Fathers of Athena Konstantinos (Completed)

Pain

Zephyr's Pov

My breaths came in pants with a strong pain in my chest. I couldn't believe I felt so weak. So fucking weak. Crushed under the weight of my sins, of words I had said, the actions I had done and the child I had hurt. 

The only girl I ever loved was slowly slipping away from me. 

But I couldn't blame her. It was all my fault. 

I shouldn't have left her when she needed me the most. She was an unborn child. A baby who deserved so much more than I or my brothers ever gave her. 

“I think you should leave now.” Ares said, not meeting the eyes of the woman. 

Eleni nodded in understanding and got up from her chair before leaving us brothers alone in our home office. 

Guilt, she said. Athena believed it was the purest form of human emotion. It was killing her. She couldn't forgive herself for all that she had done to herself. 

The same emotion was slowly snatching my breaths away. I couldn't live with the weight of my mistakes. It was too much for a man like me to handle. 

“I feel like killing myself.” Hades breathed out. 

Older men, care, love, attention, cuddles, head pats, cafes, malls, gifts, alcohol, cigarettes, freedom, comfort, safety-

The pain was overwhelming. Each word out of Eleni's mouth was a bullet piercing through my skin. She didn't hold back. She kept pointing out each of our fuck ups. 

She didn't care how much it'd ruin us, how much it'll break us into pieces. We asked her for the unfiltered truth and that's exactly what she gave us. 

She told us word by word how we destroyed the life of a little girl who should've had a perfect life. The realization that four people left her was something that child had a very hard time digesting. 

She wanted to feel worthy. If fate didn't give her the people she should’ve had, she'd find it in someone else. The world was huge. And she thought it was harmless too.  

She was just an innocent child with an innocent wish. 

A father. Someone she could feel safe with. Someone who’ll cherish her, love her for who she is. She only made the mistake of finding it in the wrong people. 

If I had been there- I gulped down the whiskey in my hand and closed my eyes, resting back against the chair.  

“How many… how many men do you think… took advantage of her?” I don't know the reason behind the sick question that left my mouth. 

The question made my skin crawl but I can't stop thinking about it. I can’t stop myself from wanting to turn the past and save her from every animal that thought it was okay to touch a child. 

“More than we can digest…” Hades answered my question.

Eleni made it clear that she'd like to only discuss her own assessments of Athena's case and not the details or the exact situations they spoke about. 

As much as we'd like to know the very words she said to her psychiatrist, we didn't want to breach her privacy. We wanted to stay truthful to her. We wanted to know just as much to help her, to understand her. 

Eleni has been a great help at evaluating what exactly goes in Athena’s head and what makes her take the wrong decisions she did. The same words that grandpa had been trying to get through our thick skull became much clearer as Eleni provided reasons, circumstances and behavioral history.