CHAPTER 49
NERO ZANTHOS
I slam the knocker against the wooden door, pissed off that I have to be here doing this in the first place. But for days now Nina has been refusing to speak to the lawyers or receive them at her house, leaving me no other option but to come in person. She’ll regret this.
Minutes pass with no answer. I knock again—harder—until I’m pounding on the door and still getting nothing back.
“They’re not home,” a boy of about ten shouts, stopping his bike at the foot of Nina’s steps.
I frown and check my watch. It’s lunchtime. At least one of them should be home. I walk down the steps and stop in front of the boy’s bike.
“Want to make ten euros, kid?”
“Sure!” he says, already putting his foot on the pedal, ready for whatever errand he’s about to be given.
“Go to the shop door and tell Nina that Nero is here.”
The excitement drains from his face immediately, and I understand why when he speaks again.
“The shop’s closed, sir. Hasn’t opened in three days. Same amount of time nobody’s been home,” he says—and my entire body goes rigid.
“You sure about that?”
“Yes, sir.” The boy looks up and down the street, as if making sure no one’s listening, and I immediately regret it.
Khione’s gossip engine kicks in early. The kid’s barely lost all his baby teeth and already behaves like a ninety-year-old with nothing better to do than mind other people’s business.
I don’t scold him, though—his willingness suits me just fine right now.
I even lean a little closer. “I know something people are saying. If I tell you, will you give me those ten euros?”
The little mercenary.
“Tell me—and if it’s interesting, I’ll give you five.”
He shrugs, not even trying to negotiate.
“They’re saying the island’s all-powerful family had something done to them.”
His words make me straighten instantly.
“What?” It’s not a question—just disbelief—but he answers anyway.
“They left three days ago, sir. Left without taking anything and didn’t come back.” He whispers again, glancing around for witnesses to his gossip. If it bothered me before, now I don’t care.
Three days. They left three days ago and didn’t come back.
All the implications spin through my head, and before I realize it I’m back at the top of the steps, slamming my shoulder into the wooden door, forcing it—again and again—until it gives way.
I burst into the house as if my life depends on it and find everything exactly where my mind already knew it would be. Books. Furniture. Even the pair of shoes Nina always leaves by the door. My heart pounds in my throat as I search every room and find them all empty.
Stepping into the pink-walled bedroom makes my stomach knot.
The bed is made. The closet is full. Books on the desk.
Nina’s laptop and her dozens of colorful pens are there too.
Rosa’s room is the same. Nothing out of place.
Nothing missing. My heart starts to slow with the certainty that they didn’t go anywhere.
I head back downstairs, already pulling my phone from my pocket, intending to call Icarus and have him arrange for the door I wrecked to be fixed. But a familiar glint catches my eye and I move toward it like a flash.
On the sideboard in the corner of the living room, I find the engagement ring I gave Nina resting on top of a brochure for a nursing program in the Emirates.
I pick up the ring and try, in every possible way, to convince myself this means nothing. Everything is here. They couldn’t have gone anywhere.
But they did. I know they did.
The certainty that this ring—abandoned on top of what used to be the biggest dream of the Nina I knew—was some kind of goodbye pulses in my chest like a second heart. One as broken as the first.
Nina ran.
***
“I thought I’d find you here,” my mother says, walking into my apartment without being invited—but I left the door unlocked, so I’m not sure I can blame her for that.
Her voice sounds distant, and the corners of my mouth lift. Fuck—Lysandra’s voice could always sound like this. It would be a blessing.
The bottle slips from my hand, clattering as it escapes my grip and rolls across the floor. The liquor spreading makes me laugh.
“Are you drunk?” Lysandra asks, stopping in front of me, towering in her heels. I tilt my head back to meet her gaze.
Impeccably elegant, as always. I smile at my mother.
“Maybe,” I say.
“That’s it? Is this what you’re going to be now? A drunk?” I blink and click my tongue, losing interest in her as I reach for the bottle that rolled away.
She bends down and grabs the whiskey before I can, snapping my attention back to her.
“I won’t allow this, Nero! I won’t accept you drinking yourself into the ground over that little—”
“Shut up, Lysandra!” I snap, cutting her off, and her expression shifts from furious to stunned in an instant.
“What?”
“I told you to shut up. And get out of my house.” My mother’s head shakes slowly, in denial.
“She left with another man. She ran because one of the others she was trying to scam was just as deluded as you. He came back for her. And you talk to me like this?”
I absorb her words, silently begging the whiskey I’ve had to be enough to make me forget all of this tomorrow.
Just in case, I push myself up from the floor of the still-empty apartment. I haven’t been here in weeks. I walk into the kitchen and grab one of the bottles I brought specifically to keep me company tonight. This time, I choose vodka.
“Nero!” Lysandra exclaims as I open it and lift the bottle straight to my mouth. A thin stream spills down my chin, wetting my face.
“You want to stay?” I say, gesturing at her with the bottle. “Fine. But tonight”—I give the bottle a small shake—“this is the only company I’m willing to tolerate.”