Page 71 of Beneath Scarred Vows

He shakes his head. "I don't need a break, Katerina. I need answers."

Okay, I think to myself. Maybe I can help him talk through it.

"So what family does everything come back to?"

"A rival family," he says and doesn't give me much else.

"And why would they target Calli and me?" I ask.

Ares laughs, but it's not his usual laugh. "Because you're my family. Because if they hurt what's mine, they think I'll break." He turns suddenly, and I take a step back, startled by the motion. "They're wrong. I don't break. I burn everything to the fucking ground to protect all of you."

"Ares, you're scaring me," I whisper, the words slipping out before I can stop them.

He turns, and for just a moment, I glimpse the Ares I know—the man who held me through my nightmares, who kissed my scars like they were precious things. But that Ares vanishes almost instantly, replaced by something colder.

"You should be scared. Not of me. Never of me. But of what's out there."

"I'm not afraid of what's out there," I say. "I'm afraid of what this is doing to you."

He realizes something and approaches me, rubbing my cheek with his fingertips.

"Look, if I rest, I miss something. If I miss something, someone dies. I think about you, my sister, my brothers," he says and leans into me. "The note. What if it's not just sons following their father—it's his children, Calli, or maybe even my wife—you. No, I can't let that happen. And Theo's been digging into something, too," he adds, almost to himself. "Something doesn't sit right."

I can't help but stare at him, this man who is my husband—this stranger who killed for me without hesitation, who took me to bed with equal fervor just days ago. Now he stands before me, obsessed with vengeance, with control, and I feel him slipping away.

"I understand you're worried," I say, grabbing his hand and placing a gentle kiss on it. "But not sleeping, not eating, and locking yourself in here won't make or break my protection, Ares. You'll just drive yourself into the ground."

He scoffs, unsure of what to say.

I feel it then—the crack in him widening. His obsession. And obsession is something I understand all too well. I lived with it after the fire: the need to make sense of senseless tragedy, to force order onto chaos. I know the path he's walking because I walked it for years.

He leans in and gives me a kiss. "Go back to bed," he says. "I'll join you for breakfast when you get up, okay?"

I don't move. "No."

His eyes narrow. "What?"

"I said no." I cross my arms over my chest. "I'm not going to lie alone in that big bed while you destroy yourself down here."

"Katerina—"

"I lost my entire family to fire," I cut him off. "I tried to save my family and failed." My voice breaks, but I continue. "And when it was over, I spent years tormenting myself with 'what ifs' and 'if onlys.' I obsessed over every detail, every decision. I blamed myself."

Ares stares at me, motionless.

"And you know what? It didn't bring them back. It didn't change anything. It just ate me alive until there was nothing left but obsession that made me emotionless."

"This is different," he says, looking at me.

"Is it?" I step closer. "Look at yourself, Ares. You're not eating. You're not sleeping. You're pouring over these screens until your eyes are bloody. This isn't strategy. This is punishment."

His hands clench at his sides. "You think I don't know the difference?"

"I think right now, you don't." I reach for his hand again, and this time he lets me take it. His skin is cold. "I think you're drowning in guilt over your father's death, the note, what happened to Calli and me—and now you're terrified of losing anyone else."

The muscle in his jaw ticks. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?" I tug his hand, pulling him toward the door. "When the restaurant was attacked, when that bullet grazed my arm—you know what I was really thinking about?"