“I received a call from Nina, and she told me she had taken her to the hospital yesterday,” Aris explained. “I would check up on her myself, but Mia will be due any day now, and I can’t leave her.”
Nikos shoved his fingers through his hair, not expecting a call like this. His brother had asked him for many things before, things that he had not wanted to do, but this had to be the most difficult request that his brother had asked of him, even more than Aris asking him to step into their uncle’s role while he was out of commission.
“I don’t know, Aris,” Nikos said as he grabbed his gym bag, ignoring the pointed look the blonde gave him, and headed upstairs to his loft.
To be honest, he was hesitant because all he could do was think about his mother and how she would feel. It had been over two years since he learned about his father’s infidelity, and he had spent these past two years despising his father even more for it and avoiding the topic. He had yet to meet their half-sister Nina, the daughter his father had with his mistress, and hadn’t bothered to. Unlike his brothers, who had taken the situation lightly, letting it roll off their shoulders, with Pierce making it about himself and Aris already knowing, he had been the only one to be upset about it on his mother’s behalf.
“I wouldn’t ask it of you if I could do it myself,” Aris told him, and Nikos realized that his brother was genuinely worried about this woman and cared for her. Nikos reached his door inside.
“Okay,” he said. “Is that all you called for?”
“There’s one more thing,” Aris said, and Nikos hoped it wouldn’t be any more bad news or difficult requests because he had had enough of them. Nikos pressed in his code and got ready to enter his loft when his brother spoke.
“Raelyn is getting married to Leonidas, and she’s pregnant.”
Nikos froze in his doorway, stunned by his brother’s words. It was as if his mind was trying to process a million things at once, despite his brother only telling him two things, but thosetwo things held so much weight to them that Nikos couldn’t work his jaw to speak. It felt like just a month ago, he had been talking to Raelyn about their future, and now she was pregnant and getting married. How could he respond to that?
“Their wedding will be happening a week from now,” Aris informed him.
“Did dad tell you?” Nikos asked, wondering how much his brother knew about the truth of his relationship with Raelyn.
“He did,” Aris said, and before Nikos could ask, Aris answered the question for him. “And he told us not to harm her as you requested. Pierce is still annoyed, but he won’t harm her.”
Nikos didn’t know why he felt relieved. He shouldn’t care. After all, Raelyn was marrying the man she claimed she did not have a romantic relationship with, the man that was his and his family’s enemy, Leonidas Petrakis. But he was. Nikos didn’t want her harmed because of this. He had already hurt her enough. And even after learning what he learned now, it still wouldn’t compare to everything that had happened to her at the hands of himself, her sister, and even Leonidas, which was why he was stunned that she was marrying him.
Had she been forced?
Or had she realized what he had started to suspect before he left—that she was actually in love with the man she claimed to be the devil?
“I must admit,” Aris said. “I always thought there was something different about her. Her eyes, they were different.”
Nikos wished he had noticed the same thing instead of being lured into her beautiful brown eyes and dark brown skin that had seduced him the moment he had laid eyes on her. Maybe he wouldn’t be facing this kind of humiliation now with both of his brothers learning that the woman he had bragged about andbrought home to meet them had been sent to seduce him by their enemies.
Nikos hadn’t just wanted his brothers not to know because he was afraid of what they would do to Raelyn, but also because of the humiliation. They had even suspected it at one point, and he had brushed it aside, defending her. He knew Pierce would never let him live this one down in this lifetime.
“She’s smart, clever, and has been at war with Leonidas these past few months since you left. She was wreaking havoc throughout Athens, but it seems the pregnancy must have led them to end the war with marriage.”
It made sense, but Nikos had a hard time believing Raelyn would marry someone, especially Leonidas, because of a baby alone. She wasn’t the type. It had to be more to it than that, but he guessed that it ultimately didn’t matter why they were getting married because they were getting married, nonetheless.
“Now that she’s part of the Petrakis family, she will be a formidable opponent.”
Though his brother could speak about the situation casually, he could not. He still could not work his jaw properly or find the appropriate words to say at this moment because what could he say?
“I have to go,” Nikos said, not bothering to give an excuse for ending the conversation short, but it seemed his brother understood because he didn’t question him about it.
“Okay,” Aris said. “I’ll send you Ava’s address.Se agapó, brother.”
“Se agapó,” Nikos repeated in their native language before hanging up.
He continued to stand in the doorway for a beat longer until he shook himself out of his stupor. There was no need to dwellon it any longer, so he stepped into his loft, heading to the shower to get ready.
Two hours later, he was in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, standing outside the cornerstone, waffling at the front door. Though he told his brother he would do it, he was still hesitant, wondering if this was his place to do it or not. Nikos blew out a deep breath before knocking on the door. He waited for a beat, shoving his hands in his pockets and glancing over his shoulder when the door finally opened.
Nikos didn’t know who he had expected to see behind the door. Maybe an older woman in her fifties with grey hair and wrinkled skin? But he hadn’t been expecting her. A Black woman who looked young. She clearly wasn’t in her twenties anymore, carrying the level of maturity in her eyes that most experienced people in life had. But she definitely wasn’t in her fifties like his dad, and if she were, it didn’t show.
She was beautiful with dark brown skin, hazel almond-shaped eyes, and shoulder-length hair. If this was Ava, he could, unfortunately, see why his father had done it.
“Uh…” Nikos started to say, surprisingly speechless and unable to find words to say to a beautiful woman, which never happened. But she didn’t seem bothered by his lack of words as she looked at him with a fond smile in her hazel eyes.
