Chapter 24 Athena
ATHENA
The sunlight fighting its way through the curtains paints bright strips across my skin. Tiny particles dance in the beams.
I blink up at the ornate ceiling, letting my eyes trace the crown molding that curves around the room. My body feels like it's been run through a meat grinder, deliciously sore in places I haven't felt in years. Maybe ever.
For a moment, I can't remember where I am, but then I can smell him on the sheets, on my skin.
Dimitri is gone. The empty space beside me is cold. He's been up for some time, I guess.
I stretch, wincing at the pull of muscles I didn't know I had. My thighs ache. The insides of my wrists are tender. And there's a light scratch along my collarbone that stings when I touch it, a memento from his blade.
But my mind feels clear. Scrubbed clean. Like the sex burned through all my confusion, leaving only certainty behind.
I rub my face to clear away the sleep.
God. What the hell are we even doing?
After Dimitri fucked me senseless against the wall, we moved to the bed to rest, but it didn't last long.
Soon after, getting comfortable, he gripped my jaw and demanded answers about how I'd found the files, how I'd pieced things together.
"Walk me through it," he'd said, his thumb pressing into the soft underside of my chin. "Every click. Every thought. Don't leave anything out."
So he sat across from me, shirtless, looking more like a king at a war council than a man who'd just made me come so hard I couldn't see straight. I walked him step by step through exactly how I'd found everything on my father's laptop.
He asked questions, made me show him the files again, then the login screens. I could tell it bothered him, how close he'd been to all that evidence without ever realizing it.
He tried not to show it, but I saw that frustration buried under a carefully blank expression.
I told him it was fine. That his men couldn't have seen something in the Recycle Bin. There were over five hundred files there, and even if they did, the Spartan Holdings login was something they'd never have been able to access without a password I knew.
Once the frustration settled, I watched him catalog every document, every file, asking question after question. I'd watched his mind work, systematic and unrelenting. Like he was teaching himself to trust me, but muscle memory kept fighting against it.
"We need to unlock that phone. Do you think you could do it?" he'd asked after I was done showing him everything.
I shrugged and told him that I couldn't have guessed how much I got from the laptop so it was worth a shot. I'm here to serve him, I said with a smile to playfully entice him.
He kissed me and went and got it.
Truthfully, I wanted to be the one to crack it. I wanted to prove I was worth something, worth the trust I felt he was internally fighting to give me, or so I thought.
I was overeager, and as soon as the screen lit up on the phone, I just started typing in password combinations, number sequences, pattern locks. Anything I could think of.
But I failed.
After six wrong passwords, the phone locked me out for five hours.
"Five hours?!" I had said loudly.
He nodded. "I didn't want to tell you, add more pressure. But yeah. You get six tries and then it locks for five hours. My fear is that it will eventually lock indefinitely."
I'd been so angry at myself that I nearly threw the thing across the room.
But Dimitri hadn't let me. He'd caught my wrist in that iron grip, pulled me to him, and kissed me.
"Fuck it," Dimitri growled, rolling on top of me. "We'll try again tomorrow."
He'd made me come twice more after that, his mouth doing sinful things between my thighs until I'd forgotten how to be angry.
I push the sheets away and swing my legs over the side of the bed. The floor is cold against my bare feet as I move across the room to a stack of women's clothing on a chair by the window. More things from Calli's closet, I assume. I slip into the soft cotton T-shirt and the leggings.
I stop in the mirror by the door and run a hand through my hair, trying to smooth it into something halfway presentable, and walk out into the hall.
I don't know exactly where to go, but I know I need to see him.
Damn, the house is beautiful in the daylight. It's almost too beautiful to be real, the kind of home where wealth isn't flaunted but simply exists, like it's been here for generations.
Each room looks more luxurious than the next. There's a massive open kitchen, a lounge area, bar, billiards room, and a few other rooms that I don't even know what the hell you'd use them for.
As I look at the paintings hanging around the rooms, I find it strange, how you can feel the history in the walls. Like it all soaked in, all the arguments, laughter, and grief.
I see another picture of Eleni, and I stop to wonder what it was like when she was alive. How a woman like her managed to raise Dimitri and his siblings.
