A Million to One: (The Millionth Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  A MILLION TO ONE

  TONY FAGGIOLI

  ATTICUS CREATIVE

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  About the Author

  Also by Tony Faggioli

  All rights reserved

  (c) Tony Faggioli July 2016

  Atticus Creative

  "Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright ©1975 Bruce Springsteen, renewed © 2003 Bruce Springsteen (Global Music Rights). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN 978-0-9978974-3-2 print edition

  ISBN 978-0-9978974-4-9 ebook edition

  Created with Vellum

  For Maxime...thanks for loving me and believing in me. Every. Single. Day.

  PROLOGUE

  AT 11:16 P.M. IN Boston, Peter Jacobs sat at his wife’s hospital bed and wept.

  She was sound asleep, the way she spent most days now, the cancer having advanced relentlessly through her body the past few months. He held her left hand between both of his and tried not to sob, to keep his pain silent, and worse, to hold his remorse in check, but it was no use. Leaning over, he buried his face in the bedsheets, the starched edges carving grooves into his cheek, and finally allowed himself to think again of “the big mistake.”

  It had happened on a business trip to Toronto with, of all people, a woman he’d met on the flight. Seated next to each other, they’d made the usual small talk that strangers do, but then bonded over kid stories and the fact that they’d both gone to Oregon State, though many years apart. She was recently divorced and trying to find herself; he was ten years married and completely lost. They’d exchanged numbers, agreeing that they’d had so much fun chatting that it would be nice to meet for dinner.

  He knew better and so did she, but the next night, after they’d had sex, it felt very much like he’d surrendered far more than she had. She was trying to put her life back together. He had just torn his apart.

  That’s when “the big mistake” became a concept instead of a reality. He simply told himself it was an aberration in his behavior, in his life and in his marriage, and therefore, like a bone, it could be promptly buried. And it had been.

  Until now. Twenty-three years later.

  How do you tell the woman you’ve been married to for thirty-three years, who is dying after giving you three beautiful children, that you were unfaithful to her? How do you do that? The answer was: you didn’t. You kept your mouth shut until the bitter end, as she looked to you each day with her lovely blue eyes and leaned on you for the strength to die, until the drugs and dementia robbed her senses and the cancer robbed most of her consciousness.

  In short, you waited until it was too late to tell her, so that she could leave this life thinking that her husband had loved her, faithfully, all these years. He could never tell her then, and it was too late to tell her now.

  So there in her room, as the wind outside pushed against the hospital window, he wept bitterly and then turned to the only one left to talk to, God, whom he’d treated mostly as the postman all these years; as someone who delivered a blessing here or there and was then on his busy way.

  But now, for the first time, Peter had a twinge in his heart that made him want to really talk to God, to confess what he’d done and to ask for help. And so he did. It was the oddest thing, because he had no idea where this feeling to repent had suddenly come from.

  No idea at all.

  ANA BENTLEY HAD SLEPT with the school principal a few months after her son, Alex, started second grade. They had done it in his car on a starless Sydney night, behind the school after a PTA meeting, when they’d deliberately stalled until all the parents and teachers had left. She could still remember the cold leather of the bucket seat in his Lexus as she feverishly lost herself in the passion of the moment.

  The shame swept over her the moment he’d finished, a sort of self-loathing that settled into her core and reminded her of a few trysts during her college days. Except, back then, she could blame it on alcohol and her youth. This time she could blame it on neither.

  Her husband, Dan, wasn’t perfect, but he was a good man. He worked at the Australian Museum and liked to run marathons.

  They’d struggled getting pregnant the first time, before Alex was born, and they’d been struggling again the past few months. The first time around, Dan had been as patient as a saint, but this time was different; lately he seemed moody and irritated by the process, by all the IVF costs and hormone injections, as if he were maybe second guessing his choice for a wife. She knew that wasn’t fair. He’d never actually said that. But it was how she felt.

  She felt fat and ugly and barren. So when the principal made his move, making her feel skinny and beautiful and desired? She barely hesitated, which shocked her. She would’ve expected more of herself, and so would everybody else if they found out. Her only victory was in making him put on a condom, choosing to ignore the fact that he had one readily available in the glove compartment to begin with, as if maybe he did this all the time.

  Even though he wore a ring too.

  When it was over, she pulled up her underwear, tucked in her shame, then made her way to her own car and drove home in tears, thankful that her husband and son were in the den playing Wii so she could sneak upstairs and take a shower before bedtime.

  It was while washing the memory of it off that she decided she wouldn’t tell a soul.

  Since then, she’d kept that promise hidden in her heart like a ball of lint, choking on it when she woke up every day and each time her husband told her that he loved her, until today, ten months later, when she was lying on the doctor’s table and he came in to tell her that not only had one embryo taken, but two. Beginning to cry uncontrollably, one of the nurses had moved to comfort her and told her what a blessing it was. And it was. Just not one she felt that she deserved.

