That’s when she finally broke.
Like I knew she would. Like maybe I hoped she would, so I could go on reminding myself why the mask I wear to face the rest of the world is so necessary.
But deep down, I know the reason I walked away the other night wasn’t that I’d proved anything to myself. Nor did it have anything to do with who she or her family is.
When I had Bianca on the very bleeding edge between sanity and my own brand of deviant insanity, I saw something curious in her.
Something good.
Something breakable.
Something I used to be, in a previous lifetime.
I blink as the elevator dings. The black thoughts I’ve been mulling over in the ride up here vanish, and I can’t help but grin when the doors slowly glide open, allowing me to step out into the lavish, gilded entryway to the Drakos estate.
Home.
Or at least, home until recently.
“Engonós.”
My grin widens as I step out of the elevator into the stunning home on Central Park South—a staggeringly huge neoclassical mansion perched atop a forty-story building across from Central Park. Twelve bedrooms, twice as many bathrooms, grounds complete with two pools and a tennis court, and a wine cellar and collection that most aficionados would kill for.
This place was home when I was a kid. Then again after first our father and then our oldest brother Atlas died, when Ares moved the rest of us back to New York from London. But it’s not the house, its luxurious views, gilded walls, or even the warm memories that have me smiling.
It’s Ya-ya: my grandmother, Dimitra Drakos, who’s standing in the lavish entryway beaming at me.
“Geia sou, Ya-ya,” I grin, striding across the marble floor and scooping her into my arms. The woman is all of five-foot-nothing and feels like she weighs as much as a bird. But I, and the rest of my siblings, know that to underestimate her due to her diminutive stature would be a mistake.
Ya-ya might be the size of a seagull, but she’s as lethal and as cunning as a lioness.
She sighs, clucking her tongue against her teeth as I pull away. “The house misses you, grandson.”
I grin. “Miss you, too, Ya-ya.”
We all lived here together after we moved back to the States. But slowly and surely, the rest of my siblings have all gone their own ways, with their own “persons”: Ares with Neve, Hades with Elsa, Deimos with Dahlia, and Callie with Castle.
A few months ago, it sort of clicked with me that I was A, the last one here, and B, officially a thirty-year-old man living alone with his grandmother.
Not that I’m ashamed of that, at all. And, for the record, it was Dimitra who not-so-subtly pushed me out. I believe her words were something along the lines of me “never finding a good Greek girl to settle down with and have lots of babies with if I insisted on living with my grandmother”.
So a few months ago, I moved into an old brownstone I bought deep in the East Village that I’ve been slowly refurbishing.
“I thought you’d be hungry.”
My smile widens and my stomach rumbles as she lifts the plate in her hand and pulls off the napkin covering it with a small flourish: homemade souvlaki wrapped in pita, along with Ya-ya’s famous homemade tzatziki sauce. There’s even some fries wrapped up in there.
Fuck. Yes.
I groan happily as I take the plate and dig in with an enormous bite.
“How did you guess?” I chuckle around a mouthful of juicy souvlaki.
Ya-ya grins, having to stand up on her tiptoes to pat my cheek even though I’m leaning down. “You’re my giant, engonós,” she beams at me. “And all that Spartan blood needs its nourishment.”
I bite back a smile. Ya-ya is convinced that our family is directly descended from the three hundred Spartans who defended Greece from the Persian hordes at the Battle of Thermopylae. That we’re literally related to the dudes with the CGI abs in that 300 movie. Do not ever try to tell her otherwise.
“This is delicious,” I growl, devouring the pita.
“Well, maybe it’ll entice you to come visit more often. You know, my suggestion that you find your own place didn’t mean forget you have a grandmother,” she chides with a grin.
I chuckle. “Miss me already, Ya-ya?”
She rolls her eyes. “My kitchen certainly does. I don’t know what to do with all the food in there anymore.”
“I could aways move back in, you know.”
“And pigs might fly, Kratos,” she smirks with a sternly arched brow. “Which is to say—no, you can’t.”
I laugh. “That’s cold, Ya-ya. What, you got a boyfriend coming around these days you don’t want me to see?”
“Just one?”
I snort around another bite of souvlaki and gesture past her with my chin. “Am I the last to arrive?”
She nods. “The king is holding court in the library.”
“Well, best not keep him waiting.”
