Chapter 4
FOUR
LYKOS
Ascream startled me awake and I jolted upright, blinking my eyes only to be met with darkness and silence.
I listened while flicking a glance at my cell phone on the nightstand, showing I’d been asleep for barely an hour. It wasn’t even midnight. The night was quiet, broken only by the lonely hoots of an owl somewhere in the distance.
Lying back down, I closed my eyes and must have dozed off because I jerked awake when an earsplitting scream rang through the house.
It was my daughter.
I grabbed my gun as I jumped to my feet and rushed out of the room, running toward her bedroom.
Another scream echoed through the hollow darkness and I stormed into her bedroom, finding my mad wife over my children, slashing my son’s cheek with a blade that she should have never been able to get her hands on in the first place.
My chest turned cold seeing my son fighting off his mother.
Aria’s frantic eyes found mine while she let out a high-pitched cry, holding her neck that had finger marks on it that were slowly turning purple.
“Papa! She just showed up and attacked us,” she rasped, her voice hoarse.
Dimitros looked at me and grunted, “She tried to suffocate Aria.”
Fuck, thank God those two had adjoining bedrooms. He must have heard the screams too.
I was on my mad wife before my next breath.
I yanked her off of him, grabbing her by her waist with one hand and putting her in a chokehold with the other while she waved the knife frantically, trying to stab us all. I didn’t care if she got to me as long as she couldn’t hurt my children.
Amara’s incoherent words and vicious screams broke free.
“Amara, stop,” I gritted, trying to keep my voice calm but failing. “Calm down.”
Of course, my wife wasn’t easily calmed. She was fighting me like an animal, hissing and screaming at the top of her lungs.
My eyes were locked on my terrified children. Aria’s eyes widened with terror and Dimitros’s face was smeared red, blood gushing out of his cheek wound. I could feel my fury bubbling at the sight, but I tried to keep my calm and not go bat-shit crazy on my wife who didn’t know what she was doing.
“Amara, calm down,” I tried again.
She dropped her knife on the ground with a loud clink, then elbowed me in the ribs. I let out a pained grunt. For someone who was barely active, she exhibited a lot of strength. Or maybe that was simply her adrenaline doing the work.
“Dimitros,” I grunted. “Get the tranquilizer.”
He ran out of the room while I kept a kicking-and-screaming Amara subdued, who even tried to headbutt me with the back of her head. Her hands flew up and down, clawlike as if she were a goddamned cat, in Aria’s direction.
I cursed in Greek, English, Latin, and every fucking language I knew, gripping her waist and holding her back when Dimitros came back, breathless and bloodied with a syringe in his hand.
“Give it to me,” I hissed as I stumbled toward him, still holding Amara in a firm grip with one hand and reaching for the syringe with the other.
Once it was in my hand, I pushed the needle into her neck. It didn’t take long for Amara to grow quiet and stop struggling before slumping in my arms.
Dimitros and Aria were already engulfed in each other, protecting themselves while Aria whimpered, her eyes locked on Amara with utter terror and a fear that I would never forget.
“How did she get out of her room?” I grumbled, standing up with my wife’s limp body in my arms.
“I don’t know,” Aria cried as she shifted to push a piece of cloth against Dimitros’s bleeding cheek.
“She tried to suffocate Aria,” Dimitros gritted. “That woman cannot stay here.”
Of course he was right, but it still hurt to hear Dimitros refer to Amara as that woman rather than his mother.
He deserved to have a mother, at least a memory of one.
He had nothing, and that part killed me.
It made me feel like the shittiest father on this planet, knowing I’d failed him.
I hadn’t chosen a good woman for my children, but was rather forced into an arranged marriage to a madwoman who had now scarred this entire family.
“We’ll talk later,” I told them both. “I’ll call the doctor to check you both out. Then we’ll all clean up and get to bed. You both need rest. We’ll talk about all this tomorrow.”
With that, I turned around and left to put Amara back in her sanctuary.
And this time, I’d secured her with double locks.
Five hours later, my head throbbed as the first pale rays of morning slipped through the gap of my office curtains. It stretched across the room in a thin line of burnt orange, gilding my bar cart and the crystal whiskey glasses calling my name.
This house was too quiet for a home with two children inside.
Its walls were filled with horror in the aftermath of Amara’s outburst, and now my mind couldn’t help but seek a temporary refuge.
I slumped in the tufted armchair and closed my eyes, listening to the ticking of the clock.
I spent hours here like this after having to save my children from Amara’s wrath and whatever wars she waged in her mind.
She’d been locked up in the attic suite that had been completely renovated and secured to ensure she couldn’t escape. Yet, somehow, she’d found a way.
“Fuck,” I rasped to the empty room.
I’d brought a monster into our home. How could I have been so careless and stupid? My wife’s madness had lurked in the early years of our marriage, but she’d hidden it well.
It was during her pregnancy with my oldest that I noticed the drastic change. The manic episodes. Outbursts. They were all aimed at me. I tolerated it, ensured she and her pregnancy were healthy and safe. But then my son was born, and she tried to hurt him.
No doctor seemed capable of pinpointing the diagnosis.
When she was medicated, she seemed okay, but she was unable to care for our son, anything, or anyone.
When she wasn’t medicated, her violent episodes flared.
If they had only been aimed at me, I would have tolerated them.
