Chapter 4
Four
The apartment was quiet when he entered. If he hadn’t known his brother was there, he would have thought it was empty. Lately, Markos had seemed to crave the quiet more and more.
Nikos closed the penthouse door with a soft click, the hum of Manhattan fading as he stepped into the quiet.
Warm, recessed lighting cast a muted amber glow over dark wood floors and sleek charcoal furnishings.
Everything about the space was refined, masculine, and deliberate: walnut-paneled walls, black marble countertops, and steel fixtures that gleamed beneath the low lights like loaded weapons.
This space was constructed with power in mind, a place where control was absolute. And yet… he felt anything but in control.
He shrugged out of his black wool overcoat, hanging it on the hook over the entryway bench before he crossed the open floor plan in measured strides.
He didn’t speak—not yet. He moved with the focused silence of a man caught within a storm of turmoil.
He crossed to the corner bar inset against a wall of smoked glass.
Crystal decanters lined the shelves, each filled with an expensive blend of amber liquor that was chosen as carefully as the paintings on the wall.
He reached for the Oban.
The whiskey sloshed gently into the glass, its sharp, smoky scent rising as he lifted it to his lips. His other hand braced against the marble counter.
Behind him, leather creaked.
Markos sat on the low-slung sofa, one arm draped over the back, the other loosely curled around his own glass.
He looked at home in the shadows, all controlled calm and silent calculation.
His dark hair was slightly longer than Nikos’s, tousled just enough to look unintentional.
He wore tailored black slacks and a charcoal knit sweater that clung to his lean frame, giving him the appearance of a man who could walk off a runway or vanish into a war zone without a change of pace.
Markos was watching him. Of course he was.
“Want another?” Nikos asked without turning.
Markos shook his head and leaned deeper into the rich saddle-leather cushions. “I’m good. You, however, look like you could use something stronger than whiskey.”
Nikos didn’t respond. Instead, he crossed to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the glittering Manhattan skyline.
The city sprawled below them in a sea of fractured light and movement.
Normally, this view gave him a sense of control.
Of dominion. But tonight it felt too far away.
Like a world he no longer knew how to walk through.
He sipped the whiskey, letting it burn a slow, deliberate path down his throat.
“So,” Markos said at last, his voice slicing through the silence, “you going to tell me what the hell’s going on, or should I break out twenty questions?”
Nikos let out a rough exhale and angled his face toward the glass. His reflection stared back at him, distorted by the city lights. “I know that feeling,” he said quietly, the words edged with bitterness before he could stop them.
There was a beat of silence.
When Nikos glanced over, Markos’s jaw had gone taut, the shadows in his eyes suddenly darker. They both knew what he was referring to—that night eight years ago. The one neither of them talked about.
Regret hit him instantly.
“I’m sorry,” Nikos muttered, turning and walking to the armchair opposite the couch. He dropped into it with a heavy sigh, his whiskey glass cradled between his palms. “That was uncalled for.”
Markos gave a curt nod but said nothing. He didn’t need to. The wound was old, but it hadn’t scarred over.
Nikos stared into his glass, the amber liquid swirling like the chaos in his mind. “Something happened tonight. Something… strange.”
Markos leaned forward slightly. His tone softened. “Tell me.”
Nikos met his brother’s gaze. “I met someone.”
Markos blinked in surprise. “Met someone—as in…?”
Nikos laughed, but it was dry, humorless. “As in, she straight-up short-circuited my entire nervous system. Her name is Kiki Reese.”
Markos frowned, repeating the name slowly. “Kiki… That’s unusual.”
“She’s… unusual,” Nikos admitted, rolling the glass between his palms. “You remember the traffic footage from Rose’s abduction?”
Markos nodded, interest sharpening his expression.
“It’s why I agreed to that damn blind date.
I had to barter for it with a guy who works in traffic control, Harvey.
I promised him two tickets to the VIP lounge at the club and a blind date with his sister, who turned out to actually be his neighbor.
I thought it would be nothing. A drink, a little forced conversation.
Then I met her. Well, first she stood me up, and then I met her. ”
Markos raised an eyebrow and glanced at his watch. “What happened? It’s not even seven o’clock.”
“I kissed her, that’s what happened. Hell if I know why,” Nikos muttered, shaking his head. “We haven’t even gone out yet. She slammed her damn door in my face! Before I kissed her, I mean.”
