Chapter 15
Fifteen
E lias
After meeting with my lieutenants, I headed to my father’s house. Avra had left earlier for lunch with her sisters. Something made me suspect that she wanted to make herself scarce, thinking I desired privacy while speaking with my men.
If she only understood those thoughts were the furthest thing from my mind. She was my wife. She belonged with me. The Xenos and Vitalis families were tied together. Sooner or later, they had to join forces, whether she liked it or not. However, it wouldn’t happen until Ozias was out of the picture.
Until that day, she would remind me that she conducted her business separately from mine. There was no mingling of anything, whether information-sharing or discussing problems.
Even if I wanted her by my side every minute of every day, I wouldn’t force it upon her. Caging someone like her was as stupid as building a box made of wood to contain a fire. She had lived a life of restraint for fifteen years, and nothing would keep her prisoner now. The fact that I wanted to watch her burn things to the ground simultaneously amused and concerned me.
Avra’s hard shell hid a vulnerability I only glimpsed when I’d pushed her that one time. For a woman like her, love and loyalty came hand in hand.
Her sisters had it without question. Watching their simple banter on moving day made it clear they shared a bond I would never have known as an only child. With Laya and Cali, Avra allowed her guard to drop.
Would she ever feel that level of comfort with me?
I gritted my teeth, pushing down that petulant train of thought, and shifted the gear on my sports car.
Calm, cool focus was the only way to deal with Ozias.
Whatever he summoned me for would require all my patience. The last time we met like this, he told me I was marrying Avra. I could hardly wait to find out what today’s demand involved.
Fucker.
He likely planned to give me orders on the best way to manage the Italians. But then again, my spies in his ranks said he wasn’t acting like his usual self. He was more secretive, even with his own men.
It was odd that, until today, he hadn’t called or communicated with me on any issue since the wedding a month earlier.
He was up to something. And I planned to find out what it was.
If it involved Avra, he would have another thought coming.
My wife was off-limits.
My wife . I fucking loved the sound of that.
Comparing our first days together with how we seamlessly seemed to have transitioned into this tolerance for the other’s extreme personalities made no damn sense. We still argued like we despised each other, but I enjoyed those verbal spars.
She was the first woman who wasn’t scared of me or cowed by my temper. I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t care for her.
She was my fucking wife. It was my duty to care for and protect her. Maybe my obsessive protectiveness went a little overboard. Still, the damn woman burrowed under my skin and drove me insane with her attitude about her safety.
Remembering the way she’d jumped into that situation with the little girl on our walk without thinking twice still made me want to throttle her and kiss her senselessly. She had intervened and pulled the child out of danger. Her ferocity made it obvious she’d protect our children as viciously.
Fucking hell, a woman I never wanted to marry fit my life perfectly. This woman who’d seemed so difficult to embrace and allow near, she fit . Avra belonged with me despite the antagonism we insisted on.
Her frosty exterior hid passion and fire that only I experienced. It was in the heat of intimacy that her true spirit revealed itself.
To say that what I felt for her went beyond caring was unsettling. I came from Ozias Xenos, and the blood in my veins held no capacity for great emotions.
Then, why the hell had I spent the morning watching her sleep?
Stop thinking of her perfect mouth and serene expression and get your head on straight, asshole.
Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the Xenos estate with my mask firmly in place. I studied the exterior and held in a sneer.
Over the top. Opulent. Flashy.
Gaudy.
Just for a fucking statement, he’d destroyed the history of the place. At least the architects I’d contacted a few weeks ago assured me restoring the home to its former historic beauty was somewhat possible. With all the extensions and internal changes, nothing could return it to its former classical glory. Still, Avra would get her family home back.
I stepped out of the car and made my way in.
Ozias lived in a grand, ornate, heartless shell. It was nothing like the home I shared with Avra, where, for the first time in my adult life, I felt a sense of comfort and peace every time I walked through the doors .
This fucking estate was so bleak, nothing but an eyesore to draw attention. I’d only ever associate this place with pain and death.
Including my mother’s and countless others’.
Luckily, my early childhood was spent in the countryside, away from Ozias and his cruelty. As soon as my mother recovered from childbirth, he shipped Mama and me as far from him as possible to keep a respectable image and enjoy a life of indulgence.
One day, I planned to show Avra the cottage where I’d grown up. It was a fourth the size of this mansion but full of love and laughter. There were no beatings or lectures on weakness. Instead, I learned my lessons through patient hugs and encouragement.
Mama smiled and laughed during those times. Then, the moment I hit my teens, it had all changed. I was big in height and stature for my age and performed well in my athletic events. This news reached Ozias, and he demanded we return to his main property so he could begin my training as his heir.
I’d begged and pleaded not to go. I hated Ozias. Every interaction I’d experienced with him was cruel, but an order was an order, and Mama had to follow them.
I received my first beating the night we’d arrived. According to Ozias, Xenos men never cried or clung to their mothers.
The laughter and joy stopped. I heard Mama cry more than anything else. The light left her eyes, and she hid her love for me to protect me from Ozias’s scorn .
