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"How can it not be? You are my woman. My duty is to keep you protected."
"He's like a ghost. Invisible."
"For his sake, he better be. If he's flesh and blood, I won't stop until I destroy him."
Ares
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
"Serenity is strong as hell,considering she's only twenty-one years old," Zeus says as we watch our women talking in the winter garden of his mother-in-law's house.
It's early morning, but neither of us shows signs of tiredness.
I think everyone, men and women, are invigorated by what happened. Only Odin has left with Elina, and I know the reason. He already considers Serenity family, even more so now that he's taken over her guardianship, and my girlfriend's stalker has just become a personal problem for my cousin.
In addition to my brothers and Christos, who came with Zoe from North Carolina especially to attend Serenity’s comeback, Athanasios and Eleanor's husband, Nashon, the owner of the house, are sitting with us.
“Yes, she is,” I say.
"We're going to find whoever did this, Ares," Dionysus says, because my brothers know me well enough to know the importance of Serenity in my life.
The two weeks we spent in Greece were a turning point. Before we went away, we slept together every day since I tookher virginity, but New York is our real world. The bubble we created on the island was what definitively showed me that I don't want her to be temporary in my life. Serenity is mine forever.
Tonight went off the rails. Nothing I planned happened. I intended to ask her to marry me. I have the ring with me, I organized every detail, but after the note incident, I couldn't push her into a decision.
I don't want her to see me only as a safe haven, although I intend to always be there for her. I want her love, her passion—the same things I feel for her—and not for her to run into my arms out of fear.
I know she loves me, but she is too overwhelmed at the moment, and this may make her confused, insecure. When she says yes to my request, I want her to feel good, happy, to know where we are going.
I never imagined I would want the whole package: wife and children.
I value family. I love my brothers, but I get bored easily and couldn't see myself in a long-term relationship.
Serenity hit me so fast that I didn't even notice when what I felt for her—lust, obsession—turned into love. The fascination of the first night I saw her, how I traveled the world without her knowing just to watch her dance, but most of all, the self-control I imposed on myself to not seduce her—when all I wanted from the moment I laid eyes on her was to bury myself in her delicious body—showed me that, for me, she was always unique.
I put her needs above mine. I protected her from myself.
"The delay in catching whoever wants to harm her is driving me crazy," I confess, forcing myself to return to reality.
"Anyone would feel the same," Athanasios says. "The thought of Brooklyn or my children being at risk, that a psychopathmight threaten them, turns me into a savage whose only obsessive thought is to destroy the enemy."
I see that Eleanor's husband is holding the photo album that my sisters-in-law, with Debra's help, put together for Serenity with images from various stages of her childhood, including those in the box that her late guardian left her.
Serenity never got around to opening the box Van Lith gave me. I've noticed that she doesn't like remembering the past. Maybe because she wasn't happy in it.
She said thank you for the gift that the women in my family had prepared, but she barely paid attention to the album, and I think it might not have been a good idea to hand it over to her today.
One by one, my brothers stand up, followed by Athanasios, leaving only me, Christos, and Eleanor's husband in the room.
Nashon flips through Serenity's album, seeming intent on each photograph.
He is an incredible human being. It doesn't matter if the conversation is about a subject that interests him or about the latest fashion show in Paris, which I highly doubt he cares about, the person speaking always receives his undivided attention, be it man, woman, or child.
"Who is this baby?" he asks, pointing to an image in the album.
I'm sitting next to him, so I walk over to check who he's talking about. When I see a couple, who I know are her parents, with a little girl less than a year old on their lap, I conclude the obvious. "My girl."
He smiles at me and shakes his head. "Impossible."