Chapter 40
FORTY
VIOLET
Lykos’s kiss turned my brain and my insides into a pile of mush, and then he stopped. He just stopped, he took a step back watching me with his eyes filled with darkness that seemed to wrap around my soul.
Then he turned around and left… No explanation, no words… He just left.
The house fell quiet and I relished in the moment of it. I headed to the french doors that led to the balcony and opened them.
I wrapped one of Lykos’s shirts around myself and stepped outside barefoot, inhaling the salty air deeply as I took a seat.
I put my new cell phone down at the little coffee table and soaked in the view stretching in front of me.
The noon sun spilled across the balcony, painting the city of Athens and sea beyond it in molten gold, but the beauty of it all left me unmoved.
All I could think about was my daughter, Dimitros, and Lykos. The family I didn’t expect to love so much.
Yes, I’d loved my daughter for years, but this… it was so much more. I loved the idea of family with Aria, Dimitros, and Lykos, but I also recognized that it wasn’t as simple as just deciding to stay and be a family.
For years, I buried fear from my father and grief of losing Aria so deep inside myself that I convinced myself I survived it. I built a career, became respected, untouchable in some circles, dependable in others.
I was the Dr. Violet Freud, the therapist trusted with the darkest secrets of powerful men.
And giving it all up terrified me.
What if I made this family my entire world and then they decided I wasn’t good enough for them?
My throat tightened painfully.
Or if Aria hated me once she learned I was her real mother.
Every instinct inside me screamed to seek her out, pull her into my arms and confess everything. I wanted to shout to the world: I’m your mother, Aria. There wasn’t a day that passed that I didn’t think about you. I never stopped loving you.
But I was also scared that once Aria learned the truth about her real mother, it might change things between us. In fact, it terrified me and maintaining my life and career was my safety net.
I had a life in Boston. Sort of. I had my patients. My office. My grandfather’s legacy. Friends. Everything I’d built. I couldn’t simply erase myself and become only this version of Violet. The woman hidden away in Greece with a man powerful enough to bend governments.
The problem was that I couldn’t maintain that safety net of my life back in the States and be close to Aria. Hence, wanting to introduce her to my life back in the States.
Although I could now see how Lykos might have perceived it as excluding him.
I pressed my palms together and closed my eyes. It was so much easier to be a therapist to others than to feel and deal with all these emotions.
A vibration broke through my thoughts. It was my phone and the name on the screen showed Sienna was calling me.
I answered immediately. “Hey there. Are you okay?”
“Of course. Are you?” Sienna said dryly.
I laughed weakly. “Let’s focus on you, Sienna.”
“And she avoids the question.”
“Sienna, you’re not my therapist. I’m yours. Now, you called me, which means you need to talk,” I said softly, keeping my tone even.
Sienna exhaled sharply. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“How about you tell me how your plan with the Irish mobster is coming along?”
“It’s going well.” She mumbled something I didn’t quite catch, and she added, “Too well.”
I leaned back against the chair. “But you’re not happy about it.”
“I am,” she replied, although she didn’t sound very convinced. “He’ll probably be arrested soon.”
I frowned. “And you’re okay with that?”
“Of course I am.” Steel sharpened her voice. “Mobsters are involved in arms trafficking, money laundering, and much, much more.”
“And you presented the evidence?”
Silence filled the line.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Sienna…”
“Don’t turn into a therapist right now.”
“You called me which tells me you need me to be exactly that. Besides, need I remind you, I am a therapist.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Have you called Sophie?” I asked.
I knew my friend was traveling through the Balkans, trying to find peace herself. It was the reason I wasn’t calling her, but I suspected she’d want to know about this. If not her, then at least her cousin, Kristoff Baldwin, who had legally adopted Sienna when he married Sienna’s mother.
“No, I don’t want to stress her out.” Her tone softened.
“Yet, it seems you’re stressing out,” I pointed out.
“I don’t know why I’m stressing about this. The man is a mobster and belongs in jail. I just need him saying enough on record to bury him permanently.”
My stomach twisted uneasily. “Sienna, have you thought this through?”
“Yes.” She let out another heavy exhale. “It’s guilt that’s killing me.”
“Maybe because you care about him.”
“I. Do. Not.”
“Okay.”
“Do you trust me, Violet?”
Trusting people had never come easily to me. Not after my parents. Not after losing Lily. Not after having to hide my child from my own father.
“You still there?” Sienna asked.
“Yes, I am.” I cleared my throat, then continued, “I trust you’re a smart young woman, Sienna. However, when it comes to this Irish mobster, I don’t trust your motives and I don’t think you trust your own motives either.”
She snorted. “Whatever.”
“Ah,” I mused, smiling faintly. “I must have struck a nerve.”
“I appreciate you talking to me,” Sienna rasped, and a part of me wished she was here and I could hug her. I never offered physical closeness with anyone, but Sienna was practically family.
“Anytime.”
“Anything I can help you with?” she offered.
I stared out toward the endless row of whitewashed homes and sparkling blue sea beyond them. “The only thing you can do for me, Sienna, is to take care of yourself. I want you to be happy and since your kidnapping last year… you’re struggling.”
“It’s scary how perceptive you are, Violet,” she muttered. “I promise to be happy, but I also think it’s time you find happiness too.”
“That sounds suspiciously wise for someone trying to entrap an Irish mobster.”
“I contain multitudes.”
I laughed softly.
“What are you going to do?” I asked after a long pause. “About a certain Irish mobster?”
“I honestly don’t know.” She sighed heavily. “But I’m afraid I’ve come too far to stop now. Bye, Violet.”
The line went dead and for the next hour—or maybe three—I sat alone with my thoughts.
Then I took a shower, cooked an early dinner and ate it with the children. Lykos was nowhere to be found. Since the kids were still recovering from everything that had happened, they went to bed early and I was alone with my thoughts. Again.
Except, with every passing minute, my anxiety and fear of where I stood with Lykos grew. I was scared to lose everything I’d found in this short amount of time. I hadn’t had the best childhood and my parents’ marriage was nothing to look up to.
But for the first time in my life, I felt like something in my life could be right.
A door slammed somewhere in the penthouse, and then I spotted Lykos. He stalked toward me and grasped me by my throat. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to force me to look up at him.
“You want to go to the States, fine. But I’m coming along. You’re not leaving Dimitros and me behind.”
His lips covered mine and he swallowed my next breath in his mouth.