Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Apparently not.
Orion fell back once they made it backstage, and while Mykos had a few minutes alone, he found himself reflecting on how his life had been completely transformed in the past few weeks.
Thank You, God.
Thank You for saving Maika and me.
He had started praying after the abduction, and he hadn't stopped. It didn't come naturally to him. He wasn't eloquent about it the way his wife was, with her long, rambling conversations with God that sounded like she was talking to a friend. But he tried. His prayers were short. Sometimes just a sentence. Sometimes just a name.
Maika.
That was a prayer, too. Her name in his chest, her face in his mind, and the quiet, persistent certainty that he had been given something he didn't deserve and intended to spend the rest of his life earning.
"And for tonight's keynote speaker, let's welcome one of our board members, Mr. Mykos Ravensworth."
The applause that followed was thunderous, and Mykos had recently reached legendary status.
Due to FBI involvement, Maika's abduction and rescue was made known to the public. It started as a news story—billionaire's wife kidnapped, rescued within hours—but it didn't end there. The investigation peeled back layers that Mykos had kept hidden for over a decade, but what emerged changed everything.
The mayor had officially recognized the Greek-American billionaire as a local hero. There was a ceremony. A plaque. A handshake that made the front page. Mykos had stood through it with his usual stoic composure, and Maika had stood beside him and cried, which also made the front page.
The FBI also gave a press release about how Mykos, in all the years he was vilified for being the son of a former mob boss, had actually been serving his country in a series of successful undercover operations that nabbed many of America's most wanted men.
And so the man everyone used to fear was now the man everyone adored—
"That's my husband!"
The words rang out from somewhere near the front of the ballroom, bright and proud and completely inappropriate for a black-tie gala, and the entire audience burst into laughter.
Mykos, standing at the podium under the spotlights, closed his eyes for exactly one second.
Lord, give me strength.
He opened them.
His wife was on her feet, clapping with her whole body the way she always did, her green eyes shining, her face glowing, and she was so, so beautiful that for a moment the words on his prepared speech blurred and he forgot what he was going to say.
The laughter in the room turned warm. A few guests started clapping along with her. Mrs. Wright, seated three tables away, dabbed her eyes with a napkin and said to the woman beside her, "I told you he had a heart."
And no one adored him more than his own wife, Maika, whose outburst had the rest of the audience laughing and clapping in equal measure.
After his speech, the other guests stopped Mykos on his way back to his wife's side, asking to take a photo with him.
Maika saw this, too, and she had a hard time biting back her laughter at the way Mykos was doing his best to change. He did accommodate every request, but his handsome face remained stoic. He shook hands. He nodded. He stood for photos with the rigid posture of a man who was enduring something, and Maika loved him so much in that moment that her chest physically ached.
He had never wanted to be loved by the world.
He had only ever wanted to be loved by her.
And it was only when he was once again on his way back to her, and his golden gaze found her in the crowd—
That was when his expression softened.
Not a smile. Something deeper than that. Something that lived in his eyes and in the way his shoulders dropped, just slightly, like a man finally setting down a weight he'd been carrying for thirteen years.
Because theirs was no longer a loveless marriage.
It never had been from the start.
They just needed time to know this, too.
The End