Chapter 37: Dreams of the Deadly: Part 2 – Chapter 37

I tossed back my ouzo, grimacing when I looked toward the entryway to the kitchen. Thalia slept soundly after a long day of relaxing in a hot bath with a book and letting me feed her far more than she would have eaten on her own.

“What was so urgent, compañero?” Rafael asked as he walked into the room. I glared at Christian as he retreated from the kitchen, moving away from the stairs that led to the bedroom upstairs. The man was on thin ice after the way he’d ogled my wife earlier, and as much as Thalia might believe there was nothing between them, I understood men far better than she did.

“Tobias Hasapis is going to be a problem,” I said, grabbing a tumbler from the cupboard above the sink. I placed it on the kitchen island, trying not to imagine the way Thalia had looked with her entire body on display for me earlier in the day.

Rafael stopped not far from the spot where she’d rested her knees, leaning a single hand against the counter as I poured him an ouzo of his own. He glared at it,—he’d never developed a taste for the odd liquor with the licorice flavor—before pulling the glass toward himself. “And why is that?”

“He wants me dead so that he can marry Thalia himself,” I explained, pouring myself an additional drink. I hoped Thalia would sleep through the worst of this conversation, because as much as she was required to be involved in our business with her seat on the council, I would spare her whatever I could.

She didn’t need to know all the details of what we must do to secure our power in the city.

“That surprises me,” Rafael murmured, sipping at his ouzo as he glanced toward the French doors to the backyard.

“It did me too. Before her father was dead, sure, I could see marrying her as a power move to secure an alliance in the city. But with him and most of his men dead, marrying her is mostly nostalgic. While Tobias could believe her to be the eldest of what remains of the Karras family, the family will never have any sort of power to offer outside of money,” I said, expanding on the thoughts that had already taken root inside of me through the course of the day.

“And I presume you cleaned out all of the accounts and transferred the money into your own name? Transferred ownership of the properties?”

“Of course. The paperwork was complete and just waiting for her signature once Thalia and I were officially married. She isn’t aware of what she signed by any means, but everything that once belonged to Origen Karras is now mine. Tobias has nothing to gain financially from marrying her and all he would need to do is look at the public record for the properties to know it,” I answered.

“There must be something we do not know. Some reason the Hasapis family has for believing Thalia to be important enough to attempt twice to marry her, in spite of her lack of assets now. Tell me about her mother,” Rafael said, coming back and taking a seat on the counter stool.

“Neri was from New York as far as I knew. The daughter of a distant cousin of the Lykaios family. They arranged her marriage to Origen when she was visiting her family in the city, and she never left again,” I said, shrugging. I hadn’t looked too much into her mother’s history, as it seemed irrelevant. As brutal as it was, the lives of women within the families weren’t typically interesting. They were controlled by the men who were their elders, their lives written from the moment they were born.

“And Origen? Did he have any skeletons in the closet that we weren’t aware of?” Rafe asked. He crossed his legs at the ankles, kicking back and looking far too comfortable in my kitchen.

“Perhaps you could try asking me instead of discussing me as if I am not right upstairs,” Thalia said, entering the kitchen with a scowl for the man sitting at the counter. Her black satin nightgown draped over her delicate curves, looking far too sexy for her to be in the sight of another man. The slit in the hem went to the top of her thigh, parting to reveal the long entirety of her leg as she walked toward me.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” I murmured, dropping my mouth to hers gently as she stepped into my arms. “And you need more clothes on if you’re going to be walking around.”

“Then you should have bought me more covering nightclothes,” she said, reaching over to take my glass from my hand. She took a delicate sip of the liquor, swallowing it down without a single sign of distaste on her face.

“Go back to bed, λουλούδι μου,” I ordered, ignoring the way Rafael sipped his liquor. His lips tipped up in amusement as I wrapped my arms around my wife, trying to shield her from view. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him; he was perhaps the only man in the world that I trusted implicitly with Thalia.

But he didn’t have to torment me all the same.

“Tell me what you’re talking about,” she ordered, crossing her arms over her chest.

I sighed, thinking about a way to get out of admitting just how quickly I’d taken over the finances that would have otherwise been hers. It wasn’t to take anything from her, and I’d easily give her access to the accounts I’d created.

But I doubted she’d understand I’d done it to protect her.

“We were discussing what other reasons there may be for Tobias’s interest in marrying you. By all traditional family standards, you’re damaged goods now. No offense,” Rafael said, smiling slightly.

“Did you really just say no offense to calling me damaged goods? How is that not offensive?” Thalia asked, twisting in my arms. I was far too aware of the way her nipples pressed against the silk of her nightgown, straining in the chill air conditioning of the kitchen.

Fuck’s sake.

I wrapped my arms around her front, covering her breasts with my arms as she leveled me with a glare over her shoulder. She wasn’t oblivious and damn well knew what I was doing.

I grinned at her.

“Never said I agreed with the assessment, only that Tobias would be likely to,” Rafe clarified.

“Fair enough,” Thalia said, finally giving in as some of the tension left her body.

“I doubt you know too many details about your father’s business. He wasn’t the type to include you in it, so I didn’t think we should bother you with this kind of thing,” I said, leaning forward to smell her hair.

“Well, I may not know much about my father’s business, but from the sound of things, I know more about him than you do,” Thalia said, dropping her voice lower as she spun out of my grip.

“And why is that, Little One?” I asked, chuckling beneath my breath.

Thalia grinned, her lips tipping up with the kind of smile that told me I had clearly underestimated her deviousness. She touched a finger to the t-shirt covering my chest.

“At least I know that Origen Karras is not my real father.”