CHAPTER 2
NERO ZANTHOS
I bring the coffee cup to my lips. The kitchen—bright with sunlight and the lights still on—is calm and quiet, by some miracle whose patron saint I don’t know the name of, but whom I should probably thank anyway.
Since I moved into this house, silence has always been a rare artifact, especially on the eve of any important event. I let out a long breath and lift my gaze from the counter to the white-paneled walls.
White is everywhere. On the walls, the furniture, the décor, the appliances.
And yet, even after all these years, no matter how many times I see the color spread throughout the house, I still don’t understand my mother’s absolute belief that this kind of clinical elegance can be called sophistication. But it’s not as if I care.
Her footsteps sound in the hallway almost as if summoned by my thoughts. I know it’s her because no one else walks like Lysandra Zanthos—gliding, floating over the floor, as though touching it were far too mundane a gesture, beneath her. Her look of disapproval arrives before the good morning.
“How many times do I have to tell you that you are not a servant who needs to eat in hiding in the kitchen, Nero? Why didn’t you have the table set earlier if you wanted breakfast?
” she says, and the prejudice embedded in her words is something I will never grow used to, no matter how long I’ve been exposed to it.
It took a long time before I felt confident enough to try changing some of my adoptive mother’s perceptions. But after countless attempts she didn’t even acknowledge, I simply gave up for the sake of peaceful coexistence. I no longer reprimand her.
She’s an adult woman. She knows she’s wrong and insists on staying wrong. There’s nothing I can do about it—and I’m not required to participate—so I refuse to respond to her comment.
In silence, I rise from the stool and carry my now-empty cup to the sink. My peripheral vision perfectly captures the absolute horror spreading across my mother’s face as she watches me perform yet another of the banal gestures she believes to be beneath her—beneath us.
“I don’t spend a fortune paying staff so you can do their work, Nero!” she snaps. It’s almost funny. Almost.
Except it’s absurd. First, because if anyone knows how much the staff earns, it’s me—not Lysandra.
Second, because it’s definitely not a fortune.
And finally, because the belief that this justifies not doing the bare minimum—like putting my dish in the sink—is incomprehensible. But I say none of that.
“Good morning, Mother. How are you feeling today?” I ask, walking toward her. I reach her and place a gentle kiss on her forehead. She wraps her arms around me in a habitual embrace.
“Good morning. I’m worried—and as if that weren’t enough, you insist on behaving like the servants, testing my patience at this hour.
Give me strenght, Nero,” she complains, tilting her head so her eyes can meet mine without loosening her arms, despite the tone she’s using to scold a thirty-year-old man.
Whether or not I should move out is a constant question in my mind. Over and over, though, I reach the same conclusion: no.
The house I came to live in when Lysandra and Konstantino Zanthos adopted me is large enough to offer space and privacy. That’s all I need.
I’ve already had my share of living alone, so despite moments like this—when my mother makes me wonder why I still live here—family life is what keeps me rooted.
I narrow my eyes at the female face that looks uncannily like my own. I’ve lost count of how many times, during my adolescence, I wondered whether my biological mother would resemble me as much as my adoptive one does.
“It’s Christmas, Mother. Shouldn’t goodwill be the default for our behavior? At least this time of year? Preserving the spirit of peace…” I suggest, and her face twists into an even deeper grimace.
“I’ll take it under advisement,” she says—and I laugh, because that’s her standard response to anything she has absolutely no intention of doing.
“Are you going out?” she asks, as though repeating the same question might be a magical formula to change an answer she already knows.
Who could blame her? It always worked with my father. It’s no surprise she keeps trying it with me.
“I am.”
“I get nervous when you go out on an important day like this, Nero. We have lunch tomorrow and—”
“And I’ll be exactly where I’m expected to be, Mother. Don’t worry. There’s no reason to be nervous,” I assure her, stepping back when her arms fall to her sides.
I take two steps back and lean my hips against the kitchen island. I cross my ankles and slide a hand into my pocket, pulling out my phone.
