The Break
MAIKA HAD NEVER BEEN the type to pray. Her whole life, no one had really taken the time to talk to her or teach her about God. Sure, she knew about how people went to church, and about souls going to heaven or hell, but she had always felt like she was too busy surviving to have time to pray.
But since that day at the board meeting, it was as if something had changed, and the next thing she knew, she was talking to God all the time, and when she started reading the Bible, she knew she wasn't imagining things.
It was like she was hearing Him even when there was no actual voice speaking.
It was like she was hearing Him with her heart and not her ears.
It was like He was the father she had always wanted but never had, and...
All the things that she never had the courage to say just started spilling out.
I think I'm in love with my husband, God.
No, actually, I'm sure of it.
I'm in love with Mykos, but I don't know if I should tell him.
Or if it's right that I do.
No, wait, I know I'm supposed to love him.
You allowed us to marry, and that means something.
No, wait, I remember reading about this.
I know that means everything, and I...I really love being in love with Mykos.
And I want him to love me back.
So what do I do now?
With every day that passed, it was getting harder and harder to keep her feelings to herself.
She had noticed the way Mykos was looking at her oddly every so often, as if he, too, could sense the change in her.
But he didn't say a word about it for some reason, and Maika couldn't figure out whether that was a good thing or not.
Her husband was typically the first one to reach for her hand. The first one to pull her close and kiss her. But nowadays, Maika found herself taking the initiative even when doing so also made her turn red. She just couldn't help it, though.
When she looked at him, he was just so beautiful in her eyes that she couldn't help reaching to touch his cheek to make sure if he was truly real.
He had asked her to accompany him to his office one day, and while they were walking in the lobby of his building, she had looked at him, and the soft ebony waves of his hair just mesmerized her so much that she found herself reaching to touch it.
She just wanted to check if she truly had the right to touch his hair as his wife, and when she did—
His golden gaze swung toward her, and the look on his face was enough to make her breath catch. Not anger. Something fiercer than that, and far more dangerous.
Maika was about to stumble back and pull her hand away, but he had caught her wrist and looked at her, asking abruptly, "Why did you do that?"
"I don't know," she had whispered.
"That's too bad."
"Why?"
"Because you're asking for punishment for no reason."
And that had been her only warning before Mykos had taken her to the elevator, his hand tight around hers, walking so fast she had to half-run to keep up.
He hit the Emergency Stop button the moment the doors closed, and then he used an app on his phone to switch off the security cameras.
All of this took him maybe five seconds, and the whole time, Maika was standing there with her back against the elevator wall, her heart in her throat, watching her husband dismantle the world's surveillance systems with the same calm efficiency other men used to check the weather.
And then his phone was in his pocket and his hands were on her, and she forgot what elevators were for, because they were certainly not designed for what came next.
Even now, Maika couldn't keep her toes from curling whenever she recalled that particular...
incident. While coming out of the elevator wasn't something she'd describe as a walk of shame, it was also clear that everyone around them knew what they had been up to.
She was flushed and breathless, her blouse untucked, and Mykos hadn't even bothered to fix his hair.
And it was also kinda cute but embarrassing with how Mykos, whom everyone had always feared and thought heartless...
He had taken things completely in stride, still holding her hand as they walked in full view of everyone. It was as if he was saying, 'yes, this is my wife, and we can't keep our hands off each other.'
His receptionist had very determinedly looked at her computer screen.
His assistant had developed a sudden fascination with the ceiling.
And Maika had wanted the floor to open up and swallow her, but Mykos's hand was warm around hers, and there was the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth, and she thought: he's proud of this. He wants them to see.
Honestly, the way Mykos was acting, when she thought about it...
Am I imagining things, God?
Or is it possible that Mykos has also fallen in love?
With me?
And the moment she started thinking that way, it was impossible to unthink.
Impossible to forget.
And that was how one day the words simply slipped out.
They were in bed, tangled together, her head on his chest, his fingers tracing something on her shoulder. Slow, absentminded lines, like he was writing. She was half-asleep, warm, safe, her body still humming from an hour ago, and then...
"I love you."
He stiffened. She froze. But there was no taking back words that had already been spoken.
Oh God, what do I do?
She waited for him to say something.
But he didn't.
Her heart started pounding.
And so did his.
But she just couldn't tell if their hearts were beating to the same melody.
Help me, God.
I'm so scared.
I think I just ruined everything.
And she was unfortunately...right.
WHEN SHE WOKE UP, THE bed was empty. But when she reached for his pillow, there wasn't any note waiting for her.
She stared at the bare pillow for a long time.
Every morning since their wedding, there had been a note.
Sometimes teasing (Are you about to hug this pillow because you miss my scent?).
Sometimes brief (Meeting at nine. —M). Sometimes just his initial and a dash, which she had come to understand was his version of saying I'm thinking of you, but I'd rather die than admit it.
Today, there was nothing.
He didn't come back to join her for dinner like he usually did. It was also the first night that she fell asleep without her husband by her side. But it wasn't the last.
The second day, she told herself he was busy. He ran a company. He had meetings. People depended on him. It was fine. She was fine.
