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Dionysus

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Ten days later

“Marriage?” Hades repeats when I tell my brothers, along with the Lykaioses, through our weekly video call, about the possibility that Cecily is pregnant.

I nod, jaw clenched with tension. They are my flesh and blood, and I love them above all else, but I will not allow them to question my decisions. “Yes, marriage. We will know within a few days. However, we are together.”

“You are?” Hades asks.

“In secret, for now. Cecily doesn’t want people to know.”

“Why not?”

“Is this an interrogation, Hades? Damn, get off his back,” Ares growls.

“If she is, are you sure it’s yours?” my older brother Zeus asks.

“Yes. Cecily was a virgin. I don’t remember questioning your paternity when we found out Madison was pregnant.”

“I’m not questioning it, for the same reason you won’t. My wife was a virgin too.” He passes both hands over his face. “Sorry, it’s nothing against Cecily—she seems like a good girl. Maybe it’s a remnant of my dislike for your late wife.”

“Sue and Cecily are water and oil,” Hades interjects, surprising me. “Even I—who is suspicious of my own shadow—am sure they are complete opposites.”

“Sue lied.” Christos speaks for the first time.

Our older cousin never asserts anything without being sure, and now I give him my full attention.

“Why do you say that?” I ask.

“She never looked people in the eye when she spoke. She anticipated the needs of others, aiming to please. I never liked your wife or found her trustworthy.”

“And you waited until I was a widow to tell me you hated her?”

“You married Sue at lightning speed. You wanted our Joseph. We understand that, but we were keeping an eye on her.”

“Jesus, the way you talk, we sound like some kind of mafia.”

“Aren’t we?” Odin mocks. “The only difference is that our line of business is legal, but . . .”

My cousin leaves the rest up in the air, because even with secure phones, designed by his company, there are things we shouldn’t talk about, for example, that we forced Zeus’s enemy—the enemy of all of us, in fact—to kill himself.

Christos shrugs. “I can’t deny that I go beyond the limits when it’s my family that’s at stake.”

“And speaking of family...” Zeus points to his second phone. “In all the rush, I forgot to tell you that Brooklyn woke up from the coma.”

“I knew Athanasios could do it,” Hades says.

We talk for a while longer, and when the online call finally ends, I call Odin again.

“Did you find out anything about Cecily’s family?”

“Several things. What exactly do you want to know?”

“How to get revenge. Maybe my girlfriend is good enough to forget what she suffered, but I’m not. She was beaten, starved.”

“Fuck!”

“She was vulnerable, especially in the hands of her stepmother, and lived in hell for years. I’m not leaving it at that.”

“I’ll send you a report on both. In the case of the stepmother, it will be easier. Her current husband is involved in a web of illegal businesses.”

“Send it to me and I will decide what to do. About the sister, too. Both will pay.”

“Does Cecily know about this?”

“No. And she doesn’t need to. I just need to be sure that they will forever regret hurting her.”

“You are the smartest little boy in the world! I feel so proud, my dear.”

I hear my son laugh after Cecily praises him, and something inside my heart tightens. She’s managed, in a short period, to make Joseph laugh more than he had in all the time since he was born.

He only had a few months with his mother before Sue died in the car accident, and sometimes I wonder if, in his childish head, he knew he would never see her again and that made him sad.

Now, with Cecily, he blossoms. Maybe because she is the only person around him, apart from his family, who truly loves him.

I take off my shoes and socks as I always do before entering my son’s playroom. When I appear in their field of vision, they both smile. It’s not the first time this has happened. I’ve been trying to get home early to attend this little family gathering, and at each one, I feel a peace I’ve never experienced before.

Completion.

Yes, that’s it, I feel complete.

“Babas!”

“That’s me,” I say, unable to hide the pride I feel when Joseph greets me so joyfully.

“Play!”

“Yes. That’s why I came home early, to play.” I bend down to talk to Cecily and kiss her mouth.

The first time I did that, she turned away, claiming that perhaps Joseph would come to see us as a couple. I don’t know if he understands that she’s my girlfriend, but I’m not going to raise my son in a bubble.

Cecily is mine.

Isn’t it enough to have to pretend to the whole world and hide in my own kingdom? No way.

“You’re stubborn,” she whispers after the kiss, but she’s smiling.

“I’m hungry for your mouth. Now, explain to me what today’s game is. I’m looking forward to getting started.”