59. Ares – One Month Later
Ares – One Month Later
The residence at the Aurelian is everything I expected it to be. Large rooms. High ceilings. Fresh paint. Stainless steel. Impeccable.
Cold.
I hate it.
From the floor-to-ceiling windows, the East River reminds me of a dark ribbon of silk. I hate that, too.
I miss the trees of Central Park outside my windows, the changing leaves of each season. I miss the scent of plaster and the years of smells it absorbed. My cologne and a trace of the food I love. I left the cook with Lourdes.
The valet followed me here. I order meals or slip into restaurants to eat in private.
Alone.
I sleep alone. When I can sleep.
I left my wife with the hope that the distance would cure me of the ache threatening to consume me. The way the war with the Irish destroyed my brother.
Pathetic.
Me. Not him.
My warning to Kirill is holding. He’s back in Chicago and has even been seen around the city with a woman. Yuri has only a few months to live and has given his approval for the marriage.
In weekly Zervas & Company conference call meetings, I listen to every voice on my phone, waiting to hear a familiar feminine sigh or even a throat clearing.
Waiting to hear my wife.
I hear nothing. Knowing she’s on the line and says nothing, as she’s done all this time, is driving me to distraction, rather than curing me of what I refused to face thirty days ago.
What was supposed to cure me from falling into a state of useless emotion has only grown into a restless tightening in my chest that I can’t shake. I’m fucked with it, and these damn walls are closing in on me here at the Aurelian.
I visit the command center a few floors below the residence where I’ve built a network of spies to monitor all the mafia families and their consolidation efforts.
Daria, who divides her time between here and Zervas & Company, greets me with a stoic look. It’s business as usual. No woman to stalk. No companies to buy. No husband to kill.
She looks relieved to have returned to the cold, straightforward tasks of keeping House Zervas safe and one step ahead of our enemies.
“I have secured lines for your announcement to start monthly meetings with all the syndicates, Ares,” she tells me from her desk outside the command center. “We should send the communication this week.”
“I have to go to Santorini first,” I say. “The shelf is repaired. I want to see if for myself.”
“It’s a dangerous time. We need to emerge as the dominant syndicate,” she says.
“And leaders will know the Aurelian is the only place to make deals that is safe, and it is under my control. I’ll only be gone for a few days.” I turn to leave.
“Will you be taking Mrs. Zervas?” Daria says to my back.
“No. She’s doing fine without me.”
And that is an agonizing reality that is killing me.
Bags packed, I get into my Bentley, and then my plane, ignoring all the memories rushing at me about the last time I flew to Santorini with Lourdes. But as hard as I try, they consume me.
Once I arrive, I move through the Santorini house, and that feeling I usually get here washes over me.
I understood why Alexander used to come here when the stench of Irish bloodshed became too much, and the sound of gunfire grew too loud for him to think. My war delivered only the smell of sweet skin and the sound of a woman moaning my name beneath me as she came on my cock.
A war of the heart can’t be won when the enemy is myself.
Elani looks up from a planner on the kitchen island. “Lunch will be ready soon,” she says, smiling at me.
I nod and then stare out at the water. The sunlight flashes off the Aegean, the salt and wind used to feel cleansing, but now it’s just another reminder of what I miss.
“I’ll take lunch to go,” I say. “I need to get on the water.”
“I think the sea will do you some good.” She pats my arms and is already gathering bread, olives, roasted fish, and fruit into glass containers.
Down at the marina, the dockhands have the boat ropes off the cleats and are waiting for my departure.
Engine humming, I battle rare sea waves as I steer toward the marker indicating the repaired shelf.
The marine team my foundation hired worked all month, reinforcing the rock bed from further damage.
I drop anchor safely and dive in, the cold shock of water muting my heartache. All I hear is the blood rushing through my ears. For a moment, the world above the surface falls away.
I descend along the line, the lead rope from the marker sliding through my gloved hand as the hull of the boat rocks against the shifting blue. Sunlight fractures through the water in pale ribbons and helps guide me to the white stone shelf below.
The cold steadies me. It forces my mind to focus. Reminds me, I’m down here with no wetsuit and no gear.
I get to the shelf and inspect the reinforced sections where the divers completed their repairs. My fingers follow the welded seams, testing the strength of the plates, pressing against the runoff lines to ensure they sit firmly in their brackets.
Everything holds. And it’s exactly what the reports promised. Money well spent.
I swim deeper to see the base of the shelf, checking the final section. The water goes ice cold, and the current here moves more sharply, tugging at my shoulders. I brace a hand against the rock as I examine the last of the supports.
Satisfied, I turn back toward the line. That’s when the current does more than shift.
It happens so quickly I barely register it. The anchor rope snaps taut above me as the boat swings with the wind. The sudden drag against my legs has me jerking away to avoid severe rope burn.
The line whips sideways, and before I can move, the slack loops around my ankle and tightens.
The next pull yanks me downward.