The third day, she found herself checking the security cameras in the hallway, and she saw him come through the front door at two in the morning and go directly to his study. He didn't even glance toward the stairs.
The fourth day, Portia started looking at her with that careful, worried expression that staff wore when they knew something was wrong but weren't allowed to say so. Maika smiled at her and said everything was fine, and Portia nodded and didn't believe her, and they both pretended otherwise.
The fifth day, she sat in Maika's Corner in the library and tried to read, but the words kept blurring. She pulled down the Midsummer Night's Dream pop-up book and opened it to the page with the fairy forest, and she stared at the little paper trees until her eyes burned.
The sixth day, she heard him in the hallway outside their bedroom at four in the morning. His footsteps paused. She held her breath, lying rigid under the covers, her whole body straining toward the door. Come in. Please. Just come in.
The footsteps continued down the hall.
And when an entire week went by that she didn't see him at all even though she knew for a fact that he did come home—
It just seemed like he didn't want to see her.
What did I do wrong, God?
Was it wrong to tell him I love him?
How can love be wrong?
She knew things couldn't go on like this, and that was why, even though she was so, so tempted to pretend everything was okay...
She prayed for courage, but she also drank several cups of coffee because she had never been a night owl.
She sat at the foot of the stairs in her pajamas and one of his stolen shirts, her hands wrapped around her fourth cup, her bare feet cold against the marble.
The house was silent. Orion had gone to his quarters hours ago.
The staff were asleep. Even the fountain outside seemed to have gone quiet, as if the whole house was holding its breath along with her.
It was the only way to stay awake when she heard the door open, and he came walking in at three in the morning—
Oh.
Her husband's steps slowed to a halt at the sight of her waiting for him, seated at the foot of the stairs.
His handsome face was inscrutable, his golden eyes shuttered.
He was still in his suit, but his tie was loosened, and there were shadows under his eyes that she hadn't seen before, and even from here she could see the tension coiled through every line of his body.
And somehow...she knew that he knew.
Maybe he had checked the security footage before coming home. Or Orion had told him. It didn't matter either way. But it was clear that he had known she was waiting for him, and yet...he had still made her wait.
She set down her coffee cup. Her hands were trembling, so she pressed them against her knees.
"What did I do?" she whispered.
He didn't move from the doorway. The distance between them was maybe ten feet, but it felt like an ocean.
"You remember why I married you."
"Y-Yes."
"Then why are you doing what I don't need you to do?"
Her nails dug into her palms. "A-Are you saying...you don't want me to love you?"
"Will you stop if I tell you to?"
"I...I..."
I don't want to cry.
But when she saw his lips tighten, she knew that she already was, and it just hurt, seeing how he now despised the sight of her tears when he used to be the first one to wipe them away.
"Are you also saying that you c-can n-never love me back?" she choked out.
Silence.
The word hung between them, and the silence that followed it was the cruelest thing she had ever heard, because silence could mean anything, and she was terrified of what it meant coming from him.
"M-Mykos, please..."
"Why do you even bother asking?"
The words hurt, but not as much as it hurt to hear the way he was speaking to her. It was almost as if this whole thing bored him. Her heart was breaking, and it bored him—
"We both know you're the kind of idiot who'll keep loving me anyway even if I don't love you back."
And then he was walking away. Past her. Up the stairs. Without looking back.
Because everything about her now...bored him.
She sat at the foot of the stairs for a long time after his footsteps faded. Her coffee had gone cold. Her tears had dried on her cheeks, leaving her skin tight and stiff. Somewhere upstairs, a door closed.
She pressed her forehead against her knees and wrapped her arms around herself, because there was no one else to do it.
God?
Are you still there?
Because I don't know how to do this.
MYKOS PUNCHED A HOLE in the wall of his study as soon as the door closed behind him.
Why?
Why, dammit?
Why?
They had a good life together.
In fact, the past two months they had been together were the best time of his life. From the moment she became his wife, the demons from his past had been silenced, and sleep no longer eluded him at night.
She had done what she was supposed to do.
She had kept the monsters at bay.
Not just the ones that haunted his memories, but even the one inside of him, the one that simply wanted to give itself up to the chaos of violence because it could no longer see any hope and goodness in this world.
It could have stayed that way, too.
If she just hadn't said...
I love you.
Those words didn't just change things.
Instead, they ruined everything.
Love was why her own father had abandoned his family.
And love was also the reason Diogenes had gradually lost sight of who he was.
When Mykos's mother had died a cruel death at the hands of a rival gang, vengeance in the name of love had consumed Diogenes, and since then he had stopped at nothing.
He killed everyone who got in his way. It didn't matter if they were innocent.
He did what he did in the name of love...
even if that love had become so twisted that it could no longer be called love.
In the world Mykos was born to, love wasn't just a weakness.
Love was a disease, and it had to be completely cut off before he, too, would end up forgetting who he was.
He looked down at his hand. His knuckles were bleeding. The wall had a hole in it the size of his fist.
And somewhere downstairs, his wife was sitting at the foot of the stairs, alone, because he had put her there.
Good, he told himself.
Better this than what happened to his mother.
Better this than becoming his father.
He almost believed it.