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Ares

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Two weeks later

“So the doctors were right?”

“Yes, the scorpion had been genetically modified. Whoever put it there didn’t want to kill her; they wanted to hurt her or scare her,” Odin responds.

“Scare her? If her body reacted badly to the poison or if she had not been rescued in time, the result would not have been just ‘a scare.’” Thinking about the mere possibility makes me want to kill someone.

“There is no doubt that this stalker is a psychopath. If what Serenity said is true, that the stalker left flowers and notes wherever she was in the world, it means he is a man with money and also knows how to sneak around, as he was never caught by her bodyguards. Like I said before, if she had told us what was happening from the beginning, we could have tracked the footage. But it’s deleted after a few months.”

“And what about camera footage at the theater in Paris? That would be the most recent. It was the last place she performed before moving back here.”

“I’ve already checked it. There was a delivery of a single rose by a courier. I tracked down the store. It was an anonymous order, made online. I entered the company’s servers to see who it came from, but the only thing I discovered was that it was made from a coffee shop here in the United States.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does. This guy is smart. He used the place’s Wi-Fi to avoid attracting attention, but I sent a trusted employee to check the footage. You have no idea how many people enter a coffee shop throughout the day, but he analyzed everything calmly, cross-checking data. Unfortunately, the footage from the day the rose was ordered had already been deleted. The purchase was made with a credit card stolen from a ninety-year-old widow.”

“I can’t wait to put this son of a bitch behind bars.”

“Your concern for her doesn’t seem like that of someone who’s just her guardian.”

“We are together.”

“That could be complicated by the fact that you have a legal relationship.”

“Yes, I already thought about that. The solution I found was to transfer her guardianship to you or Christos. If I gave it to any of my brothers, it would also create a delicate situation.”

“I’ll take it if you need me too,” says Odin. “Have you talked to Serenity about it?”

“I have. She needs to be involved in every decision about her future. She’s been kept inside a glass dome, overprotected, but soon she’ll be twenty-one.”

“I agree. Even a control freak like me wouldn’t raise my three children so unprepared for life. Her only finding out she was a millionaire through you is unforgivable.” He pauses. “Did you know that Serenity’s father had a partner?”

“No. I never went that deep in my investigation of her. I only focused on the moment she became an orphan and onwards.”

“Her father had a business partner, but their partnership did not end well.”

“How come?”

“They were not always rich. Serenity’s father made his fortune as a builder, but he started at the bottom. From what I could see, before becoming a millionaire, Roger Blanchet suspected that he was being robbed by his partner and put an end to the partnership.”

“Robbed?”

“Yes. It appears that the partner was embezzling part of the profits. As soon as the partnership came to an end, Serenity’s father closed a big deal in the Middle East with a sheikh and suddenly turned a local construction company into a world-renowned one.”

“Yes, I know that part, but not about the partner.”

“Like I said, the partnership was dissolved before Serenity’s father expanded the business and became rich. Long story short, the former partner did not accept the end of the partnership well. There were fights in court, and when the man, Edgar Hazen, lost the case, there was even a physical confrontation between them.”

“Fuck. Van Lith certainly knew this. Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Perhaps he believed it was not relevant.”

“But do you think differently?”

“I don’t reason like a regular person, Ares. When faced with a problem, I analyze every nuance until I find the bit that doesn’t fit the picture.”

“And you think it could be that partner who is somehow trying to harm Serenity?”

“He’s the only enemy she could have. Your girl spent practically her entire life locked away at boarding school. She said that the feeling of being watched began as soon as she left and returned to New Orleans. It’s a very short time for someone to become so intensely obsessed with her.”

“Do you think he’s the stalker, then?”

“I don’t know. Pursuing someone like that seems like the action of a younger man. I don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, Ares, but you can be sure that I won’t stop until I solve this mystery. In the meantime, keep your girl under observation.”

Serenity

DEBUT NIGHT AS NEW YORK CITY BALLET PRIMA BALLERINA

I take several breaths to calm my heart.

It finally happened. I reached the top, the highest point of my dreams. I debuted as prima ballerina for the New York City Ballet.

Ares’ family just left my dressing room.

Everyone already knows about the two of us, JeAnne included, and she didn’t seem surprised. I thought, given her overprotective way of raising me, that she wouldn’t like me dating, but she just said it was nice to have someone like Mr. Kostanidis to “take care of me.”

It was a strange reaction, considering that she tried to poison me against Ares with that story about him hiding Mr. Van Lith’s death from me.

In a few days, my guardianship will be transferred to Odin Lykaios, one of Ares’ cousins. I don’t mind. I never gave a shit about money, but I know that Ares is doing it, as he explained to me, so that there is no doubt that there is no conflict of interest in our relationship.

The only disappointment of the night was Otis, who didn’t come. We haven’t spoken much since I told him the truth about my relationship with Ares. He’s been avoiding me.

The door opens, and the man I’m obsessed with enters the dressing room; he closes the door and leans back against it.

He looks at me, his face serious.

I know he waited for the whole family to leave, after congratulating me on my performance, so he could talk to me alone.

Little by little, I’m getting to know him. He wasn’t joking when he said he’d learned not to show feelings, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about my Greek over the last few weeks, it’s that words don’t carry the same weight as actions.

He’s never talked about what we have, but I feel adored every night I spend in his bed.

“I have a surprise,” he says.

I’m sitting, taking off my ballet shoes, and after flexing one foot, I lift my head to look at him. “A surprise?”

“I’m going to kidnap you for twenty-four hours.”

“I . . .”

“I know. You have to rehearse. But the next performance is in five days. I want to kidnap you.”

“Even your choice of words is that of an ogre.” I smile, getting up, going to where he is, and putting my arms around his neck.

“What else would I call isolating you in the Hamptons, naked, just feeding on your body?” He lifts me into his arms, and I wrap my legs around his waist.

“That sounds like a good kidnapping.”

“Let’s go by helicopter. Twenty-four hours. No cell phones. Just the two of us.”

“It sounds like paradise.” I lift myself up a little to kiss him, but as soon as I lock our lips, the door opens.

“Oh!” Debra says, looking embarrassed. “Forgive me.”

Ares sets me down slowly. After kissing me on the mouth, he says, “You have half an hour to get ready.”

After he leaves, Debra smiles. “You are happy.”

“Yes, so much so that I feel scared.” I finish undressing, without any shame about being naked in front of her. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“So, the celebratory dinner was aborted, apparently?”

“You can bet on that. He wants to kidnap me.”

“And you’re dying to be kidnapped.”

“I can’t deny it. Have fun without me.”

Instead of the formal dress I was going to wear, since we had a reservation at a famous restaurant here in Manhattan, I go back to wearing the jeans and silk blouse that I arrived in. I pick up the pumps I left on the floor and, standing up, put one on. When I slide into the other one and put my weight on the first one, however, I let out a scream.

It takes me a few seconds to understand what happened, but when I take off my shoe and see the blood, I sit on the floor