62. Ares
Ares
My jet touched down in New York later than I would have liked. Turbulence and some kind of ground stop forced us to circle.
At eleven p.m., I jog down the airstairs and find my Bentley waiting, an SUV with my guards behind it. Wrath stands in front of the SUV, face expressionless behind shades even though it’s dark.
There is no warmth with the guards, and maybe that needs to change, too. Stop making them faceless shields. The ideas of how to rearrange my life and shed the dead skin of a cold snake rush at me, I need to start writing them down.
After.
After I make love to my wife.
“Welcome home, sir,” my driver says to me when I get inside the car. “I’ll have you at the Aurelian in no time.”
“No,” I say. “Bring me to Fifth Avenue.”
“Yes, sir.” At the front of my building, I step out, and Wrath follows me to the private entrance with Lust and Sloth behind him. They ride the elevator with me. Looks pass between them, tension humming off their skin.
I sense something is up.
In the vestibule, I notice the air does not smell of my wife’s perfume as it usually does. Perhaps my lungs are still filled with sea salt, and my sense of smell is compromised. That would be a shame. I need to savor the taste of her cunt.
“Lourdes?” I call out, heading to the bedroom with my duffle bag.
I’m nearly at a jog, racing down the residence wing. I stop short, seeing the door open, the room dark.
She never sleeps with the door open. As soon as my feet sink into plush carpet, I know she’s not in this bedroom. I move through the darkness to find the lamp on a table near the window and flick it on. Warm light spills onto the floor and reaches across the room.
To the empty bed. Unmade.
Something throbs in my neck. After tossing my bag on the bed, I spin around and look in other places. My office. The home gym, although I can’t imagine her working out near midnight. The media room. The laundry room. Each spare bedroom. All empty.
Storming to the vestibule, I stop short, seeing all seven guards in a protection formation. On alert. Why?
“Where is my wife?” I bark.
If all seven are here, wherever Lourdes is, she’s not protected.
Fury stealing my better senses, I take out my gun and aim at them. “I said—”
“Mrs. Zervas moved out this morning, boss,” Sloth says.
Odd, he’d speak up.
“What do you mean she moved out?” I say, waving my gun.
They all look at each other. And Sloth again drew the mental short straw. “She packed up and left.”
“To go where?” I bellow.
“Ms. Franklin called and said Mrs. Zervas was allowed to leave.” He clears his throat. “Alone.”
Daria…
I call her, my blood an inferno in my veins.
“I saw you just landed,” she says like nothing is wrong.
“I need you to explain how you allowed my wife to move out of my penthouse, and worse, without her guards?”
“She asked for a divorce.”
Legs weak, I stagger to one of the wing chairs and toss the gun on the coffee table. “You better start fucking talking right now, Daria. I am not above killing you.”
“I had Ambrose draw up the papers.” Her voice is unshaken by my threat. “She signed them.”
Ambrose?
“Daria, did you by any chance tell my brothers I was dead or in a coma?” I shout. “Why was this all done behind my back?”
“Ares, you made it clear to not only your wife, but everyone in your inner circle, that you did not want to be married to her anymore.”
“When were you going to tell me that she asked for a divorce?” I grind out.
“As soon as you called me.”
A deluge of thoughts floods my brain. What broke her? What led her to take this drastic step?
“Was she crying?” I ask quietly, my head still spinning.
“No. She signed the papers without saying a word. No tears. Nothing.”
“What did she ask for?”
“Mrs. Zervas didn’t ask for anything.”
I launch off the chair and return to the bedroom, eyes scanning every surface for the small treasures she purchased to make this bedroom hers. They are all exactly where they were when I left.
Her nightstand is bare of her personal effects. Chapstick. Lotion. The chair where her clothes should be draped is empty. The silence presses on my skull, thick and wrong.
I kick in her closet door and choke on the smell of her scent. Her old suitcase is gone, but all the clothes I bought her are still hanging there. Most are untouched, with the tags still on them. In the drawers, satin and lace thongs are still rolled up in the velvet slots.
“She took nothing with her,” I whisper. Nothing I bought her. Like she couldn’t bear a thread of mine on her body.
Her jewelry box sparkles from the diamonds I lavished her with. Including her engagement ring and wedding band.
I get back on the phone with Daria. “What is she getting as a settlement?”
“I offered a sizable monthly maintenance and security. She said no. To all of it.”
“She doesn’t get to say no!” I shout. “How can you let her leave and without any financial or personal security? She is my wife.”
“She signed the divorce papers, Ares. She’s not your wife anymore.”
I would shoot that woman in the leg if she were here. She knows that, or she would have been at my side ten minutes ago. She knew I was on my way back, and she knew my wife left me, and that I would find an empty fucking penthouse.
“I didn’t sign the papers. If you tell me you forged—”
“Ares, calm down. I knew you’d never be so cold as to divorce her. I thought I was doing you a favor.”
“How can she just leave?” I look around.
“I did what was needed, Ares. I need the God of War in his right head. Things are heating up. Nico Scava of Las Vegas has wiped out the Miami Cosa Nostra.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the Borgias!” I holler. “I want to know where the fuck my wife is.”
“She told me she was taking Sandrine to Arizona.” Daria clicks something on her keyboard. “Flight manifests show they boarded a flight to Scottsdale this morning.”
I missed her by one day. The same day it all came together for me is the day my wife decided she was done waiting for me.