to get to the island—alone—but also to procure all the items on the list of supplies that I gave them.
I don’t really care who pilots the plane, so long as they’re competent. What matters is that within the next few minutes I am on that aircraft, sailing toward the blessed solitude that I crave.
Have to get away. Need to get to my island.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Vardalos, but we’re just a small operation here. We only have three pilots total, and the other two are booked up for the day.” She still won’t look at me, and the rage that I am becoming so accustomed to again beats beneath my skin.
I have been attempting to hide my scars, angling my face so as not to frighten her, but now I rotate my body so that I am facing her fully, so that if she looks up she has no choice
Look at the monster, little girl. Be afraid.
Her stare settles on me, and when she flinches I feel the pulse of satisfaction, deep in my gut. I don’t say anything; I know that looking at me is reprimand enough.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Vardalos.” Tearing her gaze away from my disfigured face, the woman looks down at her hands and pushes the money back in my direction. “There are no more options here. We have no one.”
Frustration blinds me with its thick haze, and with it comes a healthy dose of panic. I need to get out to that island, now. The thought of being out there, of being blessedly alone, is what I’ve clung to since the accident. It’s the only thing that had kept my mind from becoming as mangled as my face. I’ll die if I have to go through this hell for one more day.
“This is unacceptable—” I’m cut off by a clear female voice.
“There’s one more option, if you’re interested. I can fly the plane.”
The quick burst of hope is tempered with incredulity when I turn and find the owner of that voice. A slip of a girl that I barely even noticed on my way into the charter office has sidled up to the counter where I’m standing, a thoughtful expression on her face.
She’s dressed in worn denim overalls and a sleeveless shirt the color of green olives. Her hair is light brown, and pulled back in a way that only makes her innocent looking face appear younger.
She’s a child. She doesn’t look old enough to have a beer, let alone to fly a damn plane. But something about the spooked look in her green eyes, the determined jut of her chin is familiar, and holds my attention.
She’s a pretty girl, but the interest she piques in me isn’t sexual. Maybe it’s the way she doesn’t pretend that she hasn’t seen my scars, but instead studies them with mild curiosity, the way she’d look at anyone else. She doesn’t care about them, I realize. Not at all. But the determined tilt of her head says she is serious about flying my plane.
More than desperation tells me to trust her. I can feel it in my gut. She can take me where I need to go.
“You have a pilot’s license?” Narrowing my eyes, I shoot her my most intimidating stare, the one that once struck fear into the hearts of businessman far more experienced than me.
“I do. And I’ve got more hours in flight than the other three put together.”
The clerk doesn’t disagree, and the girl sounds sincere. I can’t help but wonder why she isn’t one of their pilots…and why this young woman who seems so resolute has so many ghosts in her eyes.
My instincts are telling me to go with her. For once I listen, nodding my head as I make up my mind. “That will do, so long as you can get this particular plane in the air. It has all my supplies.”
For what I have already paid this company, it better.
“The plane is loaded up, but I can’t just let anyone fly it.” The woman behind the counter slaps a hand down on the laminate service, as if trying to regain control of the situation. “There are regulations. Insurance. She was only hired to help the owner with some repair—she isn’t authorized to fly our planes.”
“She most certainly
is.” Without looking at the charter employee again, I draw another thick stack of folded bills from the pocket of my jeans. I don’t count it before adding it to the rest and sliding it across the counter, but it’s probably more money than the small sea plane is worth.
I hear her stutter; I don’t care. Instead, I look the girl over once more.
She doesn’t care about the scars. Have I run into a single old friend or stranger on the street since it happened who didn’t recoil in horror? If so I can’t remember. I’ve either hired a blind pilot, she’s angling for sainthood, or she’s seen worse.
Rattling off the coordinates, I study her intently. Apart from that look in her eye, the one that suggests that maybe she has some demons of her own, she appears cool. Collected.
“That’s where I’m going. Can you get me there?”
She shrugs, nonchalant. “If there’s a lagoon where I can land the plane, then sure. Can’t land a puddle jumper on open water.”
“Don’t you need to see the plane before you know you can fly it?
“Do you need to inspect every different model of car out there to know that you can probably figure out how to drive them?” She grins, the first smile I’ve seen. It lights up her face, chases away the shadows. “I’ll have to find where a few key things are before we take off, but I haven’t met a plane yet I can’t fly. So yes, I’m sure I can do it.”
Momentarily placated, I gesture for her to step outside, following closely behind. Blinded by the late afternoon sun, I shield my eyes, look down the dock to where a small white puddle jumper with sky blue accents is tied up.
“Why do you want to do this? I haven’t even told you how much I’ll pay you.” She doesn’t know my name, doesn’t have any idea who I used to be. For all she knows I could be a dangerous criminal. A killer.
She could be a killer. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been fooled by a pretty face.
At the end of the day, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. If my instincts are off, if she’s a shitty pilot, if she wants to murder me and dump my body in the ocean…
I don’t entirely know that I care. Not anymore.
The girl shrugs again, stuffing her hands deep into her baggy pockets. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got nothing else to do.”
That’s not it—or at least, it’s not all.
But her reasons for being here are none of my business. Even though I’m about to put my life in her hands, I’m hard-pressed finding the energy to care.
“Just tell me your name, then, and we have a deal.” I hold out my hand, a gesture that I’ve adopted, though it’s not so common in my home country of Greece. She eyes it warily, then slides her small palm against my own.
A jolt passes through me—that sense of familiarity, but stronger.
“Do I know you?” I query, peering down into her face. The feeling isn’t one of attraction, not at all… rather, the feel of her dry, cool hand against my own soothes me in a way that nothing has since my accident.
“I think I just have one of those faces.” She hesitates, then seems to settle. That jolt that passed between us—that almost familial feeling link—I’m pretty sure she felt it too. “And you can call me Joely.”
“Joely.” An unusual name, yet it fits her. Satisfied I nod, squeeze her hand once more. “I’m Theodosius Vardalos.”
I wait for her eyes to widen with recognition—the society pages used to love to detail my exploits, especially those of a romantic nature.
“That is one mouthful of a name, big guy. I think I’ll call you Mr. V.” She nods decisively, as if satisfied with the nickname, then gestures to the plane. “Your chariot awaits, Mr. V. Please keep your hands and feet inside the plane at all times, no smoking or listening to music the pilot doesn’t approve of, and in the event of a crash landing I’m sure something on this baby floats, so we’re good. Next stop, the middle of nowhere.”
Nowhere was exactly where I wanted to be.
I was going to the island.