Page 3 of Sweet Sinners

Chapter two

Cali

“ H ow is this even possible?” I snap, my voice sharper than I intended. I fold another sweater and shove it into a drawer, rough and careless. My old bedroom feels suffocating, memories buried beneath fresh paint and new decor I never asked for. “Why does he have to stay here?”

Yiayia moves around the room, folding my blouse with quiet, practiced hands. Her calm only feeds the fire simmering beneath my skin.

“The court believes Connor has a better chance at rehabilitation with family,” she murmurs. “He has nowhere else to go.”

A bitter laugh slips out, hollow and empty. Anywhere would be better. Anywhere but here.

“He was accused of killing our parents,” I whisper, voice cracking on the last word, reopening the wound I've struggled so hard to close.

Memories surge—vivid, brutal, raw—ones I've buried these past three years while I was away finishing school, preparing to fill my father's impossibly large shoes.

“How can we just welcome him back as if none of that matters?”

The words feel wrong as they leave my lips, like the house might reject them and throw them back at me. My stomach twists painfully, chest tightening as images flood in uninvited—blood pooling across polished floors, the sharp scent of copper, the crushing silence that followed.

Yiayia turns to me, her expression gentle but etched with exhaustion. “Cali, it’s not that simple. The evidence was circumstantial at best. I know suspicion still clouds him, but the court declared him not guilty.”

I open my mouth to argue, to scream the truths I've kept buried—that even without proof, those whispers still haunt me—but Yiayia raises her hand, silencing me.

Movement near the doorway pulls my attention. Maya stands there, her warm brown eyes clouded with concern as she takes in the tense scene. She steps inside quietly, her presence a balm against the chaos swirling beneath my skin.

“Excuse me,” she murmurs gently, nodding respectfully toward Yiayia. “Dinner is almost ready, Ms. Stavros.”

Her eyes flicker to mine, lingering just a heartbeat too long, silently offering comfort, understanding.

Maya isn’t staff—she’s family. Someone who's seen it all, felt it all, been here through everything. She knows what I can’t bring myself to say out loud.

I give her a faint nod, letting her know I' m okay.

As Maya’s footsteps fade down the hall, Yiayia sighs, drawing my gaze back to hers. Her expression is steady, patient—but behind that calm mask, there's quiet desperation.

“I know how you’re feeling,” she says quietly. “The pain, the anger, the confusion. But Connor lost his mother that day, too—and his stepfather. It devastated him. Whatever you think or feel, he’s still family. And in this family, we stand by each other.”

My hands curl into fists at my sides, chest tightening, words catching painfully in my throat. I want to scream, to fight, to argue—but none of it feels right. The pressure builds until I can hardly breathe.

Slowly, I sink down onto the edge of my bed, head lowered as I stare at the floor.

“But it’s hard, Yiayia,” I finally admit, voice trembling.

Tears burn behind my eyes, but I blink them back, refusing to let them fall.

“Every time I see him, every time he’s near, all the memories I’ve tried to bury come rushing back. ”

She crossed the room slowly, her steps quiet as she stopped in front of me. Kneeling down, she rested her hands gently on my knees, her eyes searching mine with an understanding that felt far too heavy.

“I know, koukla mou,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “But healing means facing what hurts.”

Her words settled between us, seeping into cracks I’d tried desperately to seal. My jaw tightened, and I forced myself to nod even though the weight pressing against my chest wouldn’t ease.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t sure healing was even possible.

Connor was my stepbrother, but we hadn’t grown up together.

I barely knew him. Our parents married when we were in high school and I was already going away at boarding school, and we only crossed paths during holidays or uncomfortable family events.

Even then, he kept his distance. He wore this constant, untouchable air of arrogance, as if acknowledging me would somehow break his carefully curated illusion.

If we ended up in the same room, he barely spared me a glance.

He made it clear getting to know him was impossible, so I never bothered trying.

“Cali,” Yiayia said softly, pulling me into a warm embrace and snapping me back into the moment. Her arms felt like home, comforting in a way only she knew how. “No one expects you to make peace with everything overnight. But with patience and time, it might get easier.”

I didn’t share Yiayia’s optimism.

