Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
ARES
My heart is still pounding from Ophelia firing her gun inches from my head. Maybe if she’s lucky, I’ll forgive her for that.
It’s the least I owe her.
We weren’t expecting her to rush to the house the second the news about her father hit the media. Everyone in Beacon Bay is talking about the whereabouts of Belen Drakos. Pretty soon, the police will be here, asking tons of questions.
And we need her to stay.
“Go after her,” my mother says. “Ophelia is essential to the last part of our plan. Make her see this is the only way.”
Ophelia thinks we screwed her over, but she doesn’t know the entire story. She only knows whatever her shady-ass uncle told her. We’re not the bad guys. Once we get our girl to see reason, she’ll understand we did this for her, too.
“I’ll go,” I offer.
Since she likes me most, I leave the sitting room searching for her.
My brothers don’t complain. Apollo would be better at handling her foul mood.
He excels at diffusing complicated situations but is not good at dealing with his own shit.
And Atlas would probably draw her a picture of his feelings and say something poetic.
But she’s getting me.
I’m terrible at communicating with people, but I understand her feelings. I know what it’s like to think you’re not good enough, especially when I’m standing beside my brothers.
I race down the hallway and head outside. From a distance, I hear her sneakers on the pavers.
She’s still here.
I dart outside, whirling past her to reach the car door before her.
“Get out of my way, Ares!” Ophelia raises the gun and points it at my chest. “I will shoot you this time, you fucking bastard piece of shit.”
I deserve that.
I lean back against the driver’s side door, arms outstretched. “Then shoot because I’m not moving.”
The engine is still running in the black Mercedes. She must have borrowed it from her uncle. Her fender presses against Apollo’s bumper, the headlamps shining on the damage to the Audi A8. Apollo will stroke when he sees what she did to his car.
Ophelia aims the weapon at me. “Ares, stop playing games. Get out of my way and let me go.”
She doesn’t want to hurt me anymore than I already crushed her. It didn’t have to go down like this. I would have done things differently if there were any other way to get what we both wanted.
So would my brothers.
“Put the gun down, little dragon.” I hold up my hands in surrender. “I just want to talk. No one has to get hurt.”
“Too fucking late,” she snaps, the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I trusted you and your brothers. And you took everything from me.”
She’s screaming now, nearly hysterical and ready to lose it. I’m afraid she will accidentally shoot me if I don’t get her to lower the Glock.
“Baby, c’mon.” I extend my hand. “Give me the gun. I know you don’t want to kill me.”
“You don’t know shit,” she fires back, her entire body trembling from the emotions sweeping over her. “You pretended to like me. I knew a man like you would never like a woman like me. And I was right.”
She’s so fucking wrong.
And I think Apollo is right about me. I love Ophelia, or at the very least, I have strong feelings for her that could be love. I wouldn’t know since I’ve never been in love before.
I can’t tell her this.
Not now, anyway.
She’ll only think it’s another lie to control her—another manipulation to keep her returning for more.
“How could you do this to me, Ares?” Ophelia’s hands are shaking as severely as the rest of her body. “I cared about you. I told you shit no one else knows. I let you see me. Touch me. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for you.”
She loves me, too.
Or at least she did.
Fuck.
I see a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye and snap my head to the door. My brothers stand at the edge of the driveway, Apollo with his arms folded over his chest and Atlas with his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets.
I give them a look to stay put.
I’ve got this under control.
Ophelia’s eyes follow mine, and then she cries even harder. “What the fuck is wrong with you three? Just let me fucking go! Haven’t you taken enough from me?”
I don’t know if she’s crying like this because of the will or because her father is dead. We didn’t set the fire. That was the work of The Serpents.
Atlas signed over his bar to the street gang for their help—a small price for what we will get. And once Ophelia knows the truth about her father and what he did to her mother, she will wish she had put a bullet in his head.
I finally see an opportunity to grab the gun from her hand. She lowers it toward the ground, ready to collapse onto the pavement from sobbing so hard.
I tip my head at my brothers. They understand without words and cross the space between us. As I take the gun, Atlas moves behind Ophelia.
