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Dionysus

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Some hours later

“Where did they take him?” I ask Odin on the phone.

“He is in police custody now,” he says, still sounding upset, and I know why.

Odin does not believe in the justice of men. He wanted to take matters into his own hands with Cage. If it was something that just involved us, I wouldn’t think twice, but there’s Cecily, who could be implicated in his disappearance. There are security cameras at the bank that show my wife leaving the building with the son of a bitch. It is not something that can be hidden.

“I will make sure that he never sees the light of day again.”

“I’m watching the interrogation with the lawyers. There is much more than you realize behind it, Dionysus. It didn’t start with the case of harassment of the bank employee, nor with Cecily, but with Sue.”

“Sue?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry about that now. Take care of your woman. He’s not going anywhere.”

A while ago, his words would bring me peace of mind. Until we found out what happened to our mother and Zeus got his revenge on the man who destroyed her life, I believed in the law of men and that everyone had the right to a fair trial.

I don’t think like that anymore.

There are people who don’t deserve to live in society.

The important thing now, however, is that Cecily is safe and being taken care of.

I’m not the type to fear anything. If something gets in my way, threatens me or those who are important to me, hate is my natural escape valve.

Today, however, when I saw Cecily unconscious in the crumbling house, I experienced feelings that until now were unknown to me: fear and guilt. A lot of remorse, too.

“She has just woken up,” the head of the medical team says, approaching her.

Athanasios comes up right behind him.

I’m with my siblings, Elina, Madison, and Christos and Zoe, who came from North Carolina. Joseph stayed with Eleanor, Madison’s stepmother.

We brought Cecily to the hospital that Athanasios owns. Despite being a neurologist, he is attending her as a personal favor.

My woman has been undergoing tests for hours, and this is the first time anyone has come to talk to us.

“I’d like to see her,” I say.

“She asked to speak to you, Dionysus,” our friend says, “but I warn you not to upset her. She’s still under a lot of stress. Her blood pressure has stabilized, but it was high when she arrived.”

“I have no intention of upsetting her, but I need to check for myself that Cecily is okay.”

He starts walking to the room where she was admitted, and I follow him in silence. At the door, I hesitate before entering.

This is the second time I have met Cecily in a hospital. At first, she was a stranger and I couldn’t wait to get rid of the stupid girl who threw herself in front of my car. Now, I need her forgiveness.

Yes, forgiveness .

It doesn’t matter that she lied to get closer to me. I believe, now that the anger has passed, that she did it with the best of intentions: to protect Joseph.

After reading Keith’s letter, I’m certain I never really knew Sue. Even more so now with what Odin said: that she was also involved with Cage.

I open the door, and Athanasios doesn’t enter, giving us privacy.

“Cecily,” I call, closing the door behind me.

She’s looking at the window, even though I’m sure she heard me arrive. “We need to talk, Dionysus.”

I walk around the bed to face her. I don’t want her to get upset, but I don’t know how to talk in any other way than facing my conversation partner. “Yes, we do, but not now. If everything goes well, you will be discharged tomorrow, according to the doctors. The baby is good.”

“I know. Athanasios told me.”

“So, I just wanted?—"

She makes a gesture, stopping me. Never once does she look at me. “I’m the one who has to speak. I was silent for too long. I hid the truth. I’m tired. I already told you about the promise I made to Keith and the reason I approached you: I needed to make sure Joseph was okay. When he kidnapped me, Cage put together the missing pieces of Sue’s story, Keith’s story... and ours too. You might want to sit down. There is a lot to be said.”

I pull a chair close to the bed, and Cecily doesn’t even look at me. It’s as if she’s oblivious to everything.

I try to take her hand. She shakes her head.

“You told me never to touch you again. When I finish telling you what I need to, you’ll probably repeat it, so I’m the one asking you now: don’t touch me anymore.”

I feel like I’ve been punched, and I imagine the same thing happened to her when I told her that in my office. “Tell me what you need to. First, we’ll talk about the past. Then about us.”

“There is no ‘we’. The only connection we have is the baby.”

I don’t argue, remembering what the doctors recommended. “Tell me what happened, Cecily.”

“If you found me, you probably saw me leaving the building with Cage. I think he drugged me. I woke up in a shack . . .”

She speaks calmly, and I don’t interrupt her. Her explanation is clear, and the timeline makes perfect sense.

Cecily takes almost half an hour to explain everything to me, giving details that I wouldn’t have believed if anyone else had told them to me.

I brought a monster into my house. I married her and started a family.

The devoted wife and loving mother never existed. Sue was a fake. In her place, there was a cold, calculating woman, capable of involving an altruistic and gullible young man in a plot of greed and death without a second thought.

“This first part of the story isn’t about you—it’s about Keith. I had a hard time finding Sue. I only found out that she came to New York when I saw a photo of the three of you in the newspapers, where the report portrayed you as a happy young family. You were newly married and had a new baby. I knew immediately it was Keith’s son because of Joseph’s age.”

She reveals to me how she contacted Sue and the meeting they had at the motel. The threats my late wife made to her.

None of this surprises me, until the moment Cecily tells me that Sue tried to kill her on the road.

“I managed to escape, and according to the nurses and medical team, it was a true miracle that I came out of the accident with just a few scratches.”

“And she died, falling down the cliff.”

“Yes. But that’s not the whole story. Cage told me that Sue was pregnant with your baby, Dionysus.” Her voice shakes when she says this. “I’m not a hypocrite, and I’m not going to say that I regret her death, but even if you don’t believe me, I regret the death of your son, and even if I wasn’t directly to blame for the accident, I ask for your forgiveness.”

“What? Even if there had been a baby, you played no part in her death.”

“ Even if there had been? She was pregnant. Cage assured me. It was a kind of gift that Sue gave him. A kind of ‘insurance policy’ was the term he used, so that she was tied to you forever, and they would profit from it.”

“Sue wasn’t pregnant, Cecily. I’m sure about that. She no longer had a uterus. She suffered a complication during Joseph’s birth. She couldn’t have children anymore.”

“What? But Cage . . .”

“It was just another lie she told. She deceived both her husband and her lover.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I remember that at the time of Joseph’s birth, I wondered how a young woman, who had already suffered so much, could be punished by God even more, prevented from having other children. Today, I think it was divine justice doing humanity a favor. No child deserved a monster like that as a mother.”

“I . . .”

“Have you said what you needed to say?”

She nods.

“Are you okay to talk?”

“Yes.”

“I could just ask for your forgiveness. It would be easier and would save my pride. But that’s not what I want. I’ll do my best to explain what I’m feeling, even though I’m not good at exposing myself.”

“Dionysus, I don’t think we?—"

“Cecily, when you left my office yesterday morning, you asked me to listen to you. I refused, and you have every right to do the same now. I’m counting on your generosity, however. Listen to me first, and only then make a decision.”