I continue walking, trailing my fingers along a large bookcase down a hallway and for a moment, I let myself pretend.
Pretend that I'm not the daughter of a man who ordered another man's death. That I'm not here because of a vengeance I'm no longer sure I even want. That I'm just a woman walking down the stairs of a beautiful house toward the man she —
I swallow hard.
No, stop pretending, Athena.
I turn a corner and hear Dimitri's voice. I follow it and I find him in an office. The door is partially open, and I catch sight of him behind a massive oak desk that looks like it weighs as much as a small car.
He's on the phone, his expression stern, shoulders rigid beneath his all-black suit. He looks sexy, but professional. Nothing like the man who had me pressed against a wall last night, whose hands knew exactly where to touch me. This is business Dimitri.
"I don't care what he thinks," he says into the phone. "I'll handle it."
A pause. Then, quieter, "I'm fine, Theo. Really. I've got it."
His eyes flick up, catching me hovering in the doorway. His expression softens for just a moment, then returns to stone.
"Anyway, I'll call you later, but tell Calli to go on her little kickboxing tournament thing. It's best to get her away from all this anyhow," he says and hangs up.
I slip through the door, suddenly feeling awkward. What are we now? Enemies turned lovers? Partners in revenge? Two broken people clinging to each other in a storm?
"Good morning," I say, clearing my throat.
"There's coffee in the kitchen. I can grab you some," he says, but his eyes track me as I move to sit in the leather chair opposite his desk.
"I'm okay for now," I lie. I'd kill for caffeine, but I don't want him to leave me just yet. "This house is..." I search for a word that doesn't sound trivial. "Incredible. Like something out of another time."
"My grandfather built it," he says, leaning back slightly. "He used to say a house should be big enough to hide all your secrets but small enough that your enemies can't hide from you."
"I'm pretty sure I could find a few good hiding spots," I say with a small smile.
"You think so?" Dimitri asks, his lips curling into a slight smile. "We should try that sometime."
This small talk feels like armor we're both putting on, neither sure how to navigate this fragile new peace between us.
We lapse into a silence.
My gaze drifts across the polished surface of the desk. There's the laptop, the same one I worked on. And next to it, the encrypted phone.
The black, harmless little rectangle that could end everything.
I look back up to find Dimitri watching me.
I nod toward the phone. "Mind if I try again?" I ask.
Dimitri hesitates, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Alright," he says finally, grabbing the phone, "but I need you to answer something for me first."
My stomach tightens. "Okay."
He shifts in his chair, the leather creaking, and he rubs his thumb along the edge of the phone like he's debating whether to hand it over.
"When you told me about your father," he begins, "you said he wasn't really in your life. That he didn't acknowledge you publicly."
I nod once, wary of where this is going.
"Then why?" His gaze doesn't waver. "Why go to all this trouble to avenge him? Why risk everything when you barely knew him? Why care so much about a man who didn't care enough to claim you?"
I open my mouth, then close it again. Because I don't have an easy answer. I look away, then back at him.
"That's..." My voice comes out rough. I clear my throat and try again. "That's something I've been asking myself a lot."
He doesn't say anything. Just waits.
"He wasn't completely absent. When I was a kid, he was around.
Not all the time. Not like other fathers.
But certain times of year, my birthday mostly, Christmas sometimes, he'd show up.
" My throat tightens. "He'd bring presents.
Tell me I was special. And my mother, God, she made it all sound so noble.
Like it was a sacrifice we were making. Being hidden. "
I smile at a memory. "When I was twelve, he sent this ridiculous crystal music box that played 'Swan Lake.' My mother said it was too expensive to keep out, but I insisted. I played that thing until the mechanism broke."
Dimitri tilts his head, studying me.
"My mother and I would sneak away to see him sometimes too.
Never anywhere public, of course. He'd rent private dining rooms in restaurants, or we'd meet at empty beach houses he owned.
" I swallow past the lump forming in my throat.
"My mother always sold it as 'this is how it has to be.
' So I didn't question it. What child does? "
I take a shaky breath. "When I got older, I started to realize how fucked up it was.
