Page 28 of Gilded Gods

He comes back with another retort, and surprisingly, she smiles. She has a beautiful smile that reaches her eyes and lights up her face. My brother must have stopped saying stupid shit. Because now, she’s practically glowing and leaning into Ares’s arm.

He touches her thigh.

She bites her lip.

He bites his.

She looks away.

They’re going to fuck.

It’s inevitable.

Apollo glances over my shoulder and watches me draw, tapping his fingers on my chair. “I see you’re obsessed with her, too.”

Ignoring my twin, I add the tiny mole above her lip, capturing every detail of her face. I’ve only lived in this house for one week and have dozens of pages filled with Ophelia.

“Focus,” Apollo says in a hushed tone. “We’re not here for her. She doesn’t have to get hurt.”

I nod. “I’m not the one who needs a reminder.” My eyes dart to Ares. “As usual, he can’t control himself.”

“I’ll handle Ares,” he whispers. “Just stick to the plan.”

Belen is our target, not his daughter. We watched her for months before coming here. Ophelia isn’t a snake like her father. Her employees respect her because she’s fair, loyal, and honest.

Not her father, though.

“After the show Ophelia and Belen just put on,” Apollo says in my ear, keeping his voice low, “we need to escalate our plans.”

One month.

Our new timeline.

I nod to agree.

After breakfast, Ophelia leans over the back of my chair, her sweet perfume creating a cloud around me. “We can talk in the sitting room when you finish drawing.”

I snap the book shut before she can get a good look at the page. “Yeah, sure.” Tucking the pencil behind my ear, I push my chair out from the table. “I’m ready now.”

Apollo’s cell phone rings, and he exits the dining room with his hand raised, gesturing that he will see me later. My twin spends most of his days staring at numbers or on the phone with investors.

I like to create things.

His mind works differently from mine. We have almost no similarities, apart from our dark hair and the same Roman nose. Most people can’t even tell we’re twins.

I have a baby face that Ma still pinches because she forgets I’m twenty-four and not five. Apollo has a sharper jaw and fuller lips. He looks and acts more sophisticated and refined. My brother is also whip-smart and doesn’t have a single tattoo.

While Ares and I are covered in ink, Apollo won’t get one—not even the art I drew for him. It’s a darker take on the Gemini symbol made from olive leaves. The same leaves the ancient Greeks used to createkotinosfor the winners of the Olympic Games.

We were born on May twenty-third. It’s our astrological symbol. I got the tattoo on my forearm, and Apollo pussied out. Ares and I have almost every Greek myth sketched onto our bodies. We don’t agree on much aside from our love of ink.

I follow Ophelia into the sitting room and recall the night we met when she threatened us with a gun. Nothing sayswelcome to the familylike almost getting your dick blown off.

Ophelia sits in the armchair by the fireplace, her legs clad in dark jeans. She’s completely covered up despite the heat outside. I can see Ares struck a nerve when he called her fat. But he didn’t mean it like that. He’s just a fucking moron.

She paired the jeans with a three-quarter length blouse that covers her stomach, but with the size of her tits, she shows tons of cleavage.

I take the chair beside her, resting the sketchbook on my knee. If I ever have children, they will come second to this book. It’s leather-bound with removable pages. My dad gave it to me on my birthday, the last one before he died.

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