Nero

CHAPTER 44

NINA MARCHESI

I blow the air out through my mouth, summoning courage, and place my finger on the fingerprint reader. Coming back to Khione wasn’t an easy decision—two days weren’t even close to enough for the confusion in my head to clear—but I couldn’t postpone this forever.

I need answers. If not for me, then for the baby growing inside me. After yet another sleepless night, the sun rose bringing with it the certainty that I would get up and board the ferry as fast as I could reach it.

I bring one hand to my abdomen, whispering a silent prayer—the same one I’ve been making for the past two days and nights: that there be an explanation. All I ask is that there be an explanation. I push the penthouse door open when the lock disengages.

The destruction scattered around the place makes my eyes widen, and I rush inside on instinct.

“Nero?” I call, my heart suddenly pounding in my throat. “Nero, are you here?” I ask when he doesn’t answer. “Nero?” I keep shouting his name as I move in and out of every empty room, searching for him.

I pull my phone from my pocket and finally turn it on. The uninterrupted flood of new messages only prolongs my agony, because the phone freezes—receiving, receiving, receiving—unintentionally delaying the moment when I might understand what happened.

I finally manage to unlock the screen, and when I see that Nero’s last message notification doesn’t hint at anything that could justify the state I found the penthouse in, I call voicemail.

That doesn’t help either, because the messages start playing from the oldest to the most recent—and Nero left me 112 recordings over the past forty-eight hours.

If I have to listen to all of them before finding out what happened, I’ll probably faint. I hang up and dial another number.

“Hi,” Drako answers, and the absence of his familiar irreverence makes every hair on my body stand on end. If the destruction around me weren’t enough proof that something is wrong, Drako’s tone would be.

“What happened?” I ask, terrified. “Where is Nero?” The man on the other end of the line hesitates for far too long. “Where is he, Drako?”

“He’s at the office,” he finally says. “But he’s in no state to talk to you right now, Nina.”

“N-not in c-condition?” I stammer. “What do you mean, not in a condition?” Terror scrapes its claws inside me before crawling through my veins and settling in my heart.

Faced with the possibility that something happened to Nero while I was gone, fear spills over my skin and pools at my feet, freezing me in place.

“What happened to him? For God’s sake, Drako! ”

“He—” Drako starts, then cuts himself off almost immediately. “He needs time, Nina. I don’t think it would be a good idea for you two to talk right now.” Relief washes over me—only to be completely replaced seconds later by a feeling I can’t quite name.

“He doesn’t want to talk to me?” I ask slowly, my stomach sinking. Lysandra’s words echo in my mind like a second consciousness.

Could it be? Now that his mother has made it clear what he wants from me, won’t Nero even look me in the eyes while he breaks my heart—proving every promise he made was a lie?

Or maybe not. A small, timid, hopeful voice whispers in my head, trying to replace the desolation I’m beginning to sink into. Maybe he’s discovered what his mother did and is too ashamed, trying to find a way to justify it. Maybe not everything she said is a lie, and he doesn’t know how to tell me.

Those recordings… The mere possibility that Nero might really have said those things makes my stomach churn, but people change. Maybe Nero was that man once, but isn’t anymore. Maybe he did all those things, said all those words—but not about me.

It’s pathetic that I cling to that hope. Ridiculous in so many ways I don’t even dare to count—yet I hold on to it anyway.

Whatever the truth is, as certain as I was when I got out of bed in Athens this morning, I am now. I need to see Nero. I need to hear him. I need to know what’s true and what’s a lie. I need him to tell me that everything is a lie—except our love.

***

“I’m sorry, Mr. Nero Zanthos isn’t available to see you,” Icarus tells me, and I blink, startled. Shit.

“He’s not here?” I ask. Drako assured me Nero would be here, but he could’ve stepped out for a meeting or something while I was on my way. Icarus looks away, uncomfortable, and alarm bells ring in my head.

“He is, ma’am. He’s just not available to see you.”

“I don’t mind. I can wait,” I say, already stepping back to sit in one of the armchairs in the antechamber outside Nero’s office. Icarus clears his throat, answering before my body reaches the cushioned surface.

