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Dionysus

CHAPTER ONE

One year later

NEW YORK

I go to the window of my TV station's headquarters, feeling like I’m suffocating. I've been like this for a long time, and I know the reason: the tension due to the unexpected, not knowing where the enemy might come from—or when .

Like my three brothers, the need for control is ingrained in my DNA. Anything that throws my rigidly scheduled life out of alignment alters my mood. This becomes infinitely worse if it involves my son, Joseph.

I think about the child I left at home this morning, and for the thousandth time, I wonder if I'm doing everything right to make him happy.

Insecurity is far from being one of my characteristics, but when it comes to raising a baby, I'm stumbling through the dark, without any idea of when a flashlight will appear.

I run both hands over my face, thinking about the nanny I had to fire a few days ago. Even though I took every possible precaution and hired her through the best agency in New York, that didn't stop the woman from neglecting Joseph to fuck one of the bodyguards in the basement of my house.

Remembering the episode makes my jaw tighten. I'm absolutely obsessed with my heir's safety because I know very well what carelessness can cause.

A very close friend, Ricco Moretti, lost his son in a tragedy that could have been avoided if the necessary precautions had been taken.

Thinking about my boy in danger gives me the feeling of having an iron ball in my stomach, even more so because my workdays are intense and I need to trust others, besides myself, to guarantee his well-being.

My only close family are my brothers, Zeus? * , Ares, and Hades.

There is also Odin? * and his wife, Elina, but although my cousin's wife has stayed with Joseph a few times when I needed to travel, she has her own children and her association to run.

The afternoon arrives quickly, and a light rain begins to wet the sidewalks of Manhattan. The closed, steel-gray sky suits my mood.

I go back to my desk and look at Joseph's photo. He doesn't smile much. In fact, almost never. He seems like a mini-adult: observant and introspective, which always makes me question whether he's happy. I mean, it's not like I was an expert on babies before he was born, but I always imagined them smiling.

Not my boy. Even when I sit in his room to play, I sometimes have the feeling that he's watching me and that he knows secrets that I'm unaware of.

I’ve read about the intrauterine relationship between mother and child, and I’ve also sought out psychologists to understand his apathy. From what I could find, fetuses feel their mother's emotions, and God knows my late wife Sue's pregnancy wasn't easy.

Looking again at the image of Joseph, I try, as always, to find similarities between my blond, black-eyed boy and his dead mother's green eyes and dark brown hair. There's none. As a reminder or a punishment, Joseph looks like the son of a bitch who contributed to his conception.

"What are you going to do?" my brother Ares asks, bringing me back to reality.

"I will stay on the same path I have been following: using all possible weapons to protect my son and prevent him from being taken from me. I’ve ordered an investigation into any living relatives. Sue and Keith, her late husband, apparently had no one, but I'm taking every precaution."

Since Sue died, I've been trying to protect us legally from any extortion attempts or custody requests from a distant relative of my son’s bastard biological father. With both his parents dead, my only connection to my son is the fact that I adopted him as soon as he was born, but today the law firm handling the case advised me that even though it is unlikely that any relative will be able to take him away from me, they could start a legal battle that will drag on for years.

Ares looks at me in silence for a while, and I know what he's thinking: that I don't need to go through any of that.

Ares is wrong. Joseph has become the center of my world.

"What about dinner tonight?"

"I don't think I'll be able to go. Anyway, why do all four of us need to be there at the same time?"

He shrugs. "We don't. I already closed the deal with Rey Cardona de la Vega. It would be more for us to get together. A tribute to our grandfather."

That argument makes me feel guilty. We lost our parents, and on our grandfather's deathbed, we promised to respect family traditions and never go too long without seeing each other, which seems increasingly difficult due to the tribulations that each of us has faced.

"I heard there was some confusion about the new dancer that night Rey was there, right?" I say.

" Confusion ? I wouldn't call it that. Madison made a mistake and gave Zeus a private dance, but he knew what he was doing and that he shouldn't have been there. I think our brother is obsessed with her." He pauses and smiles. "And what's funniest is that the girl is making Zeus sweat."

"It won't last. In a few months, the woman will lose her charm. Like us, Zeus wants to be challenged."

To this day, none of the women we've had relationships with have stayed for very long, and if I'm honest with myself, even my involvement with Sue only went on for so long because of Joseph and my desire to keep him rather than because of any stronger bond between me and his mother.

"I don't know. Madison is unlike any woman he's ever been with. She's young, but she doesn't bow to anyone."

"Have you become a romantic now?" I ask sardonically.

"No way. Romance is not for me."

"Considering the example we had at home, for none of us, I would say."

My phone lights up with a message, and Ares laughs as he recognizes the ringtone. Since we were young, we've all had it on our phones: a ringing sound that he, my rebellious brother, and the second oldest nicknamed dirty-dial .

Although none of us are children anymore, we know when it's one of our women who call us or when it’s business.

"Need me to be with Joseph again?" he asks. "Maybe fucking will lighten your mood."

I ignore the message. My mind is now completely focused on my son. "I'll find another night nanny, thanks. The last time you took care of him, my boy was watching cartoons when I arrived at three in the morning."

He doesn't seem to feel guilty. "We both get insomnia and Joseph is great company."

All my brothers have accepted him as a Kostanidis, despite knowing that he's not my biological son.

I never saw myself as someone capable of taking care of a child, whether it was mine or not, and it surprised me, when I met Sue pregnant by her idiot ex-husband—may the devil keep him in hell—how strong a connection I had with the baby when he was still in his mother's belly.

In every way that counts, Joseph is mine. I registered him and took care of him even before he was born.

My brother gets up and heads for the door. "Let me know if you change your mind about dinner."

"I'm not going. I'll save the evening for my son. I have to travel in a few weeks, and I need to make up for the time we'll be apart. As for the night nanny, if I don't get one by then, I'll have to leave him with Elina.”

Ares smiles. "I'm sure my nephew will prefer Odin's wife to a nanny. He's a total Kostanidis: like us, he doesn't like strangers around him."

Joseph is a sad baby who doesn't seem comfortable with anyone but us. Even Sue teased him about it: that she had carried him inside her body for nine months, and yet the boy only seemed to have eyes for me. Little by little, he got used to my brothers, too.

"All good. And as for your meeting there," he says, nodding to my phone, "if you need me to stay with him, just give me fair warning."

"Do you want this one?" I ask my son, who’s trying to take a building block from my hands.

We are sitting on the floor of his playroom. When I got home, I went straight to him, stopping only to take off my shoes, socks, and suit jacket.

He nods, answering yes.

"Say nα? ? * ] ."

"Naiiiiii," he repeats, extending the last letter, and I feel proud of my boy.

After watching him put the piece in the right place, I hold out my hand to him. As always, Joseph doesn't hesitate and comes into my arms. I clutch him to my chest, thinking about the conversation I had with Ares.

All my brothers are haunted by the same worry as me: that in the future, someone from his biological family will claim custody of my boy.

"It won't happen, son. I won't let people like that raise you. They will never know where you are.”

* ? Protagonist of Seduced by Contract , book 1 of Kostanidis Brothers saga.

* ? Protagonist of About Love and Revenge , book 1 of Lykaios Family.

* ? “Yes” in Greek.