He wraps his arm around her, cradling her head against his chest. “We didn’t mean for this to happen, goddess. None of us wanted this for you. I’m sorry.”
“You killed my dad,” she chokes out, yanking on his hands to get free. “You fucking killed him and took my inheritance.”
“No,” our mother says from the front step. “I did. Blame me. My boys followed my orders.”
Mom knows I have feelings for Ophelia. I even asked her to back off when I knew things between us were getting serious. After the second night she slept in my bed, I knew she was it for me. I didn’t care if I had to share her with my brothers as long as she was mine.
“Oh, I do,” Ophelia hisses, struggling to break free from Atlas’s arms, but he holds her against his chest in a death grip. “I blame you most of all. You’re a fucking snake, Athena. I knew you were full of shit.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, little dragon.”
Her head turns to me. “Fuck you, Ares. Fuck all of you.” She elbows Atlas in the stomach, and he groans but doesn’t relinquish his hold on her. “Get off me, Atlas. Jesus! What the fuck is your problem? Are you assholes going to kidnap me, too?”
“We won’t hurt you,” Apollo says, inching toward her. “Just give us a few minutes to explain everything.”
She shakes her head, snot dripping from her nose. I hate seeing her like this, so I wipe her face with my shirt.
“Get away from me, Ares!”
“No.”
I continue dabbing at the tears and snot until she looks like my Ophelia again. Then, I steal her from Atlas and hug her. I want to kiss her. The feel of her against my bare skin brings back memories of better times.
I missed her so fucking much.
Two weeks without her.
It’s been too long.
She looks like she hasn’t showered in days. Smells like it, too. But I couldn't care less because she’s here with me.
“Have you eaten today?” Apollo asks her. “You don’t look well, Mistress.”
Mom’s eyebrow raises at his nickname.
“Don’t call me that,” Ophelia shouts. “You took my club from me, you stupid fucking piece of shit.”
Ophelia curses a lot when she’s angry. But tonight, she’s rabid and looks like a feral animal.
“Shhh.” I cup her face, stroking her cheek with my thumb. “I got you, little dragon. It’s going to be okay.”
She relaxes in my arms. My nickname must do it for her because she stops struggling when I repeat it.
“I hate you,” she mutters.
I swipe the tear-soaked hair from her face and brush it behind her ears. “I know, baby. But we’ll get through this. You’ll see. I’m not the man you think I am.”
“No,” she whispers. “You’re worse.”
I hear rustling to my right and spy a nosy neighbor standing on their porch, gazing at us.
“Are you okay over there, Ophelia?” Mr. Barker asks her.
He’s in his sixties and couldn’t handle one of us, let alone all three.
The old man is way out of his depth and needs to get back in his house before the cops come here looking for Belen.
If they see Ophelia in this sad shape, with her accusations thrown around, the detectives will take all of us down to the station for questioning.
“How about we take this inside?” Mom suggests, keeping her voice low. “We don’t need to involve the neighbors.”
“I’m fine, Mr. Barker,” Ophelia says.
“I just saw the news,” he says. “I hope they find your father.”
“Me too,” she chokes out, sniffing back more tears. “You can go back inside. Sorry to bother you.”
He gives each of us a strange look and then walks back into the house.
I bend down and smash my nose against Ophelia’s neck, breathing her in after missing her for the past two weeks. “Can we talk about this in the house, baby?”
“I’m not your baby anymore,” she fires back.
“Okay, that’s fair.” I kiss her cheek so she knows I still care about her and want her more than oxygen. “But we need to talk. All of us.”
She laughs. “Sure, let’s talk about my dad being too stupid to listen.” Ophelia’s eyes shift to my mom. “You used his grief to control him. And you thought you could do the same to me.” She shakes her head, another sob escaping her chest. “I’m not my dad. You can’t manipulate me.”
“Darling,” Mother lilts as she approaches us, her expensive heels clicking on the flagstones. “You don’t know the real story. It’s time you learned the truth about the real Belen Drakos.”