But they weren’t, so I had her committed to a private clinic that was staffed with the best doctors and care possible.
The strange part was that she hadn’t been violent toward any of us when we visited her at the clinic. So, I’d brought her home in hopes that we’d be a family. After last night, it was clear it’d been a mistake and all the years of hoping for something better had all been for naught.
I’d been shackled for almost two decades in a marriage with Amara. It didn’t just cost me years, but so much more. Sacrifices. Loneliness. Darkness.
All for fucking nothing.
In the heavy stillness, one memory rose from the depths of my mind. A single moment that had clung to me through years of solitude.
I’d fallen victim to my solitude only once, with a woman who had sad eyes and soft hair.
It felt like a lifetime ago, on a night thick with ghosts that seemed to haunt us both. We had been strangers, vulnerable to wounds too deep to name. Somehow, in those fragile hours before dawn, we had found comfort in each other’s arms.
Just one night.
One moment of weakness.
I shoved the memory back down where it belonged, burying it beneath the weight of emotions I refused to untangle.
Self-loathing. Disgust. Fury. Disappointment.
But not regret.
I should regret it. I should curse that moment, curse myself for the betrayal. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t.
“Papa.”
My daughter’s voice cut through the silence. It was low, raw and hoarse, a result of my wife’s attempt to strangle her.
Amara Suzanne Lykos was definitely not getting better, actually becoming more of a threat to my children than ever.
“Dad, it wasn’t your fault,” my eldest, Dimitros, added quietly.
I didn’t turn to look at my children—I couldn’t—because it had been my decision to bring the monster back into our home.
I really thought she had improved, but obviously I was so fucking wrong. I’d never been more wrong in my entire life. And it had almost cost me everything.
“Dad, we have to put an end to this,” my son continued.
Hearing my sixteen-year-old son’s despair nearly shattered what remained of my heart. Surely he couldn’t mean…
“She almost killed Aria,” he rasped on a shuddering breath. “We have to end her.”
She’d hurt Dimitros too, but he was too good of a soul to worry about himself. His sister was his entire world, and the moment he laid eyes on her, he swore he’d protect her until his dying breath. I just never imagined it’d be against his mother.
Their footsteps creaked on the hardwood as they moved closer. Dimitros stepped in front of me, still holding his sister’s hand as if afraid she might disappear if he let go.
Slowly, I raised my head and my chest tightened.
My son stood rigid in a dark suit despite the early hour, his shoulders squared with a determination no boy his age should carry.
His dark hair was ruffled while he watched me with dark eyes far too old to belong to a sixteen-year-old.
Everyone claimed he was an identical version of me at that age, but I disagreed.
He was far more serious and a lot better than I ever was.
Beside him, Aria wore a high-collared lilac dress that covered most of her neck, hiding the bruises, while she watched me with her sad eyes.
Her blonde hair, so much like her mother’s, flickered like gold whenever light hit it.
She looked petite next to her brother, even though she was fairly tall for her age.
“Papa, please,” Aria said softly.
She released Dimitros’s hand and crouched in front of me. When our eyes met, my chest tightened. Her gaze was gentle, luminous, heartbreakingly familiar.
She had her mother’s eyes.
“Don’t be sad, Papa. I don’t like seeing you sad.”
I reached out and cupped her cheek, my thumb brushing her smooth skin. She leaned into my hand without hesitation.
“I’m sorry, my little golden one,” I whispered. “Amara… she doesn’t know what she does.”
Aria nodded slowly. “I know.”
“We have to kill her,” Dimitros insisted. His voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it.
“That’s our mother,” Aria protested weakly.
“Not anymore it’s not. Her body is here, but her mind…” He shook his head. “It’s gone.”
I wished he’d never witnessed his mother’s cruelty. He should be a carefree teenager, not being woken up in the middle of the night to the sounds of his sister’s screams as his mother tried to suffocate her.
And it was my fault that he would never be a “normal” kid.
Mine and my mad wife’s.
“You can’t do that, Papa. Neither can you, Dimitros,” Aria protested. Though she had only turned nine a few weeks ago, she spoke with the solemn clarity of someone far older. “We should send her back to the hospital. And you, Papa… you should stop visiting her.”
Dimitros exhaled deeply, his anger dimming when he looked at his sister. “She’s bringing devastation to our family,” he said, gentler now. “Something needs to be done.”
We had tried to shield Aria from the ugliness of this world. We nearly succeeded, but it caught up to us in our own home. I had failed.
I met Dimitros’s gaze, the message in it unmistakable.
Only then did my eyes drift to the fresh slash across his face. The doctor had come in the middle of the night to stitch it closed, but even he’d conceded what we already suspected: it would scar.
It would be a permanent reminder of what his own mother had done to him.
My wife had crossed one line too many when she tried to murder my children last night.
They stopped being hers a long time ago, and despite my commitment that had never wavered when it came to her well-being, this arrangement couldn’t work indefinitely.
“I’ll handle it, Dimitros.”
My chest rose and fell as if the words themselves had weight, but he understood the command hidden beneath them.
His jaw tightened, but then he nodded, accepting my final decision.
He wouldn’t touch his mother.
I could never condemn my son to a lifetime of carrying that burden. I would do it. And I alone would live with the sin.
After all, what was one more sin on the ever-growing list staining my soul?