Chapter 27 ATHENA
ATHENA
We returned just after midnight.
The mansion stood in utter stillness, cloaked in darkness. The only signs of life were Dominic’s guards posted inside and around the house.
Being back here felt like crashing face-first into cold, brutal reality. Like a slap across my face that shattered the fleeting illusion of peace I’d felt only hours earlier. The spell was broken, and now, I was back in the lion’s den.
It wasn’t just me. I saw the shift in Dominic, too. The moment we stepped through the front door, the warmth he’d carried all day vanished. The hard, unreadable mask he wore so well slid back into place. That slight smile was gone. He stopped at the base of the stairs, turning toward me.
“Go rest, Athena. It’s been a long day.”
“I’m not tired,” I replied quietly, even though it was a lie. My body ached with exhaustion, but my heart… my heart wasn’t ready to let this night go. Not yet.
His eyes lingered on me. He made a low sound in his throat—something between a sigh and a grunt—but before he could speak again, we were interrupted.
Footsteps echoed in the hall, and Alec emerged from the shadows, hands tucked into the pockets of his dark jacket, his expression cold.
No playful smirk or sarcastic comment. Just silence.
“Apologies for the interruption,” Alec said, eyes shifting between us. “But it’s urgent.”
“I’ll be in my office in a minute,” Dominic said, and Alec nodded, disappearing into the dark hallway as swiftly as he had arrived. Dominic looked back at me.
“Go get some rest,” he said again, his voice gentler this time. “I’ll find you later.”
“Does that mean I can expect a visit from you tonight?” I teased.
He let out a low laugh, shaking his head.
“Leave your door unlocked and find out.”
Without thinking, I rose on my toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, near the corner of his mouth.
My lips lingered there for the briefest second too long.
We both froze. I stepped back, suddenly self-conscious.
His expression was unreadable, but he didn’t stop me or push me away.
His chest rose and fell beneath my hand, heart pounding just as wildly as mine.
“Thank you,” I whispered, voice trembling with sincerity. “For today.”
His hand covered mine, pressing it to his chest. His eyes softened in a way that made my heart stutter. Then I let go. I turned and climbed the stairs, his gaze following me until the last step.
At the top, I lingered in the hallway, unable to go into my room, smiling like a girl who had no idea her world was about to shatter.
There were no guards on this floor anymore—Dominic had reassigned them downstairs.
For privacy, he’d said, or perhaps so he could sneak into my room without witnesses.
Either way, I was content. Then I heard Alec’s voice below.
“Nic, I’m afraid it can’t wait any longer.”
“What is so important that it couldn’t wait until morning?” Dominic sounded exhausted.
“If you’d picked up your phone one of the ten times I called, you’d already know.”
“I was busy.”
My cheeks flushed. He was busy—with me.
“Yeah. I saw that.” Alec didn’t miss a beat. ‘‘Your father called.’’
Silence. Then Dominic’s voice, colder now, followed.
“What does he want?”
“He is expecting an answer,” Alec said, voice tight. “You know I don’t like the bastard, and he’s driving me insane.”
“You can tell him it’s not happening.” Dominic’s voice dropped, laced with venom. “Tell him to go to hell. He doesn’t make the calls. I do.”
“You don’t even know what the hell you’re doing anymore, man,” Alec said, not angry, more like concerned. “You’re losing focus.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing. Don’t lecture me like I’m a fucking rookie.”
“Then prove it. Angelo’s under watch. Do we move?”
My stomach dropped. The silence that followed was deafening. Then came Dominic’s voice, sharp as a blade.
“You have my permission. Deal with that motherfucker.”
My hands clutched the railing. I couldn’t breathe.
“I’ll take care of his brother myself.”
Oh God. No. No. He couldn’t mean—
“Maddox King is all yours, my friend.”
I staggered back, the blood draining from my face. They were talking about my family. Tears burned my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. Not when I could barely understand what I was feeling—betrayal, heartbreak, rage… and underneath it all, shame. Because I had been stupid. So stupid.
Dominic told me he didn’t like to be touched—yet he let me. He told me he didn’t kiss—yet he kissed me like he needed it to survive. He told me he never went down on a woman—yet with me, he did, and like a fool, I believed it meant something.
