Page 80 of Reckless Hearts

“Kratos told me you were here.”

I chuckle quietly. “I think it’s time for your guard dog to get his own place, Ya-ya.”

She scoffs at me. “What, and leave me here all alone? Since all of my other grandkids insist on leaving me one by one?”

“And here I thought you were all about us all finding love and ‘making lots of babies’,” I quip.

It’s one of her favorite lines.

Ya-ya rolls her eyes. “Well, so far, lots of love. But no babies.”

“Don’t worry, I hear Ares is working diligently to change that.”

In my goddamn office after hours, over MY fucking desk.

That, of course, is exactly what Dahlia walked in on the other night when she went to get those reports I didn’t actually need. It was Ares and Neve that she saw screwing like teenagers in my dark office. I’m guessing she even spotted the dragon tattoo on his back that all us brothers have.

Ya-ya makes a face, slapping my chest.

“Theé mou,Deimos! Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m not a child, Ya-ya,” I grin. “None of us are. I think we all know that the stork is as much a lie as Santa Claus at this point.”

She sighs, rolling her eyes before her lips pull into a smile. “Well, babies will come eventually. In the meantime, don’t you dare chase off my Kratos. Ares is off with Neve, Hades—God only know how—is settled with Elsa. Callie has her Castle—”

“She has her fake marriage to him. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call himhers.”

Dimitra says nothing, merely arching her brows eloquently before beckoning with her hand. “Come, I’m making tea and I’d like some company.”

I’ve actually stopped by the house to talk to Kratos about some business I need his help with. But who am I to deny Ya-ya a cup of tea, especially when I’ve been gone for so long and have always adamantly refused even to visit this cesspool of a city.

I owe her much more than a cup of tea, honestly. For a start, she’s the one that held our family together as best as she could after our mother died and my father went from merely self-righteous bastard to full on unhinged lunatic.

But even more than that, my grandmother is the one who sat by my side all those years ago, when I came back from that evil place in a dark, damp basement. When I still wasn’t talking again yet, and still trying to find a way to hold a hand over the invisible hole in my chest through which whatever remained of my soul was dripping out.

I don’t truly know if Ya-ya knows all the details of my time in that place. I doubt it. If she does, she’s never said a word or let on. But she knowssomethingbroke inside me back then. And she stayed right next to my bed, watching me, sometimes praying, or reading a book, or other times just sitting quietly, for weeks.

In the kitchen, Ya-ya picks up a silver platter with a teapot, two cups and saucers, a bowl of sugar cubes, and a little carafe of milk. We move outside to her favorite spot—the dining table under the arbor where we held Callie’s birthday.

It’s getting cold out, especially when you’re forty stories up in the air. But it doesn’t bother me, and Ya-ya, God love her, would sit out here until the skies drop three feet of snow. And even then she’d probably still be out here, bundled up in a parka, doling out a history lesson about the trials and hardships the Spartans dealt with in defending Thermopylae.

Oh, yeah—she’s convinced we’re all direct descendants of the dudes with the CGI abs in the movie300.

“How are you liking being back in New York?”

I smile noncommittally as I stir a splash of milk and two sugars into my tea. Normally I take it black, but my grandmother brews this shit like she’s making roofing tar.

“It’s…quite a city,” I mutter.

Ya-ya laughs quietly to herself. “Engonáki me káneis na geláo.”

Grandson, you make me laugh.

“I’m glad I can provide you with entertainment for the afternoon.”

She sighs, settling back in her chair and drinking her rocket-fuel tea. Straight.

“You hate this place.”

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