  Then, suddenly, as if from someplace far away, something in her heart told her that forgiveness was just a prayer away. Just one. So she closed her eyes tightly and did just that: she prayed openhearted for the first time in years, and felt the love of God fall upon her almost instantly.

  It was 1:16 p.m., Australian Eastern Standard time.

  JESSICA SAT in the waiting area of the attorney’s office just outside Portland, Oregon, and contemplated the finality of the process. More than a year of pitched battles over the kids, the house, the summer cabin and child support were about to culminate with some signed documents and cold stares, where something as benign as paper and ink would erase sixteen years of hard work and leave their four children
with divided schedules, a split home and quite possibly a shattered view of what love really was for the rest of their lives. This last fact, above all else, made Jessica sick to her stomach.

  Opposite her, looking ridiculous in his suit, was her soon to be ex-husband, Robert. He never wore a suit well. It was part of his charm. He was all jeans, plaid shirts and construction boots. He’d built a very successful business refurbishing and flipping properties, a job where he was able to graft his love of construction with his entrepreneurial spirit. Jessica had loved him at first for his confidence, but now a part of her loathed him for it. Had he been just a little more insecure, a little more vulnerable and open, none of this might’ve happened.

  Who cheated first was a moot point. Jessica had done the math and it was, oddly, probably pretty close to a tie. When he started staying out late, so did she. When he stopped answering questions, so did she. That he’d chosen the neighbors’ nanny was a bit of a surprise, but she hadn’t really aimed that high either; her workout instructor wasn’t exactly anyone’s idea of “trading up.”

  The sex had been great, but all “new sex” was. Like snorting cocaine, the rush was always going to come first, the nose bleeds later, and the ruin was as sure as the temptations that preceded it.

  Robert cleared his throat and shifted uneasily in his seat, tugging at his tie. She actually felt a little sorry for him. The nanny had been fired, wanting nothing more to do with him after the fallout, and now here he was, sitting ten feet away and looking about as comfortable as a wet dog.

  The gym instructor hadn’t dumped her, at least. Sure, he’d used her a few more times as a piñata for his little penis, then quit returning her calls. She wasn’t the least bit sad about that, but still, the brevity of the idea that she “still had it” was hard to take at first. She didn’t still have it. Furthermore, she didn’t want it. She wanted her life back. But she would never admit that to another soul.

  “What do you think is taking so long?” Robert asked, finally managing to speak.

  She was about to say something smart-assed and vicious, the only way she’d been speaking to him for a good six months now, but something inside her shifted. It was a soft twinge in the center of her chest, but she held it at bay with the firm arm of bitterness.

  Still, when she replied, she spoke softly. “I don’t know. The paperwork, I guess.”

  He nodded once and then cleared his throat. “How’ve you been?”

  Jessica’s jaw dropped and she raised her eyebrows. “Seriously, Robert?”

  His gaze immediately fell to the floor, leaving behind a slouch that looked defeated and tired. Again, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Sorry? For him?

  Silence called out to them through the ticking of a small hanging grandfather clock on the opposite wall. It was 8:16 p.m. and the reception desk was vacant now. This meeting was after hours due to babysitter issues. The kids were home with Jessica’s sister. They’d watched their mom leave the house with the look of passengers on a doomed ship, where the final cry of “women and children first” was echoing off the deck.

  They all had green eyes, thanks to their father. But not today. Today their eyes had seemed dark. With the exception of eight-year-old Kylie, whose eyes had been tightly closed, as if by not looking she could make things not happen.

  When Robert spoke again, it made her jump.

  “Jess?” he asked.

  At first she was annoyed, then infuriated. Why? Why was he bothering to talk to her? Her anger was coming alive, but when she looked up, she gasped.

  His eyes were full of tears.

  Was he sick? Had something bad happened? Had his mother died? All good questions, but she was so stunned she could only manage one word. “Robert?”

  “I don’t wanna do this,” he said, his voice a stifled whisper.

  She blinked. “What?”

  “I’ve been feeling this way for weeks now, but I’ve been afraid to say anything.” He wiped the forearm of his suit jacket awkwardly across his eyes, then looked at her again. “I know what you’re gonna say. I figured it would be a waste of time to say it. But just now, something told me to say it anyway. So here goes: I’m sorry about everything and I don’t want to lose you.”

  She felt the world going sideways on her. Heat rose in her cheeks, but it wasn’t from anger. Was that embarrassment there, inside her? Shame? She didn’t know.

  But oddly, desperately, a small sprout of joy seemed to rise in her heart, from some far-off place.

  She’d held out for hope long after she’d stopped believing in it.

  Now, well, here it was.

  He was looking at her, waiting for a response.