My mother kept the knowledge of her illness a secret until it was too late. I was nineteen when she admitted she was in the late stages of kidney failure. My father claimed it had happened suddenly, a late diagnosis, but I knew enough that it was all bullshit. I’d suspected something was wrong with her for years, but Ozias said she was weak and nothing more.
That was when I looked up my birth records and learned the truth. The pregnancy with me destroyed Mama’s kidney function, and Ozias knew it. That was the reason he sent us away.
Out of sight and out of mind. He’d waited for her death, even refusing to find her proper treatment so she’d be gone sooner.
Enough.
I shoved down the haunting memories as I reached the floor for my father’s office. Losing myself to the anger only caused more problems when dealing with the asshole.
I strode into his office without requesting permission to enter and said, “You summoned.”
He grunted, looking me up and down before folding his hands on his desk.
Oh, he wanted to play lord of the manor today.
“How’s marriage finding you?”
As if he gives a fuck.
I arched a brow. “Let’s cut the bullshit pleasantries and get to the point. What’s the issue?”
“You could show some respect. ”
I gave him no response, causing a crease between his brows.
He continued, “I wanted to discuss the shipments with the Italians.”
“What about them? They are going as planned.” I knew because my men kept me informed every day.
He smirked, scrunching his face. “Thought you were off honeymooning and fucking your new wife. Too busy to stay in the loop.”
I held in my irritation at his vulgar reference to Avra. My protectiveness for her would give the fucker ammunition.
“I’m always working. One of us has to keep operations going,” I stated without inflection.
He narrowed his gaze, leaning forward in his chair, and tossed a pen on his desktop. “Well, things would be different if they were willing to work with someone other than you. They’re not interested in meeting with me.”
“You tried to meet with them?” I couldn’t hide my irritation. “Why the hell would you do that? They made it clear I was their point person. Do you want to fuck this deal up?”
The need to strangle him with my bare hands pulsed in my veins. Nearly a year of work would fall down the drain with this idiot’s antics.
Ozias snarled as if his anger had any effect on me. “I thought you’d be too busy having your dick sucked by your new wife. I reached out, and they fucking shot my offer to talk down.”
One more disrespectful comment about Avra, and father or not, I would punch him in the face .
“Why are you getting involved now? This isn’t your negotiation.”
He scowled. “I have a right to be involved. Plus, I don’t like how they operate. Deals are made based on the level of power structure.”
I furrowed my brow, suspicious of his wording.
“Then what are you complaining about? You need to sit back and let me do the work. As with the Italians, the father is the figurehead. The son runs things. Don’t fuck with the process.”
Ozias gritted his teeth as the jab hit his ego directly.
I waited for him to argue, but he knew he couldn’t. All the families in the territory knew the truth. Even his cronies were aware of how things worked with the Xenos Empire.
Ozias sat on his throne because of me. If I walked away, it would all fall.
I intended the jab to burn.
Ozias mumbled something, dropping his glare to his desk. Then, a calculating gleam entered his gaze right before he switched subjects. “Your marriage to Avra puts us in a better position in the hierarchy. Her family’s power might have dissipated, but Vitalis’s influence didn’t just vanish.”
I stiffened. What the fuck was Ozias doing? And what the hell did he mean by that? Shifting from the Italians to Avra meant he planned to strike at me somehow.
I saw it in his focus. And the way the hair on the back of my neck prickled, I prepared myself. I held my temper in check, refusing to give him any reactions.
“What do you mean by that statement?” I asked in the coldest voice I could muster. “Wasn’t the plan for me to marry her to legitimize the territories?”
Deep inside, my temper flared, building with it a rage demanding that I stalk up to him and pound my fist into his face until he revealed what the fuck he was up to.
He nodded. “That was part of it.”
He continued to watch me, cocking his head to the side.
“And the rest?” I asked, lifting a brow, aiming at boredom but feeling anything but.
A sea of emotions churned inside me, all telling me he aimed to hurt Avra. I saw it in his demeanor and the calculated confidence written all over his face.
I refused to give him the slightest inkling of what Avra meant to me.
He’d used Mama against me. I would kill him before he touched another woman in my life.
He smiled, smug and sure of himself, as he steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips. “I’ll reveal the answer to that at the right time.”
You fucking asshole.
“I’m not a figurehead.” He narrowed his eyes, daring me to insist that he was. “Even if you believe I am. I’ll show you how I’m not.”
In the pit of my stomach, dread coiled. I knew that whatever Ozias schemed would cause nothing but trouble. He was greedy to the core. His plans and accomplishments served only himself. Chaos and pain would be waiting for the Xenos family.
All I could hope was that we all survived the aftermath .
Instead of giving him any indication his words had any impact, I asked, “Did you call me here to waste my time? This song and dance is getting old. I have an empire to run at your behest.”
“You will learn to show me respect, Elias.”
Not bothering to respond, I turned and left his office.
As I reached my car, I glanced back at the house. The bastard’s veiled threat toward Avra wouldn’t go unnoticed.
She was mine. I protected what was mine.
If he dared to hurt her or her sisters, I would make him pay.
Avra was my future, and Ozias was the past I planned to destroy.