“I think you didn’t understand. He won’t see you. Not now. Not later.”

My lips part—the only sign that I heard what Icarus said. I remain still, almost like a statue, for several long minutes.

“He’s refusing to see me?” I ask, and Icarus nods, swallowing hard.

The first tear travels quickly from wherever it came from to my eye and spills over. I press my eyelids together, hearing loud and clear the sound of my heart shattering. That’s it, right? There’s no more denying the undeniable. There is no explanation. It was all true. Nero wants to be rid of me.

That insistent little voice speaks up again. Now it suggests that maybe Nero is being deceived. What if Lysandra put on that whole performance just to convince Nero that I went through with the abortion?

If I felt pathetic before, now there isn’t a word strong enough to describe the level of self-inflicted humiliation I’m willing to endure if it means I won’t have to face a reality in which Nero isn’t the man I was certain he was.

I need to talk to him. All I need is to talk to him and we’ll sort this out. We’ll fix everything.

But that’s not what I say to Icarus.

I nod in agreement instead, then make my way out of the exporting company and stop on the sidewalk.

Half the day passes as I wait for Nero to finally walk out of the building, but I don’t go anywhere. People move around me. Shops stay open. Cars keep grinding their tires against the asphalt.

Everyone goes on living their lives, telling their stories, sharing their laughter—while I feel every piece of my world cracking until, inevitably, it collapses.

My legs ache after the first few hours. My stomach complains of hunger, and I blame myself—because I know standing in the sun, hungry and thirsty, is incredibly irresponsible with my baby—but I’m doing this for him too. He needs his father. I need his father. We need him.

“Nero!” I practically run toward him when he finally appears.

The skirt of my flared dress sways, and I drop my hands to keep the fabric from flying too high. At the sound of my voice, Nero freezes.

His eyes lift slowly from the phone in his hands to meet mine, and when they do, I feel as if the air in my lungs has turned to ice—the coldness I find in the blue irises of my child’s father is absolute.

He says nothing. He just stands there, staring at me, as if he’s waiting—no, as if he wishes—to never see me again.

“I’ll give you credit for the sheer audacity,” he finally breaks the silence, after what feels like an eternity. “How can you be so low?”

I hear his voice, and all I hear are the words that played in the back seat of that car. The same tone. The one I was sure didn’t belong to the man I knew. The same tone, thrown at me here and now, live and in full color.

“We need to talk,” I try.

“Talk?” He laughs with scorn. “I keep my quota of interaction with whores to a minimum—and unfortunately for you, the time we spent together already exceeded it. I hope I never have to look at your face again.” He announces it, starting to walk again, ready to pass me by and continue on his way as if I were nothing more than a stone in his path—one small obstacle Nero swiftly and easily steps around.

I beg that voice to whisper a justification for this too. Any one. I would accept anything, no matter how absurd, pathetic, or impossible to believe. I would accept it. But I get nothing but Nero’s back as I turn my body to follow his steps with my eyes.

“Why are you doing this? I—I…” The words leave my lips almost as a whisper, but it’s enough for Nero to hear. He stops again and turns to face me.

“Why?” he asks, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Why? Don’t you ever get tired of this little act, Nina?

It won’t work anymore, fuck!” He explodes, raising his voice and making me flinch.

Tears spring to my eyes and spill down my face in a flood I can’t contain.

Nero looks at them and his expression sinks into even deeper contempt.

“Doesn’t surprise me, actually. I believed it the first time, didn’t I?

And the second… I won’t believe it a third. ”

“Nero!” I hear his name before I see Atlas approaching from somewhere behind me, placing his hands on his friend’s shoulders. His voice is low when he continues. “You’re crossing a line.”

“Crossing a line?” Another scornful laugh cuts through the air and lodges straight into my heart.

“I’m crossing a line? And what exactly was she doing when she spread her legs for God and everyone while wearing my ring on her finger?

” He spits the words, and my eyes widen as my mouth falls open, unable to form a sound.