  For some reason the lyrics from an old Bruce Springsteen song came to her mind.

  The door’s open, but the ride ain’t free.

  No. No it wasn’t.

  But nothing worth having ever was.

  “Robert,” she said, letting her own tears come to life. “Me too.”

  IT SPREAD THAT WAY, in soft, cascading, multi-layered pitches, like those from a wind chime, across the globe: pale blue lines, ricocheting and stretching from one soul to the next. It had begun with a single line in Monterey, California, with a man named Kyle Fasano, who had sacrificed himself, and from there, like branches on a tree made of pure electricity, the line had become a multitude of lines, spreading up and down the California coast, west across the Pacific Ocean to a woman just outside Anago, Japan, and east across Arizona and the Rockies of Colorado. Before long the lines had reached ten thousand points of contact, then a hundred thousand. They sprung across the Atlantic Ocean and split off through small towns outside of Barcelona, up through Genoa in Italy and bridging through London to Norway and Russia. In fact, by the time the lines came to a stop, not a continent in the world was untouched.

  A million souls reached, called to repentance, in ordinary and extraordinary ways.

  All because of one man.

  Some accepted the call, but many rejected it.

  CHAPTER 1

  LIGHT WAS A FERVENT and all-present thing. It enveloped them like a liquid blanket, warm and welcoming, but also stuttered occasionally, as if there was an electrical short of some kind between where they’d left and where they were going. With the light there was a calming rhythmic, melodic beat, but with the shorts came a subtle feedback, like a needle scratching a record, that would coldly reveal the star-speckled black of the universe, a soundless void, before the light would return again and engulf them. As they traveled further along to wherever they were going, the light vacillated from a soft white to bright white and back again.

  Kyle sensed they were traveling parallel to the existence they’d left behind, neither up nor down, left nor right, simply on an even plane. It was hard to really focus with Victoria clawing at him the way she was, her fangs bared as she tried to bite his face, her eyes burning with hatred. Once through the portal she’d reverted back to the beast she was becoming. Kyle pushed back at her, struggling with all his might, and was briefly able to free a hand and jam it hard against her chin, pushing those gnashing teeth away from his cheek. His chivalry was dead now. Falling into the portal seemed like an ancient decision and, in hindsight, not a very wise one. She was still trying to kill him. For some stupid reason he had hoped that wouldn’t be the case.

  He sensed that he was dead, but he had no way of knowing for sure. The thing was, well, he still was. He hadn’t blinked out of existence; he hadn’t turned into a traveling ghost or a floating spirit; he was not before the gates of any afterlife reality. In fact, if he could sense one thing that was missing, it was reality. The reality he had taken for granted for so many years was now space dust amid passing meteorites and asteroids. His reality as a human was being stripped away, but in the name of a higher one and, Kyle realized, the only one that mattered when you left earth and relinquished the existence you had there.

  All that was left now, in between shallow breaths in a place strangely filled
with oxygen, was awe. Pure and deep. It permeated every pore of his body, every cell of his barely functioning mind. The great mystery revealed, at long last: there was a life after death. Then, inevitably, a tinge of sadness and regret came with the realization that he couldn’t go back and share this news with his friends and family, Lord above, not even with strangers and enemies. Glorious tears filled his eyes and when he looked back at Victoria her old face, her true face, was back again, and she was crying too. Maybe this could still all—

  There was a loud, echoing sound, like a heavy plop of water, then the light was gone completely and they began to fall with a nauseating and terrifying dip that pitched his stomach into his throat and sent them spiraling downward. Their bodies violently separated with the momentum and Victoria’s face turned to a mask of human fear. So this was it then. The look at the end when you’d made the wrong choices in life and there was no turning back. She clutched at Kyle’s forearms and he grabbed her wrists. It was the oddest thing. A second ago they had been locked in mortal combat and yet now, in the midst of what was happening, they were trying to cling to each other like children.

  The awe from before was now gone. In its place a horrid, gaping, endless and suffocating hopelessness welled up within him. The space around them convulsed and Victoria was wrenched from his grip, her mouth agape in a grotesquely silent scream. Sorrow filled him and something in Kyle squirmed in revulsion and panic.

  It was his soul. His soul was scratching at his body, from the inside, trying desperately to get out. To flee. To get away.

  Then all he heard was a horrible chorus of screams, before everything went black.

  THE BREAD MAN stood in the alley just outside the delivery door of Robert’s Liquor & Deli and took a deep breath. She was inside. Thursday morning. Over the past few months of deliveries and small talk she’d divulged a few nuggets of information, seemingly harmless stuff, like how Thursday was her hardest day because she opened and was forced to stock the shelves alone until eight in the morning. Poor thing. He smirked at the memory of what she’d told him one day: “No one comes in but you before seven.”