Page 4 of Cruelly Fated (Princes of Avari #1)

Four

ALLIE

P ull yourself together.

I waited outside the prison’s visitor entrance, every instinct screaming at me to turn and run.

My stomach churned, nerves coiling tighter with each step closer to the buzzing doors.

All morning, I’d swung between sobbing fits—grieving for Mom, then aching for Grandpa Pete—and white-hot rage over what he’d done.

You better have a damn good explanation for this, Grandpa.

My eyes burned again. I shoved on my sunglasses to keep the tears in and the world out.

The front entrance slid open. Family members of other inmates formed a single line, their anxious expressions mirroring mine.

I trailed behind, in silence, while a steady beat of a ball pounding the ground sounded nearby.

I squinted at the prison fencing and glimpsed inmates sprinting after a basketball.

As I entered the building, I shut my eyes for a moment and drew in a deep breath. Then another. Trying to calm the galloping rhythm of my heart.

A harsh buzz cracked through the air as the magnetic lock engaged, and the door closed behind me. A tremor shot through me, rattling my bones.

Four days. It had only been four days since his arrest that awful Sunday morning, yet it felt like a lifetime.

Officer Marley had pulled every string to get me on the earliest family visitation list. Every day, questions about Grandpa plagued me, ate at my soul. What if he wasn’t okay? What if they hadn’t fed him? What if…what if he didn’t look like himself anymore?

I passed through the metal detector, filled out a visitation form, and handed it to a stone-faced guard with my ID.

He disappeared into the back and returned a moment later with a name sticker, instructing me to press it above my chest where all the guards could see it.

I did as told, trying to keep my hands from shaking.

Once they processed everyone, the guards herded us down a narrow corridor like a cattle.

Was that how they treated Grandpa, too? Like he didn’t matter?

“Marsh, room four. Marsh, room four,” the intercom crackled with my family name. My knees wobbled, threatening to buckle. I shuffled my feet down the line of numbered doors until I reached number four. A guard met me there, his gaze sweeping over me, and lingering on my bare legs.

I had work after this—first shift back since the club’s three-day closure—so I wore what Larry expected: denim shorts that hugged high over the curve of my thighs and a fitted tank top with a tear along my cleavage line.

I tapped my foot, my pulse skipping with each second.

The guard smirked, then punched in a code.

With a hiss of air, the pressurized lock released, and the door groaned open.

I blinked hard, barely recognizing the man on the other side of the thick glass.

His shaggy salt-and-pepper hair hung in uneven clumps, and his beard looked weeks past trimmed.

One eye was sunken and shadowed with a dark, purplish bruise; the other avoided mine.

His lips were cracked, and blood stained corners of his mouth.

He swallowed and looked down, shame cutting a line across his face deeper than any wound.

I sank onto the cold plastic visitor stool, my breath hitching. “Fae gods…” The words barely made it out. “Is that a cut on your lip?”

His tongue flicked out, brushing the mark, a slight, unconscious movement that confirmed everything I feared. I’d heard the stories—this was the most brutal prison in Avari, a place where violent shifters and hardened fae were locked away. But I never imagined this. Not for him.

“Who did this to you, Grandpa?” My voice cracked. “Tell me. I’ll file a complaint and raise hell if I have to. They need to move you—”

“Shh, child,” he rasped, voice gravelly and hollow. “If you need to blame someone, blame me.”

“No…” I whispered. My hands curled into fists. “No matter what you did, you don’t deserve this. You gambled, that’s all. For the love of the fae gods, why would they send you here for that?”

My outrage surged hot and fast. I almost stood, ready to storm out and demand to speak to someone—anyone. But then I caught the way Grandpa winced as he shifted in his seat. My heart clenched, and I pressed my weight back into the chair. He looked thinner too, and it had only been four days.

And what could I do, really? We were the low fae of Avari. We didn’t carry influence. We didn’t get second chances. That was why the other inmates could beat him and walk away laughing. Because in their eyes—and the system’s—he was no one worth protecting.

“Have you been eating?” I asked gently.

He shook his head, and the small, defeated motion crushed something inside me. I bit down on my lower lip, searching for words, but nothing came. I had never seen my grandfather like this—so hollowed out, so hunched and broken, as if the weight of shame alone had stolen his strength .