Every year it’s the same. My mother insists on collecting parties as if they were the most precious jewels and no one but her had the right to possess them.
Most of the time, I don’t care. She can keep every party she wants—except this one.
I wake my phone screen and check the time. This one is mine, and I’m late.
“What I’m trying to say—” she begins again, but new footsteps sound in the hallway, cutting her off as she turns to see who’s approaching.
Another unknown saint to thank, certainly. Or at least, that’s what I think until Drako walks into the kitchen wearing the association uniform and his trademark mocking grin.
He deserves no thanks. He deserves to be kicked all the way from here to the association, because if he weren’t late, I wouldn’t be dealing with my mother’s unreasonable possessiveness in the first place.
“Good morning,” he says to Lysandra with a nod before walking past her and grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter.
“Morning to you too, Nero.” He greets me without looking up, far too busy inspecting the fruit in his hand for something I don’t understand—until his next words clarify it.
“These are safe, right? Not poisoned because I didn’t warn you I was coming?
Or is that the trick—to make me think that, eat it, and die? ”
He tilts his head as if this were truly a worthy concern and reaches into the bowl again, grabs another apple, and tosses the first one to me. “You eat first. She wouldn’t poison her own son.”
I don’t need to look at my mother to know that disgust is seeping from her pores.
Lysandra has never been able to understand my relationship with my friends, and for that reason, she’s never bothered to treat them well.
Atlas and Apollo handle it the best way possible—they simply ignore it. But Drako?
Drako has this infuriating habit of provoking her without caring about the consequences, which usually means I have to do damage control. I close my eyes briefly and exhale slowly.
“Shut up, Drako.” The moment the words leave my mouth, a symphony of honking explodes through the walls and windows of the house. “Who’s driving?” I ask him, but he stays silent, suddenly very interested in the white tiles he hates just as much as I do. “Drako,” I grind out.
“Oh, sorry,” he says, feigning surprise. “Do I have permission to speak now?” My response is nothing more than a sideways glare, and he relents. “Atlas.”
“And now he’s in a hurry?” I huff, indignant. They’re the ones who were late. I move toward the door, leaving behind the apple my friend threw at me.
“See you later, Mother,” I say, placing another kiss on her forehead.
“Promise you’ll be here for lunch tomorrow.”
“I already promised. I won’t do it again,” I say, and she rolls her blue eyes—the same shade as mine.
“Bye,” Drako says, far too pleased, and my mother doesn’t reply.
They declared war on each other years ago. But while Drako fights with sarcasm and double-meaning jokes, my mother chooses silence as her weapon.
We cross the rooms and hallways until we’re outside, where we find Atlas waiting with his usual grave expression inside the tall black Jeep. I take the front seat while Drako climbs into the back.
“Where’s Apollo?” I ask, because we should all be heading to the association together.
“He said he was on his way. I thought he’d come straight here,” Atlas replies.
“He didn’t sleep at home?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“Of course not.”
“He probably said he was on his way so you’d leave the house and not witness the state he’d arrive in. While we came to get Nero, he’s probably reassuming his human form,” Drako suggests—and that definitely sounds like something Apollo would do.
Atlas mutters under his breath, and I turn my face toward the window, complaining too. Drako laughs in the back seat and raises his phone in front of his face.
“I’ll text him,” he says, but minutes pass without another word, forcing me to ask.
“What did he say?”
His answer is an infuriatingly mysterious smile.
“I suggest we swing by to pick him up.”
I let out another string of muttered complaints.
Atlas pulls up in front of his own house, where Apollo is already waiting, his hair still damp, a grin on his face, and the association uniform on his body.
He opens the back door and climbs in, sitting beside Drako, who bursts out laughing after hearing a whisper too quiet to reach the front of the vehicle. I look at Atlas, and he shakes his head in refusal. Still, I ask.
“Do we want to know?”
Apollo flashes the most shameless smile in the world before shaking his head and answering,
“What happens on the night of Khione stays on the night of Khione.”