Zephyr's Promise

8

 "What are you doing here?" Axel yells once Melvina has left and our guests are in their rooms. Rooms which I would have hoped to be in a different space than mine.

I pour myself a glass of brandy before responding. I knew that the first moment we had alone Axel would let his frustration be known. "Nice to see you too." Axel takes the glass out of my hands and gulps it down. "Rude." I pour myself another and refill his.

"Again. What the hell are you doing here Atlas?" He sighs, impatiently his finger taps the rim of his glass.

"Don't insult mine or your intelligence by asking me questions we both know the answer to." Right now I am not in the mood for his shit. Since landing I still have yet to have a decent meal, a wink of sleep, or any sliver of peace. Usually coming here I at least have the privacy I am used to by staying in the penthouse. With these two women who I do not trust I have to keep my eyes open in my own fucking home.

"Why didn't you call?" Exasperatedly his ink covered hands run through his blonde hair.

"Now I have to call you in order to come to my city?" I swallow the entire glass of brandy. The edge it usually takes off doesn't come. Only an intensified version of the annoyance I already feel. "Who are these women?" Impatiently I change topics.

"Ex-wife and mistress to Cristiano." My eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

I knew for certain Nile wasn't his wife, there was no way that she could be. Nile didn't look the part of the kind of woman men who wanted power would marry. She wasn't shiny enough. An uncut jewel instead, she hadn't had all of the polishing, cutting, that prominent criminal wives had. Naturally she is already something to be desired. Something that I wish I could ignore. Meaning she would be the mistress.

"Huh." Is the only response I can muster. How could she be a mistress of all things? I have no room or concern to judge others' decisions. Not after my own afflictions I have caused. Still it rubs me wrong to perceive her in that way. As a dirty little secret.

"Nile didn't know he was married, he was using her for information about technology systems. When she found out she ended things." Axel answers the questions that have taken home in my mind.

"Magically you found the two of them together? Or tell me, did you hunt them down one by one and lure them here by promising them the best night of their lives?" Axel smirks, amusement dancing in his crystal eyes for the first time since arriving in Chicago.

"They were doing their own little recon. Those two know more than what I had expected." That I can agree with him on. Together the two had pieced together information of not only Cristiano's whereabouts but their operation and who it included. That is no easy feat for two women who claim they never even knew of the secretive lifestyle Cristiano led. The two of them could prove to be very useful. "I ordered a pizza, I'm sure we're all starving. You look like you could use a shower." Really I could use a shower and thirteen hours of sleep minimum.

Sticking up my middle finger at Axel I walk out of the kitchen area. My bedroom is at the far end of the left hall. Instantly I expel a breath of relief inside the space. It is exactly the same from when I had last been here. The dark walls, my wooden bed frame, and the Chicago skyline. I didn't need an overly elaborate room with statues and waterfalls worshiping me. Papa Petrov preferred that kind of boisterousness. I prefer simplicity and functionality with elegant touches. That's all a man truly needed. Maybe my thinking has been shaped by what I had discovered here all those years ago.

Passing by the walk in closet I open the door to my attached bathroom. Bonsai sit prettily on their ceramic placeholders. Making sure to not have them touch the temperature controlled floors were part of the explicit instructions Mama left. The dark tiles awaken with light from my remote.