My throat tightened. “No matter what happened…I want you to know…you didn’t disappoint me. I don’t—”

“Stop.” His voice cracked as tears spilled from his good eye.

“I wronged you, my child.” He paused, breath shuddering.

“Your mother didn’t want you to know. And I stopped—fates bear witness, I did.

I had it under control. But then a new neighbor came by when you were at work…

told me about this quick-money scheme. And I thought, what a perfect way to surprise you—so you could pay for college without worry.

” He covered his mouth with his large, weathered hand and closed his eyes.

What did he mean?

I sat frozen, wide-eyed and still as stone, trying to process the confession unraveling before me.

At last, I slid my trembling hands onto the table and laced my fingers together, gripping tight enough to ache—anything to ground myself.

“What didn’t Mom want me to know?” I asked, my voice low, afraid the answer might break me.

He exhaled through his nose, shoulders sagging further.

“When I lost my job, I started gambling. At first, I told myself I was helping, trying to provide for you and your mom—even when I kept losing. She didn’t know for a long time.

I burned through my savings first. Then one day, your mother gave me money to pay the electric bill… and I bet it instead.”

A memory surfaced of Mom stashing a wad of lottery tickets into her purse, her hands shaking. She didn’t want me to witness it. At the time I didn’t think much about it. How long had she been covering for him?

His eyes, red-rimmed and full of regret, finally met mine.

“She tried everything after that. Interventions. Counseling. Some of it helped, for a while.” His voice faltered, but he pressed on. “I truly believed this scheme would work and change everything. But I should never have touched your savings. I am so, so sorry.”

When I lifted my eyes to his, mine were filled with sorrow. My family kept life-altering secrets from me. If I’d known, I’d try to help. I sure as hell wouldn’t have blubbered about my hard-earned savings to him. I’d practically tempted him to break his sober streak for months.

A sharp bell clanged overhead, yanking me out of the stupor. The door hissed open, and a guard poked his head in. “Visitations are over.”

“That wasn’t even thirty minutes,” I protested, my voice tight.

“Word is high-profile visitors are on their way. So…” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

I turned back to Grandpa, mouth parting, desperate to say something. But nothing came. He’d just dropped a truth so heavy, so devastating, it hollowed me out. How long had I lived inside a carefully constructed shell, blind to the reality my mother carried alone for years?

Grandpa bowed his head and slowly leaned back. He had no words left in him either .

I rose on shaky legs, glancing at him one last time before I shuffled into the hall, where I joined other disappointed families.

The guards corralled us again, but in the opposite direction.

They ushered us through the front door, out onto a smoldering pavement in front of the building.

Daylight speared my eyes, and I pulled my sunglasses down to shield them.

The image of Grandpa alone in there, surrounded by thugs and predatory shifters, twisted my gut. For the fae gods’ sake, he was a badger shifter—sturdy but gentle, built for quaint life and quiet work, not survival among monsters. Aggression wasn’t in his blood.

If he’d told me about his gambling addiction, I could’ve picked up a second job, scraped together enough to get him the counseling he needed.

Anything. Instead, he was behind bars, serving time he might not survive.

And now, as if the punishment weren’t enough, he sported an angry bruise shadowing one eye, and a split lip crusted with dried blood.

The prison fence rattled as a bulky body bounced off it, startling me.

The prison basketball courts set apart from the main blocks, enclosed by a double chain-link fence with high-voltage wires zigzagging across the no-man’s-land between the barriers.

Male voices barked harshly, the spectators and players alike.

The constant thudding of basketball seemed to put me in a trance.

I approached the fence on my side, not entirely sure why. I jammed my hands into my pockets and scanned the players and bleachers. Perhaps I could at least get a better look at Grandpa’s prison mates .

Judging by their rogue appearance, most inmates were shifters and predators. The loose orange jumpsuits only accentuated their tall and brawny postures. Quite a few exuded alpha and beta dominance, too many to be confined in such a limited space.

I continued perusing the men like I was picking through a catalog. My gut told me to keep going, conjuring a weird sensation in my heart like longing. What am I doing? I slapped myself mentally, I had work…

I swept my gaze over him and swung it back in an instant.