And I’m not quite sure what to do with that, considering that I’m now miles past wherever I expected this to end when I set these wheels in motion.
A finger taps my shoulder. Frowning at the distraction, I pull away to fake a smile at whichever mafia world player has decided that now is the opportune time to come interrupt my thoughts with their bullshit congratulations.
When I turn, and my eyes latch onto overly-dyed blonde and too much Botox in a dark blue Chanel gown, my jaw tightens.
“I’m positive you weren’t invited,” I growl.
Amaya smiles. “Funny, mine must have been lost in the—”
“You have five seconds to—”
“Oh, no, Kratos,” CIA Special Agent Amaya Mircari smiles at me. “You have five seconds to come outside and talk to me. Or, I promise, you’ll regret it.”
16
KRATOS
There’s a kind of whispered white noise constantly running in the background in my mind. It’s always there, like the distant clatter of a train, or the low growl of a truck engine on the highway.
But being this physically close to the woman who stole my childhood turns that whisper into a fucking scream.
I was thirteen when my father dragged me to the hotel suite in midtown. By that point, I was already the size of a college sophomore, and Dad had already spent years trying to mold me into some sort of monster.
Aeneas didn’t just name us all after Greek gods and titans because he had a thing for mythology. He truly wanted us to be the bloodthirsty, conquering gods and demigods of those stories. He didn’t want sons. He wanted soldiers. Killers.
He succeeded with Atlas, our cruel, oldest brother. The divine comedy…or is it Greek tragedy…there is that it was Atlas himself who ended up killing our father in a greedy attempt to seize a throne he was never going to be smart or level-headed enough to actually sit on. Atlas’ reign of terror lasted all of a week before a fight he picked with a powerful man over a woman Atlas thought belonged to him ended with our brother dead and Ares taking over the throne.
We never mourned the death of our tyrant father. Nor that of our cruel, sadistic brother. But while the rest of my siblings celebrate my father’s failure in turning any of us into the twisted, cold monsters he’d hoped to create, deep down, I know he didn’t really fail.
Not entirely.
Not with me.
For years, I ignored the constant verbal assaults as best as I could; the attempts to warp me into his cold, ruthless weapon. He wanted me to be his Goliath: the huge, tough son he could parade in front of allies and enemies alike, to frighten them into either allegiance or submission. I resisted those attempts for so long.
But in that midtown hotel suite, he won.
That’s the night he sat me down and told me I needed to “do something for the family”. For him. For my siblings, because didn’t I want to protect and safeguard my siblings?
There was an FBI agent looking to make “connections” with families like ours. An agent with an eye on a much higher position.
An agent who also had an eye for much, much younger…well, to say men feels like a crime.
I wasn’t a man. I was fucking thirteen. And she was thirty.
Aeneas wasn’t subtle. Before he left me alone with her, he told me exactly what he expected of me.
“Time to grow a pair of balls and be a man. For the family. Be a good boy, Kratos, and do as she says.” He’d chuckled then. “And don’t look so fucking glum, you fucking pussy. You should be thanking me for this.”
After that, he left, and she walked in.
That was the first time I ever met the witch now standing in front of me at my own engagement party.
That was the first time I went to the place where my mind shuts down, and I block it all out. But it wasn’t the last. Not by a goddamn mile.
The roaring in my head only gets louder as I step out of the main ballroom and into a side room, alone with Amaya.
“I’m hurt, Kratos,” she purrs, smirking at me with smug arrogance that makes me want to rip her in half. “I’d think with our history, I’d at least merit an invitation—”
She gasps, her breath hitching as I surge into her. My hand darts out, eager to wrap around her fucking scarred neck and squeeze until I hear the satisfying snap of her spine. But I stop myself short, my hand an inch from her throat.
My jaw grinding. My fury near nuclear in my chest.
Amaya swallows. Then she composes herself, her lips curling snidely.
“You can’t do it, can you?” she hisses quietly.
I suck in air, my blood burning like liquid fire in my veins.
“I wonder…is it the fear of repercussions, given who I work for?”
Yeah… Given her fairly high-level anti-terrorism position within the CIA, she’s powerful, and she knows it.
“Or…”
I stiffen, my mind going a little blank when her fingers brush my arm. Flinching, I yank my hand away. Amaya grins.
“No, you’re not scared of repercussions. Not my Kratos. He’s not scared of anything.”