He’s saying I did what? “What was she doing, Atlas, while she pulled the oldest trick in the book on me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I manage to whisper after minutes of nothing but a relentless buzzing in my ears.

Panic presses down on my body, and breathing is so hard.

I don’t think I can breathe anymore. “You should—” I start, but air fails me before I can finish.

I struggle, with everything I have, to make my lungs work again.

“You… you should… s-stop,” I sob, barely aware of what’s leaving my mouth.

“You should stop before you say something you can’t take back. ”

“The only thing I wish I could fix is the day I met you. I wish I could erase it from my story so completely that you wouldn’t even be a shadow of my past. In the end, you’re still the same wide-eyed little girl, aren’t you?

Your greed never disappeared—it was just hidden behind practiced smiles and deceptive words. ”

I sob loudly, mouth open, finally losing the last drop of control I had over myself. My face contorts, expressing the most intense pain I’ve ever been capable of feeling.

“I’ll take her home,” Atlas tells Nero, and it’s almost like an out-of-body experience. I’m seeing everything, yet I feel as though my mind is no longer here. “This is over.” He steps away from his friend and approaches me.

Even in my state, I manage to recoil, frightened. He stops a few steps away and raises his hands, palms up, showing me goodwill.

“Do whatever you want,” Nero replies.

“I just want to take you home, okay?” Atlas tells me in a calm, soothing tone. I blink at him, but my eyes are drawn to Nero’s movement. He opens the folder he was carrying, takes its contents, and throws them at my feet.

Papers scatter across the ground, and when my eyes recognize what they’re seeing, I think I’m going to throw up. They’re photos. Photos of… of sex and… is that me?

Atlas looks away from the ground and speaks to me again.

“When you’re ready, just say the word.”

His words make sense, and yet I don’t understand them—too focused on the impossibility of everything that’s happening.

“Deny it,” Nero challenges me, his eyes locked on mine, overflowing with hatred in the same measure mine reflect pain.

I say nothing. How could I? How is it possible that I’m being accused of this? How could he, at any point, have believed that— that this— that these photos are real?

He knows me. Every part of me. Every smile, every plan, every dream—because I gave him everything. Nero infiltrated my days, climbed my walls, and battered down the gates of my conscience until I had no choice but to let him in.

He became part of my plans. He gave me new dreams. He turned my life into a place for two—even when I had no intention of it ever ceasing to be a place for one when we reconnected months ago, in the association’s lobby.

Nero was the only man my body ever knew.

The only touch that made my heart dance. He is the father of my child.

And because I knew all that, even after hearing his voice tell me I was nothing more than a disposable fling, I still came back here. I came back hoping—wanting—believing—that he could give me an explanation. That there would be an explanation.

He saw images. Photos that could have come from anywhere, and decided that was more than enough proof to condemn me. To turn every promise he made, every assurance he gave me, into nothing. To make the child—who is a part of both of us—irrelevant.

And that… that is something I will never be able to justify. There’s no way.

I think I’m going to throw up.

“I’ve already told you I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” my words come out in a thread of a voice as I fight to keep my gaze steady on Nero’s.

“But what I’m about to promise now, I will keep, Nero.

When you regret this—because you will—I may not know if it’ll be today, tomorrow, a year from now, or ten, but you will.

And when that moment comes, I won’t forgive you.

” I swear it. “I will never forgive you.”

Nero turns his back on me, dismissing the weight of my words as easily as he dismissed our story. I watch him walk away and get into the car.

I watch the car until it disappears on the horizon. A little longer, actually—unable to move or blink. Numb. I feel numb.

“Come on, Nina. I’ll take you home,” Atlas says, resting a hand on my elbow and guiding me toward his car.

My body moves on autopilot, and the churning in my stomach grows stronger and stronger. I fight the wave of nausea, pressing my lips together and trying to take slow, deep breaths—but I fail.

My body moves on autopilot, and the twisting in my stomach intensifies. I struggle against the sickness, pressing my lips together and trying to breathe slowly.

Even that, however, isn’t enough to make me react. I still feel as numb as before—and I simply don’t care.