“Ouch,” Markos said with a smirk. “How did you kiss her if she shut the door in your face?”
Nikos groaned, leaned back in the chair, and stared up at the ceiling. “Harvey talked her into opening the door.”
He was quiet a moment before he admitted, “I know basically nothing about her, even after asking Andri to do a background search on her. Harvey and Jim warned me not to be afraid of her. I thought that was a joke, but hell, we’ve had our fair share of stalkers. I wanted to be prepared.”
“I see nothing unreasonable about that—except maybe the kiss before you’ve even wined and dined her, but hell, it happens. I haven’t met a woman yet who didn’t have you on their kiss wish list,” Markos replied.
Nikos snorted. “Something tells me a kiss from me wasn’t even on her blacklist. She…
irked me, and then she didn’t, because seeing her…
it was like getting struck by lightning.
I’ve felt nothing like it. She was…” His voice faded and he shook his head, looking back at Markos with a bemused expression. “The next thing I knew, I kissed her.”
“What did she do?”
Nikos felt a flush of heat rise to his cheeks. He shot his brother a sheepish grin.
“I didn’t give her the chance to do anything. I hauled ass out of her apartment before she could clobber me, but not before her cat did,” he explained with a rueful smile, fingering the three millimeter tear in the front of his black silk shirt.
Markos laughed, a surprisingly deep, full-belly laugh. “Damn, but I wish I could have seen that. The suave playboy Nikos Aeto running scared! The guys would never believe that.”
Nikos sobered, his gaze falling back to his drink—lost in the memory of the brief, electric kiss. “It felt like a fuse was lit inside me. Explosive. Unexpected. Familiar, yet foreign. It seriously scared the shit out of me.”
His voice was rough, filled with a touch of confusion as he tried to process his internal conflict. Hell, he didn’t do deep emotions.
A long pause stretched between them.
Markos tilted his head. “It should be an interesting date, then.”
“Yeah,” he replied, his expression conflicted. “But once I fulfill my obligation, I’m walking away.”
Markos let the silence stretch before asking quietly, “Will you be able to?”
Nikos frowned at his brother. Will I walk away? Can I?
Markos met his eyes, steady and unflinching. “If there’s even a chance this woman means something… why not find out? Why walk away before you know?”
“Because I can’t afford to get tangled in something I can’t control,” Nikos snapped, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees before he exhaled and softened his voice. “Because—just… because.”
The unsaid words hung between them like a confession.
Markos leaned back, his expression unreadable. But his voice, when he spoke, was quiet. “You don’t have to keep punishing yourself for what happened, Nikos. I’m fine. It’s okay for you to move forward—for you to find someone.”
Nikos bowed his head, a dull ache tightening his chest before he looked back at Markos. “I know you’re lying.”
Markos’s gaze flicked away. Just for a second. “About what?”
“I can feel it. The void. The emptiness that you can’t fill.
You remember more than you let on. About the ambush.
About what they did to you. About what happened before you came back to camp.
Hell, that’s why they gave you the early discharge.
You always say you don’t—but I see it. I see it in your nightmares.
I see it in your eyes. I can feel it in my chest,” he said, tapping the spot over his heart.
Markos’s jaw worked, but he didn’t answer.
Nikos didn’t push. He never did. It was an unspoken rule between them. But that silence had cost them both. Maybe more than either of them realized.
He cleared his throat. “Anyway. Enough brooding for one night. Tell me about London.”
Markos allowed the shift. “I leave in two weeks. The Delarosa acquisition is nearly completed. I’ll oversee the transition myself.”
Nikos nodded. “Good. Let me know if you need a team.”
“I’ll be fine.” Markos studied him. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
Nikos raised an eyebrow. “I’m not the one who’s about to fly into a hostile boardroom.”
Markos raised his glass in a mock toast. “No, just on a blind date with a woman you’re afraid will clobber you. Let’s hope she doesn’t bring her cat,” he teased.
Nikos chuckled, and they sat for a while longer, the conversation drifting to safer topics—numbers, properties, upcoming deals. But as Markos rose to leave for the club, Nikos’s thoughts drifted back to Kiki.
To her sharp tongue.
Her guarded eyes.
Their far too brief kiss.
Nikos walked back to the bar and refilled his glass as silence filled the apartment. He stared at the vibrant city beyond the window, wondering what she was doing—and if she was thinking of him.
“I am so screwed,” he murmured with a self-depreciating chuckle even as his anticipation built.