I ran to my room the moment their footsteps disappeared, shutting the door behind me. Then the tears came—loud, ugly sobs that racked through my body until I collapsed to the floor. How could I have been so blind?
My family was about to suffer because of me.
But I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t let that happen. I had to talk to Dominic. Maybe I could reason with him, find that tiny sliver of humanity still buried beneath his violence. The voice in my head laughed cruelly.
You think you can reason with a man who kills without blinking? With a man who made you fall for him, just to break you?
Still, I paced the room for hours, trying to find the right words to make him listen. If he came. When he came.
It was past three in the morning when the door finally creaked open. Hope burst through me like sunlight. I turned, heart in my throat, and froze. It wasn’t Dominic, it was Linda dressed in black, hood up, her face pale and sharp in the moonlight.
“You look worse than usual,” she said flatly.
“What are you doing here?” I wiped my face, my voice raw.
She glanced around the room like she expected someone else to be hiding inside. “I don’t have time for small talk. Get dressed. We have to go.”
“Go where? Did Dominic send you?” I stared at her.
Something flickered across her face—but she masked it quickly.
“No,” she said. “Dominic didn’t send me, but if you want to see your family again, come with me. Now.”
My heart thundered in my chest. I wanted to believe this was some twisted joke.
That Dominic was waiting just outside the door with another cruel test of loyalty.
But Linda looked dead serious, and for the first time since I arrived at this mansion, I used my brain instead of my heart.
I dressed in silence and followed her into the night.
“Why are you helping me?”
The words burst from me the moment we slammed the doors shut behind us and the black Jeep roared down the driveway, peeling us away from the mansion and into the thick silence of the night.
The man behind the wheel was silent, focused, eyes flicking between the road and the rear view mirror.
I felt his gaze sweep over me briefly, but it didn’t linger.
We were moving fast—too fast—and the force of it pinned my spine against the leather seat.
My pulse thudded in my ears. Adrenaline had taken over completely.
My lungs still burned from sprinting through the winding hallways of that place, half-certain every second that a bullet would rip through my back.
That we wouldn’t make it. Yet here we were, and somehow, impossibly, it was Linda who made that happen.
I turned toward her, watching as she pulled back her hood, revealing her sharp cheekbones and glacier-cold stare.
“I didn’t do it for you,” she said finally as she leaned back in her seat and folded her arms. “I did it for me.”
“What?” I blinked.
“I don’t like you,” she continued, tone like ice on skin. “And I don’t like your family.”
“Then that’s another reason not to help me.”
“I may not like you, but I like Dominic even less.”
It didn’t make sense.
Everyone said Linda was loyal to Dominic.
Close to him, even. Intimately close. The rumors alone were enough to twist my stomach into knots, the way they painted her as more than just a girl for the night.
Some even claimed she shared his bed on and off, that she was the only woman who ever really got under his skin.
“But… you work for him.”
“Not anymore.”
“He fired you?”
She shook her head, her jaw ticking. “I walked away.”
Something happened.
The realization settled heavily in my gut, dragging me deeper into a whirlwind of thoughts I didn’t want to have.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, my fingers curling into the leather seat beneath me.
Jealousy was an ugly, burning thing, but I didn’t have the right to feel it.
Still, the thought of Dominic touching her the way he touched me made my skin crawl.
Especially after he planned to erase my uncle from this world hours after I gave him everything. I was a goddamn fool.
I leaned my head against the window, the cold glass soothing my burning cheeks. The darkness outside pressed in, thick and quiet, and for a moment, it felt like the entire world had fallen away. Only hours ago, I was in his arms, and now I was running away, free from him. So why didn’t I feel free?
“Whatever your motive is… thank you.”
Linda gave me a side glance, her brows rising faintly.
“You’re saving not just my life. You’re saving my family.”
She let out a long sigh and dropped her head back against the seat.
“Don’t get sentimental, for God’s sake. I didn’t do this because I care whether you live or die,” she added, voice sharp. “This is about Dominic. He needs to be reminded that he’s not untouchable.”
She dragged a black backpack onto her lap, unzipping it to reveal a wig, sunglasses, and a new ID.
“We have a flight waiting for us, so get ready, princess. You’re going back to your family.”