That he had another family somewhere else.
That he'd never planned to..." I pause. "I just pushed it out of my head because it depressed me.
And in that depression, I attached to my mom more.
Since he made her happy, in her own dysfunctional way, then that was okay. "
Dimitri stays quiet, and I feel a need to continue.
"But when my mother took her own life," I say, "all that came back. All that emptiness. And I... I don't know. It felt like I owed her something. Like if I couldn't save her, I could at least fight for something she believed in. Even if it was a lie."
I shake my head and look at him. "It became like a duty. Not something I wanted deeply, but something I feel I owed her. To be something. Fight for something." I laugh. "However stupid that sounds."
"It's not stupid," Dimitri says, surprising me.
"I understand. I've done a lot of things that didn't make sense.
Out of duty. Out of obligation. It's been most of my life.
" He pauses. "But this, being here with you, it's the first time I've wanted to do something because I wanted it. That's new for me."
The breath leaves my lungs all at once. I feel warmth in my chest at his words. We look at each other across the desk, and for a moment, I see us as we could be, not as we've been. Not victim and killer. Not captor and captive. Just two people finding something unexpected in each other.
For a moment, there's nothing between us but that terrible, perfect truth.
He then slides the phone across the desk to me.
"Go ahead," he says. His tone is steady, but there's something almost raw in his eyes. "Try again."
He stands. "I'll grab coffee. Try not to break anything while I'm gone."
His tone is light, almost teasing, and it makes me smile. He pauses at the door, looking back at me for a second before he leaves.
I stare at the phone in my hand, turning it over. Six attempts before it locks for another five hours.
Six chances.
Please, I think. Just this once. Let me be enough.
I think about what I know about passwords. They're usually something personal, something you won't forget. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Names of pets.
An idea pops into my head and I try it without second-guessing myself.
The phone flashes red. Five attempts remaining.
My palms start to sweat.
I try another code, something more likely. His birthday.
Another red flash. Four attempts left.
Fuck.
My hands are shaking now. I'm letting her down, I think, and I'm not sure if I mean my mother or myself. I'm letting him down too.
I try another code. Another red flash. Three attempts left.
I want to cry.
I close my eyes, trying to center myself. What would he use? What would make sense for a man like him?
I remember something my mother used to say: "Cosmo never forgot important dates." She'd said it with pride, like it proved something about his character that he remembered her birthday even when he couldn't remember to acknowledge her publicly.
On instinct, I type in my mother's birthday: 040778.
The screen goes dark for a second.
Then, it unlocks.
I can't breathe.
I just stare at the phone, my breath caught in my throat, heart slamming against my ribs like it's trying to escape.
For a second, I almost feel her there beside me. Like this is the last thing she ever asked me to do.
Then the adrenaline hits, and I'm on my feet.
"DIMITRI!" I scream, loud enough to wake the dead. "DIMITRI, I GOT IT!"
Footsteps thunder down the hallway. The door crashes open, and Dimitri bursts in, gun drawn, eyes wild with panic. For a moment, I think he'd shoot anyone who looked at me wrong.
He scans the room for threats before his gaze lands on me.
"What happened?" he says, lowering his weapon slightly but not holstering it. "Are you hurt?"
I shake my head, unable to speak through the emotion clogging my throat. I hold up the phone, my hand shaking so badly the screen blurs.
"It was her birthday," I choke out, tears starting to gather. "We're in."
Dimitri stares at me, confusion flickering across his face before understanding dawns. He holsters his gun and approaches slowly.
"The password," I say, wiping at my eyes with my free hand. "It was my mother's birthday. April 7, 1978."
Dimitri reaches out, his hand hovering near mine but not touching. "May I?" he asks, nodding toward the phone.
I nod and place it in his palm. Our fingers brush, and the contact sends warmth up my arm.
"All this time," I say, "I thought he didn't care. That she was just..." My voice breaks. "Oh, it doesn't matter. It's unlocked."
Dimitri pulls the other chair around the desk so he's sitting beside me, not across from me. It's a small gesture, but it speaks volumes. We're on the same side now.
He looks at me and then down at the phone and speaks.
"Let's see what we can find."