“You laughed? You actually laughed?” Apollo asks.
“And now he’s smiling, right?” Drako adds. “You see it too, don’t you? I’m not having some weird hallucination, am I?”
Atlas just watches me in silence.
“Why are you smiling?” Apollo asks warily. “From here it looked like she still hates you.”
“I’m smiling because I’m happy. And yes—she still hates me.”
“Did she hit your head? I didn’t see it happen, but it might’ve happened while I blinked.”
“No. But five years ago my body was torn from my heart—and today I found it again,” I say simply.
Drako and Apollo make gagging noises, clutching their stomachs.
“Oh—and one of you is going to need to rent the house next to Nina’s,” I add once we’re on the way to the town’s only hotel.
“Why?” Apollo asks.
“Because she forbade me from doing it.”
“Well,” Atlas says, raising a brow, “I suppose this is a good moment for you to thank me for owning that house, then.”
“That house?” I ask.
“And Nina’s. And every other one whose owners refused to rent to her because there was no contract.”
CHAPTER 56
NERO ZANTHOS
I stop in front of Nina’s door at eight thirty in the morning. Her shift ends at seven, so according to Atlas, Rosa should already be on her way to daycare with Kael, and Nina is home alone. I thought she’d prefer this conversation in private.
I look down at the envelope in my hands.
All the terms Apollo drafted are inside. In them, I make it clear that I’m renouncing any claim to Kael’s custody—full or shared. I place myself entirely at Nina’s discretion and ask only to be allowed to be part of my son’s life, under whatever conditions his mother deems appropriate.
I ring the doorbell once.
Footsteps sound almost immediately on the other side. They draw closer—then fade away again. I wonder if we’re going to have to talk through the mail slot another time. The thought makes me smile.
The tightness in my chest has loosened, and the ease of my smiles is only the smallest consequence of that. The full-breath feeling that hit me the moment I stood face-to-face with Nina—without barriers—still feeds my lungs, making life lighter just from knowing where she is.
God, not knowing was unbearable.
I know we still have a long road ahead. I knowIhave a long road ahead. But thereisa road, damn it. There is a path—and that’s far more than I’ve had in the last five years.
Less than a minute after the footsteps retreat, they approach again. The door opens—but it isn’t Nina.
Rosa stands there, a broom in hand, her expression hard.
“I was expecting you.”
***
The look on Nina’s face when she turns onto her street and finds me sitting on her front steps is pure frustration. She blinks, as if she can’t trust her own eyes, and stops walking.
She’s dressed much like yesterday—jeans, a T-shirt, sneakers—but today her hair is pulled up high, leaving her face completely exposed.
