Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 143870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 480(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 480(@300wpm)
Thalia Stavros was Ares’s aunt. After she married Lucas Drakos and moved to New York, her relationship with her family grew distant. Ares and his father believed Lucas had created this rift, but after Thalia died, it got worse.
According to Elias, Lucas would only allow contact with Thalia’s daughter Katarina at formal gatherings that were few and far between. They suspected that Lucas was hiding something, but they couldn’t confirm it.
So when the opportunity presented itself for Ares to spite Lucas, he seized it with both hands.
He tasked Elias and Andreas with smuggling Katarina to Seattle, where she could hide in plain sight under a new identity.
At Ares’s instruction, they delivered her to Mariella, which inevitably led Mariella to form a friendship with her.
It was a series of events that created a spark that over time turned into a wildfire. She infiltrated our lives slowly, drip-feeding me the poison that became an obsession, and I drank it so willingly.
That spark also created the first ember of infatuation for Elias. In his mind, he felt as if he had saved her. But he didn’t have a chance to nurture that fixation until five years later, when, as luck would have it, Ares assigned him to watch over Chantel.
For a year, he spent every waking hour learning her routines and documenting her life to the point of insanity. She had no idea he was there, and when she saw him in the club, he was nothing more than a friendly face from her past. But to him, those small interactions were far more significant.
He’d already been escalating when he received news of Marco’s impending return. He’d made plans to remove him from the picture, but he found a new target in me when he saw that I was protecting her.
In his own words, I ruined everything for him when I attached myself to Chantel, and Ares saw the writing on the wall. He told Elias this development would be useful to him and reassigned him to another position, which sent him into a full-blown spiral.
The one thing Ares didn’t account for was that Elias was a fucking lunatic. When he became the obstacle between him and Chantel, Elias started plotting his demise too. Before he made his final grab for Chantel today, he sent word to New York about what Ares had done. He hoped that it would start a war between the Greeks, and Ares would be a natural casualty of that.
Whether that’s true remains to be seen, but it presents another problem.
Chantel’s father is coming for her, and now my only choices are to go to war or let her go forever.
The thought splinters inside me.
I already know what I can’t do, and that option has far-reaching consequences that won’t only impact me.
It could destroy my whole family.
As if she can sense the lingering fire of resentment in the room, she stirs from sleep and opens her eyes.
When they land on my silhouette in the chair, she sucks in a breath and sits up.
“Cristian?”
“Is it true?”
My question charges the air between us, heavy with the weight of her deception and my anger. But beneath that, there’s an undercurrent of something raw.
Something broken.
I half expect her to deny it, but instead, she dips her head and swallows.
“Yes, it’s true,” she whispers. “I’m Ares’s cousin…Katarina Drakos.”
A beat of silence passes before I ask her the only thing that matters at this point.
“Was this what he asked you to do? Is that why you’re in my bed?”
“No,” she chokes out. “Cristian, I swear it.”
“I’m not sure your word means all that much,” I answer bitterly.
She curls into herself, and even in the darkness, I can see the tension in her body. I can feel it, the way I always do, when she isn’t at peace. But I can’t let that be a factor right now.
“I need the truth,” I tell her. “And I’d rather hear it from you, but I’ll find out either way.”
When she doesn’t respond, I let out a frustrated breath and shake my head. I’m not sure why I would have expected anything else. Whatever her secrets are, she’s never trusted me enough to hear them.
Why would she start now?
I rise from my seat and head for the door, but she turns on the bedside lamp and calls out to me.
“Please don’t leave me, Cristian.” Her voice shatters.
There’s so much vulnerability in the words I never thought I’d hear from her, it fucking guts me. And when I turn to look at her, registering her red, swollen eyes and the silent tears streaming down her face, it fractures something inside me.
Any self-preservation I may have had left goes up in smoke as I let out a curse and follow the only instinct that’s ever felt right.
I walk around the bed and gather her up in my arms as she starts to sob.