I cross my arms, making no effort to seem nonthreatening. Oliver’s gaze flicks from me to Atlas, then to the closed door—where the silhouettes of Drako and Apollo lean against it.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” he asks, curious, already edging back—until he realizes there’s only a higher bench behind him.
“I’m the man whose fiancée you stole from Greece five years ago,” I say, blunt and economical.
“Woman? I don’t know any woman. What are you talking about?”
“Nina Marchesi,” I snap, moving toward him. Atlas is faster, blocking me with his body.
“Let him talk, Nero,” Atlas says, holding my gaze, giving me no opening.
“Who are you protecting?” I snarl. “He ran off with Nina and now he’s pretending amnesia.”
“I didn’t run anywhere with anyone,” Oliver says, embarrassed. “I left Greece because I got my girlfriend pregnant.”
“And who the hell was your girlfriend?” I shout, spitting the words, nostrils flaring.
“Diana Karas,” he answers, shaken. He slowly pulls a wallet from his robe pocket, like he’s drawing a weapon, and spreads photos in front of me—one by one—telling his story. “I was a mess. An addict. My parents sent me away to protect my girlfriend. It took time to prove I deserved my family back. Whatever you want with that woman, I’m the wrong guy. I’ve never seen her in my life. I don’t even know who she is.”
The meaning of his words hits me like a bullet, shattering everything I believed. I could kill my mother right now. I replay her words in my head, and the certainty that she lied to me—over and over—settles over me like a heavy shroud, suffocating.
What steals my peace is Oliver’s calm. He isn’t panicking. Despite being cornered by two grown men in a sauna, he has nothing to hide.
I don’t need more details or a long conversation to know my next move.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” I say automatically, turning and yanking the sauna door open without looking back.
“What happened? Where are you going?” Drako asks behind me. My brothers hurry after me.
I don’t stop. I don’t slow. I don’t turn around. I answer with an inexplicable calm—the truth vibrating through me, leaving no room for anything else.
“I’m going to murder my mother.”
CHAPTER 53
NERO ZANTHOS
“Nero.”
My mother says my name as she closes the book in her hands, hope softening her expression. That hope lasts exactly until she really looks at my face. Lysandra lowers the book onto the seat beside her on the couch. “What happened?” Her tone is fearful enough to sharpen my suspicion. It’s almost as if she’s afraid of something—afraid that I know something.
I barely register my father’s presence, seated in the armchair beside the couch. My vision locks onto Lysandra alone, my mind consumed by every possibility coiling around her, turning my chest into the eye of a hurricane.
I step closer until there’s barely any space left between our faces—just enough not to touch—and plant my arms on the couch, boxing her in.
Lysandra’s eyes widen as her body recoils, instinctively trying to put distance between us, startled by the speed of my invasion.From the corner of my eye, I see my father rise from his chair—but I stop him before he can intervene.
“Stay where you are. This is between me and her.”
Konstantino freezes, blinking, then folds his arms. He doesn’t retreat—but he doesn’t advance either.
It’s such a textbook display of his habitual complacency that it barely registers. Lysandra looks to him for help, but that still doesn’t move him.
“You lied to me,” I say slowly, tasting the bitterness spread across my tongue. “Not once, not twice, not three or four times—but for almost five years. I just ran into an old friend of yours. Know who? Oliver Sarris. And do you know what I found out?”
With every word, one of the last fragile threads holding my self-control snaps. My voice carries disgust, bitterness, and a sarcasm I’ve never heard coming out of my own mouth.
“What?” she asks.