I knew Connor was getting released—I'd seen the headlines, the whispers, braced myself for all of it. But finding him here, in this house, was the last thing I'd expected. They could’ve sent him anywhere else. Anywhere but here, to the scene of the crime.

The thought sent a cold shiver down my spine as Yiayia left the room, leaving me in the uneasy silence of my old bedroom.

Was I being dramatic? Did I really believe he was guilty?

The jury had said no—lack of evidence—but that verdict didn’t explain everything.

Connor had done something in prison, something bad enough to earn three years locked away, plus house arrest on top of it.

But no one ever told me exactly what. I hadn't asked, hadn't dug deeper.

My grandparents got him the best lawyer money could buy, so they knew the truth—I could've just asked.

But I hadn't wanted to. And now he was here.

I wasn't even sure if they were doing this for Connor because they genuinely saw him as family, or because they wanted to clear the family name. Even if we didn't share a last name, his mother had married my father. People talked. People remembered.

I leaned back on my bed, staring at the ceiling as the thoughts swirled restlessly. The irony was almost unbearable: me, stepping into my father's shoes, taking control of a family legacy—and Connor, the man accused of destroying that family, now sleeping just down the hall.

What the hell was I supposed to do with that?

I turned my head, my gaze landing on the framed photograph beside my bed.

Four years ago, when things had still felt normal—a family vacation I dreaded even then.

My father stood tall, his arm around my stepmother, both smiling as if their world wasn’t about to shatter.

Connor was off to the side—close enough to appear included, but far enough away to make it clear he didn't belong.

His expression was unreadable, the usual cocky mask muted, as if he hated every second of being there.

But now, staring at it closely, I noticed something I'd overlooked.

Was that sadness in his eyes? Loneliness?

Had I ever really looked at him before—actually seen him?

Or had I always written him off, too quick to judge, to assume?

Based on his distance, his silence, and the whispers I'd swallowed without question?

Sighing, I pushed off the bed and wandered toward the window, bare feet sinking into the plush rug with every step.

The house felt still, the kind of quiet that made memories impossible to ignore.

Outside, night stretched endlessly, moonlight washing the garden in soft, ghostly hues.

The greenery below—part wild, part carefully manicured—felt like a reflection of everything this family pretended to be but wasn’t.

My gaze caught movement.

A figure stood on the terrace.

Connor.

His back was to the house, a cigarette dangling from his fingertips, its faint orange glow punctuating the shadows surrounding him.

Moonlight traced the sharp line of his shoulders and the curve of his jaw, painting him in shades of silver and blue.

He looked like something out of a painting—untouchable, distant, yet achingly real.

The garden lights flickered intermittently, highlighting clusters of roses and ivy creeping up trellises, casting fractured shadows that swayed gently with the wind.

Haunting, beautiful, yet lonely. The way Connor stood so still, isolated in the moonlit darkness, felt less like a fairy tale and more like the final page of a tragic novel.

I lingered by the window, my breath fogging the cool glass as I watched him.

This wasn’t the Connor I remembered—the cocky, indifferent boy who barely acknowledged my existence.

This Connor felt…different. Raw. Vulnerable.

Like the weight of whatever had happened to him since I'd last seen him had etched itself into his bones.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I was moving toward the door. The hallway was shadowed, quiet, but the faint glow from the garden guided me as I descended the stairs and crossed the expansive living room. Sliding the terrace doors open soundlessly, I stepped into the cool night air.

The scent of jasmine brushed my senses, mingling with the faint, acrid smoke of his cigarette. Cicadas hummed softly, their rhythmic chorus the only sound in the heavy silence.

He didn’t turn around, but his shoulders tightened subtly. The cigarette paused halfway to his lips, frozen mid-motion. The quiet between us thickened, tension humming until I wasn’t sure he'd speak at all.

Finally, his voice broke the stillness. “Couldn’t sleep?”

It was rougher than I remembered, edges frayed and worn, like sandpaper scraping across raw wood. It wasn't the voice of the boy I’d known; it belonged to someone older, someone who'd seen things I couldn’t even imagine.

I hesitated, words caught in my throat, before finally forcing out, “Why are you here?”